Having worked with non-profits in Central America, and taught an appropriate technology course who had designing a computer lab for a non-profit in Honduras as it's project...I think obarthelemy is definitely onto something. Unless you get buy-in from the locals, the computer will sit idle, regardless of the OS you end up using. My two cents on the project, I have found very limited linux support in Central America. If you were in Guatemala City or a major metropolitan area, it might be okay...but being in the rural areas, unless you plan to provide IT support, once the computers go down, there would be no one to fix issues. That being said, I found most windows boxes infested with viruses and malware so even if you go with Windows, I would provide an image that they can easily reinstall on all the machines...and maybe set it up where this is done on a regular basis.
After years of malware/spyware/virus issues with my parents XP machine, the computer was at the point of slowness that it was at the requisite reinstall Windows stage again. This time, I decided to install Ubuntu instead with the caveat of "we can always go back to the old system, but give this a try." Six months later and no real worries. They like the simpler interface, and the increased speed. Had a little issue with cups updating and screwing up the printer, but otherwise has been a rousing success.
If you want to stay in Windows, free version of logmein works well, but I would highly suggest going the Ubuntu route.
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Having worked with non-profits in Central America, and taught an appropriate technology course who had designing a computer lab for a non-profit in Honduras as it's project...I think obarthelemy is definitely onto something. Unless you get buy-in from the locals, the computer will sit idle, regardless of the OS you end up using. My two cents on the project, I have found very limited linux support in Central America. If you were in Guatemala City or a major metropolitan area, it might be okay...but being in the rural areas, unless you plan to provide IT support, once the computers go down, there would be no one to fix issues. That being said, I found most windows boxes infested with viruses and malware so even if you go with Windows, I would provide an image that they can easily reinstall on all the machines...and maybe set it up where this is done on a regular basis.
After years of malware/spyware/virus issues with my parents XP machine, the computer was at the point of slowness that it was at the requisite reinstall Windows stage again. This time, I decided to install Ubuntu instead with the caveat of "we can always go back to the old system, but give this a try." Six months later and no real worries. They like the simpler interface, and the increased speed. Had a little issue with cups updating and screwing up the printer, but otherwise has been a rousing success. If you want to stay in Windows, free version of logmein works well, but I would highly suggest going the Ubuntu route.
Wasted a good portion of the morning hunting down a non-existent threat.