What?

Linux is an operating system that runs your hardware. It is a bit like Windows, except that it is not owned by anyone: it is free and open source software, built by and for the community.

Why?

You avoid growing even more dependent on Big Tech

Companies like Microsoft are increasingly nudging us towards more cloud usage and GenAI usage, and they do so by making small changes to its operating system (Windows). Looking at the ease at which Big Tech has bent the knee to the Trump regime, we might want to reduce, rather than increase this dependence. Linux has an important role to pay here.

It started, as many bad ideas do, with a laptop that wouldn’t let me do what I wanted with it. The machine in question: a low-spec Chromebook, running ChromeOS, and utterly convinced that it knew better than I did. It wasn’t wrong about a lot of things. But it was wrong about this.

I wanted to install EndeavourOS, an Arch-based Linux distribution and set up a clean desktop environment on hardware that most people would’ve already binned. What followed was one of the stranger afternoons I’ve had in front of a computer, and also one of the more satisfying ones.

Throughout this semester, OpenTech(AUC) has been proudly supporting experiments with Jupyter Hub in the new programming course offered by Amsterdam University College (AUC), called “Programming in Digital Societies” (PIDS).

In a nutshell, for many weeks now, students are building, running and sharing their Jupyter Notebooks in an environment that is fully owned and controlled by the PIDS lecturing team.

This environment is running on a VPS that OpenTech(AUC) is renting on https://gandi.net (V-R16, 8CPU’s, 16GB RAM, 30 GB storage). The VPS runs Ubuntu, and on top of that an installation of JupyterHub (following the steps of this manual).

Throughout this semester, OpenTech(AUC) has been proudly supporting experiments with Jupyter Hub in the new programming course offered by Amsterdam University College (AUC), called “Programming in Digital Societies” (PIDS).

In a nutshell, for many weeks now, students are building, running and sharing their Jupyter Notebooks in an environment that is fully owned and controlled by the PIDS lecturing team.

This environment is running on a VPS that OpenTech(AUC) is renting on https://gandi.net (V-R16, 8CPU’s, 16GB RAM, 30 GB storage). The VPS runs Ubuntu, and on top of that an installation of JupyterHub (following the steps of this manual).

Thursday 20 November 2025, from 15:30h to 16:30h, we are organizing a Nextcloud workshop in room AB 1.02.

Our goal is to help students and staff create an account on our self-managed server and to show them how they can use the platform for (among other things): collaborative file editing (text, slides, spreadsheets), sharing forms and creating polls.

Join us in exploring this first step towards digital sovereignty: a digital world that we (you and me) control.

Link to Nextcloud server: https://nextcloud.opentech-auc.org/.

On 22 December 2019, the presidents of the boards of directors of Dutch universities raised the alarm:

“The universities have little or no influence on the way data is collected and personalized. Most providers are not located in the Netherlands and are less familiar with the public values ​​on which our education is based. Furthermore, freedom of choice is limited: the market is dominated by a few large companies. This creates dependence, complicates the negotiating position and hinders renewal.”