I asked for successes at schools using Open Source Software, and I received a wide variety of them. Although schools aren’t typically thought of as a small business, I believe if a technology will work in schools it will work anywhere. Several readers mentioned the K-12Linux Project (Linux thin-client distribution for schools). The motto, according to Reader Paul, is “It works. It’s free. Duh…” Yes, that’s a school-friendly motto.
Reader Tim said, “This year we dropped in the K12LSTP distribution on a machine that was literally pulled from the garbage and attached what was left of the dozen WinNT boxes as thin clients (rip out the hard drive, set the BIOS to boot over the network). We then added additional machines that were cast-offs (200 MHz, 128 MB of RAM). We ended up with 16 workstations and a pair of laser printers running off a “server” that would be a typical secretarial machine elsewhere (1.4 GHz PIII). It cost us nothing but our time and we have had zero maintenance on it. It has also eliminated the bus trips that Riverwoods used to have to schedule to a local college campus to make use of their computer labs.” You probably agree with me that running Windows XP on a 1.4GHz PIII would make that user unhappy. And yet that’s the server for the Linux system driving 16 stations (they’ll double that next year). Reader Don speaks directly to low income student populations: “We also adopted OpenOffice 2.0 as our software standard in student computer labs with some resistance from teachers. We live in a high poverty area with many transient students and parents who don’t have the resources to afford MS Office at home. Being able to offer them an alternative software with all or nearly all the features of OpenOffice was very compelling.” The software for those low income students came from Software for Starving Students (SSS). That’s a project worth supporting if you believe computing skills can give students a chance at a good job. Reader Don also has a note about servers. “We also use Red Hat Enterprise 3 to host our Lotus Domino Server for email services. We have been running Domino on Linux for two years and it is extremely stable. Our server is a Dell PowerEdge that is five years old and it just runs. It’s been up for 250 days without a restart.” Reader Steve offers another resource: “For those interested in the use of Open Source software in K-12 Schools, we’ve got an email list for beginners, and a wiki resource.” Finally, Reader Carla says, “It’s true that when my tech coordinator broached the possibility of switching to Open Source a few years ago, I wasn’t receptive. When it was forced on me, though, I discovered that it wasn’t a big switch. It’s like driving someone else’s car: at first things seem strange, but once you get used to it, you find you can still get where you’re going. The students had almost no trouble making the adjustment. Some especially appreciated the opportunity to load the software on their home computers, legally and without cost, so that they could continue their schoolwork at home. I am now telling everyone how good this experience has been. There’s no evangelist like a recent convert, right?).” My teacher wife uses Carla’s excellent Web site. Thanks for the feedback, folks. Glad to hear at least some schools are moving forward and saving money.
