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Ask Slashdot: Setting Up a Computer Lab In a Developing Country
First time accepted submitter levanjm writes "Hi all, I am looking for some advice. I am a mathematician at a small liberal arts school who has dabbled in Linux for a number of years. I have had the chance to teach a few courses and summer camps about Linux to college and high school students. Recently I made a trip to Guatemala and visited a school in Labor de Falla. While there I was talking with people associated with the school about how great it would be to be able to set up a computer lab for the kids. To make a long story short, I approached my school about finding a way to make this happen and to get my students involved in volunteering. I have received notification that my school has given me an in house grant to try to get this project rolling. They have also donated six computers to get things started. While I have been making plans in case the funding came through, I wanted to open this up to as many eyes as possible because I am sure there are plenty of concerns I have not considered. What are your thoughts on how to best implement the lab setting? I am a firm believer in the Open Source philosophy so proprietary software is not on my radar. The PC's donated are a little old (4 or so years old), but would run Edubuntu without any issues. I originally thought about how awesome a Raspberry Pi lab would be to set up. I am also wondering if there are any Kickstarter type of foundations that might be used to help solicit donations to purchase additional equipment and help cover costs of getting the equipment to the school. It would be amazing to get enough funding to give computers to the teachers in addition to a lab. I am sure there are other issues I have not even considered yet, so any thoughts you have to share would be wonderful."
What is the purpose of the lab? Since it is a high school I am going to shoot low and assume “keyboarding skills” and basic net access rather than programing or CI.
What type of infrastructure does the school have? i.e. how good is the electricity and security?
What type of support does the lab have? What skills do the teachers have.
Answers these questions and I think you will have a much better idea of what you need.
There is an organisation in Australia called Computer Bank that has been collecting and re-purposing computers for years. There are a number of international organisations that do similar things, some are listed here - http://www.computerbank.org.au/links.
You could also seek sponsorship from a hardware vendor such as Dell - http://www.dell.com/Learn/us/en/aucorp1/corp-comm/corporate-sponsorships, or even Google.
Since it needs to be shipped there, perhaps approach transport companies. Also, some technology recycling companies will supply equipment cheaply or free for the right cause.
Some organisations require that a not-for-profit organisation be established before funds are allocated. You'll have to check your local laws.
"Yes, heaven forbid they learn how the system works and learn how to modify it and build on it. That would be too active and involved for your liking, right? They should just be users, passive consumers of a black-box product that they can't inspect, can't modify, can't build on. "
That has zero to do with Open Source philosophy. You have to learn the difference between "Open Source philosophy" (RMS), "Open Source", open systems and access to source. It is nice that there are people that have enough money or a guaranteed income from another source that they can give away their work, "Open Source philosophy" is not about that, its about FORCING people to give away their work by creating a platform that will allows nothing else.
Any dickbag license is BAD even if it claimed to support "freedom".
I lived in the Marshall Islands for over 7 years and was tasked with a project not unlike yours. Here are some of the issues I confronted.
1. Climate control. Spend part of your budget on a good window a/c unit. The tropical moisture will wreak havoc with your lab.
2. Use local talent. Within a day of starting your project there invariably will be a local who starts hanging around asking questions and wanting to know more. I had 2 Marshallese students who found what I was doing very interesting so I started teaching them the basics of networking and basic computer repair. They caught on very fast and when I left they were able to take over the entire network we had built and keep it maintained. Local talent also will win you over with other key local decision makers. Locals want locals to sustain projects, not an endless parade of expats.
3. Determine your usage requirements. Do you have internet? How fast and reliable is the connection? Will you be teaching classes? What kind of classes? The computer labs we built started out with no internet access as there was none on the island. We were still able to teach word processing and spreadsheet classes(you may want to think word and excel here because more than likely that is what your local government uses). Eventually we were able to get limited internet access through a partnership with the university of Hawaii. The connection however was only 56k and was bounced off an old GOES satellite(GOES 7 to be specific). Because these GOES satellites were in a figure 8 orbit, the 3m dish required constant realignment. This meant that community access to the internet had to be at very specific times and eventually we went with a white-list of sites that would fit the needs of most of our users. This meant we could share 56k across 20 computers without worrying about porn and games. Slow but it worked and the community love it.
4. Have a good maintenance plan. Stuff just breaks more in the tropics and getting new parts can be difficult and time consuming. Keep a few extra network cards and hard drives around. Make sure the lab is cleaned and dusted regularly. Bug bomb as well. Cock roaches love computers. Try and keep your computer hardware as consistent as possible. This allows you to setup software images that make recovery much easier.
5. Have a detailed usage policy. If someone wants to save a copy of a letter to a relative in another country, how do they save it? Where do they save it? You will be very surprised how quickly the desktop and other directories start filling up with stuff from your users. Keeping a consistent and universal interface that is uncluttered for your users makes teaching SOOOOO much easier.
Finally, remember that you won't be there forever (although you have probably met a few expats who were like you but never left) and that someone will have to take over what you leave behind. Sustainability, in my experience, was the most difficult challenge of any project. I have seen brand new office buildings built by grants from other countries literally crumble into to disrepair within in 3 years because no one knew what to do after the building was completed.
Finding eager local talent to take over will ensure the hard work you are putting into this project will last long after you are gone.
I am very jealous of your opportunity. Good luck!
Being in the middle of a volunteer project for a local school I have checked into those Microsoft "educational discounts" for "next to nothing" and it just is not so.
Pricing for one domain controller and 10 clients was around $1500.
Pretty wonderful "discounts."
Who said "set up an active directory network"? Why not run Linux on one desktop serving up Samba shares and using open-source AD replacements?
You also looked in the wrong place - you should have looked at techsoup.org not MS educational discounts:
Windows Server Standard 2012 is $53, Windows Server Datacenter 2012 (with unlimited rights to run any number of VMs on one server) is $288.
CALs are $2/each.
So I put the expense for a ten-user site at around $73.
Of course, you could choose to run Windows Server 2012 Essentials - that includes 25 CALs and costs charities a grand total of $29.
But hey, your quick search turned up numbers that confirmed your pre-disposed opinion, why look further?
Ken