Education Case Study: Computer Science Class discovers formula for success: Linux
Tuscon
Arizona
United States
Grade Range:
Middle School
Website
Submitted by:
ZJ Jelaca
Email: zj
stgregoryschool.orgHow things got started...
I needed a low cost (no cost) solution for an AP Computer Science Class. MS stuff was way beyond my budget so I started exploring open source solutions. As our network grew, cost was once again an issue with a variety of server issues.
Why Free Software?
Because it's free, there's a ton of support online, and it works.
The plan...
I began with a single Linux shell server that students could telnet into from our only lab (old pc hardware barely running win95 with a 10Base2 network) for writing C++ code.As we started acquiring more hardware (mostly old donated stuff) I began to implement Linux solutions for windows and mac file services, web, mail, web proxy, router/firewall, and dns services.The biggest problems I've run into have to do with the Linux learning curve. Fortunately there has been a plethora of help available from Linux community (local and otherwise).
Evaluation...
So far, Linux has fared far better than I could have imagined. It lives well on the trashiest of hardware and plays nice with my Win98 and MacOS9 labs. The only place I have yet to succeed is in building a unified ldap authentication system for every box (win/mac/linux) on campus.
The Future...
We are building a general use linux lab for the next school year using Debian, LTSP, KDE OpenOffice and Mozilla.
