From Windows to Linux - and back again

By Sam Varghese
Monday, 18 February 2008 19:16

Opinion and Analysis

Seven years ago, Strathcona Baptist Girls Grammar School, which is situated in a suburb of Melbourne, took a step that made it stand out from other educational institutions.


The school decided to adopt Linux on the desktop on a fairly large scale, with about 350 workstations being installed with the free operating system. The open source word processing suite, StarOffice, also came into the picture.

One of the main reasons for the switch, according to Kim Perkins, information services manager, was security and system integrity. Additionally, money was needed for more hardware and the only way out with the existing budget was to reduce expenses on software and maintenance.

The Linux era ended in December 2007. Today all the Linux machines are back to running Windows - actually, a different set of machines as the lease on the old ones ended. There are Macs at the school running both OS X and Windows Vista.

The IT budget is much bigger now but the school has the money unlike six years ago.

The reason for the switch back to Microsoft operating systems? A lack of support from some of the teachers, says Perkins.

Back in 2001, an additional reason for the move to Linux was because the school needed a system where any computer could be used by anyone - and that kind of functionality was not available on Windows 98 which was installed at the school at the time. "We wanted a system which was easy and efficient to maintain, one where there would be no problem with viruses or with the students deleting things," he said.