Education Case Study: Committed to Linux throughout the school

How things got started...

Initially we wanted reliable servers, decided the Microsoft route was too expensive, not reliable, no real support, not flexible. Microsoft workstations, we tried Win 98, no security, WinNT, security better but children can still install poor quality programs (from the internet !) which mess up machines causing reinstallation to be necessary. Also email viruses were becoming an issue. Our move to ADSL also meant that a more complex firewall system was required.

Why Free Software?

I knew of the potential of a UNIX / Linux system and you cannot argue about the cost ! The enormous flexibility of Linux, although initially daunting, eventually gives you the confidence that problems can be solved.

The plan...

We are now running Linux servers for file sharing (NFS and Samba), a bastion / choke firewall for our internet connection and email server. Apart from the main server which is a large P4 pc, the other pc's are old small pentiums that have been replaced as workstations.

Evaluation...

Has it been a success ? I would say very much so. Most of our staff are not computer literate but they are able to cope very well with a minimum of training and putting pc's on their desks and asking them to use them is working ! As far as the servers go, that was never in doubt. They are almost fit and forget apart from system admin / security upgrades and checks. There are no reliability issues with the Linux server software that we have experienced. Suggestions for improvement:- (I think most of this has been said before) 1. Upgrading KDE is far too difficult for a busy school administrator. Our v 2.1.1 supplied with RH2.1 has a few bugs that I would hope v 3.0 would sort out but I cannot get the upgrade instructions to work ! 2. Any upgrading / installation has to be very simple. I was impressed by OpenOffice install / upgrade. It has to be as simple as with that package. 3. There is no primary school software for UK schools which may put a lot of schools off. 4. I have an electronics background before getting into education which has helped me deal with Linux. I am not sure if other schools would need extra support but I also doubt if they are coping with M$ either. Local schools LUG's volunteers would need to be organized. 5. We use Corel products in our administration and have to have WINNT because our accounts/payroll software is M$. We have attempted to use Corel WordPerfect Office Suite for Linux to get some compatibility across the school. This has been a disaster, WINE did not work, now withdrawn. Although we are now changing to MySQL / PHP databases, this is slow to implement and develop. We have hundreds of easily generated databases/forms/reports using Corel Paradox. Perhaps Linux needs a similar application for small business use ? Also there are no free quality Linux accounts packages.

The Future...

We are already committed to Linux throughout the school. Other projects to come:- a lot more PHP/MySQL development integrated into the school website, we could do with a VPN soon to link other sites.