Bruno Posted April 8, 2008 Share Posted April 8, 2008 Good news:9000 PCs in Swiss schools will switch to Ubuntu only B) Bruno Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djrsml Posted April 8, 2008 Share Posted April 8, 2008 Thats great, I hope that schools here in the U.S. follow along! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted April 8, 2008 Share Posted April 8, 2008 Good news:9000 PCs in Swiss schools will switch to Ubuntu only B) BrunoLOL that will be an interesting conversation at home in Geneva:Dad, you'll have to dump Vista and install Ubuntu. I need it for school. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted April 9, 2008 Share Posted April 9, 2008 Thats great, I hope that schools here in the U.S. follow along!Never happen. The bureaucracies here in the US are too enamored with Windows. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cluttermagnet Posted April 9, 2008 Share Posted April 9, 2008 Never happen. The bureaucracies here in the US are too enamored with Windows. Yup. I agree. Too bad.But the Swiss have made a good choice here. Good for them! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted April 9, 2008 Share Posted April 9, 2008 (edited) Yup. I agree. Too bad.But the Swiss have made a good choice here. Good for them! No mention in the original article if they are replacing XP or an older version of Windows. I doubt that all 9000 PCs in the Geneva school system would run Vista. Probably they can save quite a lot in hardware upgrading costs because Ubuntu is relatively lightweight (or at least as lightweight as XP.)Hopefully they'll make out better than that Australian school where the authorities had to go back to Windows because all the staff were kvetching about their laptops. Edited April 9, 2008 by raymac46 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urmas Posted April 9, 2008 Share Posted April 9, 2008 Probably they can save quite a lot in hardware upgrading costs because Ubuntu is relatively lightweight (or at least as lightweight as XP.)Yup... and even more if it's done the way many schools are doing it here: LTSP/thin clients wherever applicable. Example from 2006:During the last three years, we have improved the computer education we provide and our school network using open source software and LTSP technology. This has dramatically increased the use and effectiveness of computers at our school, and we have managed to reduce costs to a fraction of what they used to be. We have created a website that is open to everyone so that anyone can share the benefits and contribute to developing the expanding network with other interested people.Using LTSP technology, we have built a network in our school (500 students and 40 teachers) with more than 90 remote terminals (i.e., we have achieved the target student-to-computer ratio defined in the Information Society Programme).All students and staff members have a personal username and password they can use to access a personal desktop, home folder (with unrestricted size), e-mail, web, office applications (OpenOffice), image processing (Gimp) and educational and training software.As a result, the need for computers has increased so much that we will add another computer room to the currently existing two computer rooms and one media/library room. Moreover, there is at least one terminal in each classroom. In other words, computer use has increased dramatically compared to the time before this project when the computer hardware we had was barely usable. We used to suffer from recurring software malfunctions, computer instability, excessive size of software and limited funds for updating hardware and software, pranks by students, etc. As a result, the teachers were increasingly unwilling to use computers, the computer teacher had to spend his spare time at the school, and the cost of continuous maintenance was heavy on the schools finances.Thanks to our development work, however, all this is behind us now.The computer teacher needs only four weekly hours to maintain and update the school's computers, train staff and do the same to the 25 computers of the school next door and its staff, too!We have placed our old computers back in use without needing to invest in updating them. We have also helped schools in neighbouring municipalities (Pomarkku, Siikainen) to reach the same stage in development and they have been able to set up their computer rooms simply by acquiring a server (EUR 2,500) and a low-cost switch. They have hooked up their old computers to the new server at a very low cost: for example, a new network adapter costs EUR 7.( "Penguins in school – Now" --Commendation winner in the Prime Minister’s Awards for Best Practices 2006 )HERE is a Finnish Ubuntu Forum thread from another school with similar setup... lots of images (the .png links in posts... a couple of 'em below):Grand Server CentralThin ClientsMusic Class Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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