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The Linux distillery Educating Tux: case studies of Linux deployments in high schools around the world
The Linux distillery Educating Tux: case studies of Linux deployments in high schools around the world | Educating Tux: case studies of Linux deployments in high schools around the world |
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| by David M Williams | |
| Thursday, 06 March 2008 | |
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Page 2 of 3 Meanwhile, at the Greater Houlton Christian Academy in Maine the case for Linux was gripping. The school’s budget was, as usual, tight and expenditure for computing was limited.The disappointment at having to re-purchase operating systems licenses along with several other unstated “revelations” about vendor lock-in were sufficient to make the school look elsewhere. Previously, savvy staff had checked out Linux but didn’t believe it was ready, at that time, for the desktop. By 2001/2002 it had moved on significantly and could be considered a genuine and viable option. During that period the school purchased new barebone machines and installed Mandrake Linux on each one as well as all the servers and the bulk of staff computers. A rich suite of open source applications that had relevance to education were installed. This even included a collection of classroom aids developed in-house in the Python programming language. This language is now even taught to the students. Five years later, the Greater Houlton Christian Academy is as pleased as ever. They are continuing to use their exact same hardware but due to successive enhancements within Linux as well as a switch to Gentoo they believe they are seeing greater performance than they began with. The school estimates it has saved many thousands of dollars through their switch to open source software, both in terms of software licensing costs as well as decreased hardware expenditure. One deciding factor in the successful adoption appears to be the in-house technical experience the school possesses, as well as their passion flowing into lessons. Along with basic programming the curriculum now includes elements of open source values. Accordingly, this enthusiasm has infected students with many regularly requesting Linux CDs so they can convert their own home computers. Turning to the United Kingdom, Orwell High School in Felixstowe, Suffolk, also experienced a point where they required a complete rethink of their computer network. Like the schools above, Orwell’s existing hardware had become bog standard and were facing ever increasing costs to keep current. Not only this, but the school found a great deal of its technician’s time was taken up rebuilding or cleaning PCs where security had been breached (aka where students had mucked around.) By 2004, the situation was critical. To upgrade to Windows XP would require replacing over 50 PCs just so the basic requirements were met. A capital expense of over 25,000 pounds was not viable and the school realised their software licensing costs exceeded 13,000 pounds per year. The Deputy Head recognised that the existing ways had to be changed if they were to make better use of school resources. A local technology firm was engaged and they recommended a complete open source infrastructure. The requirements were relatively complex: four classrooms of about 30 workstations each, distributed printers, smaller clusters of workstations and wireless staff laptops all had to work seamlessly. Please read on to page three. CONTINUED
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