Building a Linux Computer Lab for Schools? 464
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?
Morphix-lightgui (Score:4, Informative)
Either that or I'd run K-12 Linux terminal server project. which is a fine network absed distribution.
Doesn't show off the power (Score:5, Informative)
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)
K-12 Linux Project (Score:5, Informative)
Distro (Score:5, Informative)
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.
easy (Score:2, Informative)
http://theopencd.org/ [theopencd.org]
and GNUWin II
http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/en/index.html [gnuwin.epfl.ch]
Though the included software is all relatively recent, developement on maintaining GNUWin has halted as of Nov of last year. They are currently looking for contributors who are motivated enough to help lead and continue the project.
Re:Wow .. what a coincidence.... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
K12LTSP (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Morphix-lightgui (Score:2, Informative)
if you stay consistant with OO on all boxes then you don't really need to consider having second partition with windows/word
Re:computer lab software (Score:2, Informative)
Speaking from experience here, my high school and middle school both went from Windows 3.x/95 boxes right to a bunch of Sun computers complete with Solaris (and all the usual programs like OpenOffice.org). Many/most of the students hated the drastic change from Windows to Solaris and resented using the computers from then on. They just weren't used to that kind of environment. The rule of thumb is to avoid drastic environment changes at all costs (which is why KDE is a good idea) while showing them what Linux has to offer in the way of programs, which is plenty
Successfully using Linux in Computer lab (Score:2, Informative)
We've been sucessfully using Linux in our computer lab for over 3 years now, and while it was a "gamble" when we first decided to go with Linux, I'm proud to say that in looking back we made the right decision.
Our lab and our staff computers run on Mandrake Linux (currently 9.1), though I am entertaining the thought of upgrading to Gentoo in the future (mainly due to the ease of updating our software via emerge).
We saved a bundle of money not only in the initial install of the new computers, but also over the years each time we've upgraded any software. The kids love Linux and I've yet seen a kid that could not use Windows because they were taught using Linux (kids are usually much brighter than we give them credit).
To look at our computer lab, swing by http://www.ghca.com/computers [ghca.com]
Mike
My 2 cents. (Score:3, Informative)
Libranet Linux, stripped down from install.
Install KDE and Gnome. Run the system with one of the 2, your choice.
Then, install:
KDE's educational packages
Gnome's educational packages
Abiword, Openoffice, Gnucash, Gnumeric.
Kstars also works.
Also include some games, like:
Tuxracer (if their 3d will support it)
TuxPaint
Pingus
FrozenBubble
Tetris/Tetri
whatever else seems appropriate.
Also find out from the school what kind of educational software they use and find some decent clones of what they have. Then make 1 machine, image it, and push the images to the other ones.
School Linux distro (Score:3, Informative)
Take a look at the Skolelinux project at http://www.skolelinux.org/portal/index_html [skolelinux.org]
Re:K12LTSP (Score:2, Informative)
Hard drives on the donated machines don't matter (because they don't require a drive). Most video cards will work and pretty much any network card will work, as long as you can find the DOS drivers.
He did spend a good bit on getting a server that could handle the load (dual Athlon processors) with a significant amount of RAM for the terminal server sessions, but that was pretty much the only expense in the project (besides the time involved in learning a bit about Linux as he had little to no Linux experience before starting on it).
The install comes with most everything you'd want to see in a classroom setting including Open Office and a variety of productivity utilities. Definitely worth looking into!
Why oh why was this posted (Score:2, Informative)
Skolelinux (Score:5, Informative)
Surprised nobody has mentioned (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Great, but... (Score:5, Informative)
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 [gcompris.free.fr] is great, has a large bundle of games targetting everything from spelling to geography to math, and is easily extensible.
Astronomy: Both Celestia [shatters.net] and Stellarium [stellarium.free.fr] 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 [octave.org] for vector and matrix mathematics and Maxima [sourceforge.net] (and several others that I can't recall right now) for symbolic algebra.
Chemistry: There's stuff like Ghemical [www.uku.fi] and Gperiodic [welho.com] which aren't half bad for exploring various chemistry concepts. Then there's stuff like GenChemLab [www.uku.fi] which is pretty neat.
Physics: There's physics simulation software like Physics3D [freshmeat.net] , 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 [sourceforge.net] 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.
You're asking the wrong crowd. (Score:2, Informative)
Useful links:
http://www.seul.org/edu/
http://schoolfo
http://k12ltsp.org/
Re:Great, but... (Score:3, Informative)
Kinda surprised Bill Kendrick hasn't allready been promoting this.
Linux Leters and Numbers [sourceforge.net]
Kstars and other regular software like OOo or Abiword or Koffice.
Programming language (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Wow .. what a coincidence.... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:First things first... (Score:5, Informative)
Then send the students home with one of these [sourceforge.net] 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.
Re:K-12 Linux Project (Score:2, Informative)
The clients do not need a hard drive so there is less to maintain.
All the system software maintenance can be done remotely by SSH if the WWW link is maintained. User management should be done locally, at least to maintain the lists.
I would provide local services: a web server with free texts from Gutenberg.org, Swish-e search engine, web cache and filter, DNS cache, a local web page with image database like Coppermine, and MySQL databases for local projects and php scripts/web applications. If you provide all these glorious services and include local copies of TLDP.org, MySQL manual, and links to hot Linux forums, who cares if the teachers are helpless? They can lead, follow, or get out of the way of the students.
Just having local web content served in milliseconds instead of seconds will convert the students who will become computer geeks. Set up a computer club with a few machines on which to practice.
Any reasonable Linux installation will give performance superior to what they are accustomed.
Extremadura (Score:1, Informative)
A linux developed specifically for schools in the poorest region of spain. They will probably have what you need in mexico and it will run on the hardware specified. All the best with the project!
TuxLabs (Score:1, Informative)