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Building a Linux Computer Lab for Schools?
joseamuniz asks: "After giving Linux classes to Secondary School Teachers, I got in touch with a non-profit organization called UNETE. This association has donated 1,523 computer labs to public schools in Mexico. I told them about Linux, and they are interested in equipping a beta computer lab with this Operating System, with Intel PIII, 256 MB RAM PCs. The more they like this lab, the higher chances to include Linux in the new labs donated by this institution." What hardware configurations and software packages would you install on such a machine to show off the real power of Linux in an educational environment?
Only 256 megs of ram, so I'd stay away from the heavy guis. I'd probably use the litght weight knoppix (runs with xfce) and limit the number of applications on it. The only thing I'd add is OpenOffice. then I'd install it to the drive.
Either that or I'd run K-12 Linux terminal server project. which is a fine network absed distribution.
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
It doesn't show off the power, but remember the KDE has a set of "Edutainment" programs of varying quality.
I've personally used some of these for school, and they are quite good. For example, "Logo" is replaced with KTurtle, and there are a few maths programs (KPlot for graphs and Kig for geometry, among others). There are quite a few language tools too. There is an impressive chemistry program which lists the periodic table and information about each element, too.
So KDE includes a great base. More schools should use it (especially when combined with KOffice)
- Jax
Have you looked at the K-12 Linux Project yet? Seems like that would be a good place to start.
"Attitude, not aptitude, determines altitude." - Jesse Jackson
Just to preach the common trend, I would suggest Ubuntu for the distro. The base desktop install is exactly what you would need. You get Firefox, Evolution, Gaim and OpenOffice.org. It's a no hassle install, it's Debian and you can get support for it if you want. I wouldn't suggest holding off on Ubuntu until their next release, because it's pretty slick and comes out in about 2 months.
Also, you can get free CD's from them. Just request 100 or so and have them shipped to where ever that organization is. Technically you only need one, but you can give them out to the students if they like it. It comes with a livecd, so they don't have to destroy their home PC.
The major cost was time in getting it set up since all the computers have a different configuration.
BTW, VectorLinux hardware detection on these old machines is awesome. Let's just say that after setting up nearly 50 of them, I've only had to edit the XF86Config-4 file two or three times. Also, no problems with strange cards. Also, VL, being Slackware based, is extremely FAST on old machines and boots into IceWM nearly as quickly as it takes my new 1.8 GHz Athlon to load KDE. (Please no flames about how KDE is bloatware, we've all been there.)
Point of the matter is that if you have the time and you have old hardware, setting up one of these labs is a snap.
Don't go any farther than http://www.k12ltsp.org/. They have the best all around linux solution for k-12 schools. Period.
There is in fact a debian-based linux distro being developed which is targeted directly at schools.
Take a look at the Skolelinux project at http://www.skolelinux.org/portal/index_html
Look! No sig!
Check out Skolelinux (Distrowatch page) (Linux for schools, Norwegian name). Made to work perfectly with LTSP, and based on debian stable. On the install cd you can choose to install the Skolelinux server or thin clients, or a standalone install. Plenty of educational software availible. The thin client install runs fine on older hardware. Give it a try.
What educational software packages are available for Linux?
I'm not sure what you're looking for exactly, but off the top of my head (and a little freshmeat help):
Primary school level: Gcompris is great, has a large bundle of games targetting everything from spelling to geography to math, and is easily extensible.
Astronomy: Both Celestia and Stellarium provide great tools for teaching kids of all levels about our universe.
Mathematics: You can use basic spreadsheets if you like, but there's also Octave for vector and matrix mathematics and Maxima (and several others that I can't recall right now) for symbolic algebra.
Chemistry: There's stuff like Ghemical and Gperiodic which aren't half bad for exploring various chemistry concepts. Then there's stuff like GenChemLab which is pretty neat.
Physics: There's physics simulation software like Physics3D , and there are others around if you care to look.
Computing: Well, you've got all the programming tools you want, but also things like DrPython to make it easier/fun for students (even at lower school levels).
General knowledge: Wikipedia is accessible from anywhere.
Okay, there's a science bias there, but it's not a bad start for what I can think of, or find in 2 minutes of freshmeat.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
Or Squeak, which already has tons of educational content (the primary objective of the language).
Just set them up with a K12LTSP Lab
Then send the students home with one of these disks.
Under no circumstances should it ever be a requirement to teach kids brand loyalty.
Learning computers in school should be about concepts. Not the latest features of some proprietary Office suite.
"If they have both, tell them we use Linux. And if they have that, tell them the computers are down." -Dave Chapelle