Over the last few months here at Allison St we’ve had a new set of computers installed.
They’re all faster than before, have a new operating system and came with lots of software pre-installed. Sounds familiar. How much did this cost? Only about £150 and the help of two skilled volunteers. All of the software is license free and includes an office suite, email, internet and lots of other programs. How did we do this?
They’re all faster than before, have a new operating system and came with lots of software pre-installed. Sounds familiar. How much did this cost? Only about £150 and the help of two skilled volunteers. All of the software is license free and includes an office suite, email, internet and lots of other programs. How did we do this?
Using an operating system called Edubuntu, based on Linux, all of our old computers now share the extra processing power of a single new (second hand in our case) server via an additional network hub. We now have ourselves a much improved computer system compared to 6 months ago. An added benefit is that installing software and configuring printers is simplified as this only needs to be done once on a single machine the server.
Richard Rothwell of M6-IT a Community Interest Company who contributed his time and expertise to install the new system said, “Edubuntu is an ideal way for cash-strapped schools and voluntary sector business to keep their IT overheads down, benefit from the open source software community and recycle computers in-house”.
Speedie Computers of Digbeth, who recycle PC’s said, “We think the new Edubuntu system at FoE Birmingham is a great example of how to re-use computers and how Linux can be a viable alternative”
For more info check out: http://www.edubuntu.org/ http://www.m6-it.org
For more info check out: http://www.edubuntu.org/ http://www.m6-it.org
