We’ve just installed these two donated computers in a community nursery and breakfast/after school club in Lincolnshire, England. The machines are 600mhz/128mb/4.2gig and they took about 3/4′s of an hour to install and configure perfectly, and have cost the center nothing!
The kids absolutely love them, most are from underpriviledged backgrounds and many of them have never used a computer before. As a result they will grow up computer literate. The Nursury just wanted to say a heartfelt thanks for all of the effort and long hours that the community has put into creating this supurb collection of software.
Keep Up the Good work!
This is a great story had recycling old machines, and using OpenSource Software leads to some very happy faces. Read More to hear a bit more infomarion from the person who passed on this story.
Wow! How many words can a picture say? I’d be happy to let you know a bit more about the project, and give credit to the others involved in it locally and internationally as well.
Were a small Social Enterprise (more social than enterprise) who primarily write open-source software for managing a type of community regeneration scheme online. We’ve got one set up in our local area as a live test. The computers were donated and set up by volunteers that have been recruited through the Local Scheme.
We sourced the P.C.s through our local Linux User Group (Specifically the company which sponsors them, thanks Shaun!
). Though we had set up old p.c.’s for charities, community groups and volunteers before with Linux (of the Small Puppy Variety), this was the first time we had used Edubuntu. I must confess I dont know very much about (ed)ubuntu on a technical level – but I didn’t have too! I quickly read the Edubuntu website, downloaded, burned and booted the live cd as a quick evaluation. I was immediately impressed with how it came already set up for the purpose with everything included (especially Gcompris which is superb as a computer skills learning tool, heads up to the package writers too).
As I’m usually very busy with other projects I gave the computers to a local volunteer to set up. He is a semi-skilled Windows user with no formal IT qualifications, and had not installed Linux before. When I asked him how the install had gone he said perfectly without a hitch. He did not need to install any drivers or extra software, Everything was pretty self explanatory. This is really important as many people do not have the luxury of time to learn complex set up routines if they are from poorer backgrounds, as they must also take the time to keep a roof over their heads (incidentally, this volunteer actually used the “volunteer credits” that he “earned” through the scheme for setting up these p.c.’s towards paying his rent!).
We took the photos with the help of another volunteer photographer from the scheme who doesn’t want to be named. We are hoping that the local newspaper will cover the story with a request for more P.C.’s, as the children argue over them terribly! The volunteers, nursery’s and community groups in the area are desperate for 2nd user computers to use as Linux PC’s. Linux is particularly good for charities and community groups for many reasons, we have found that:-
- Because the license is free this allows them to save lots of money for other projects (such as children’s meals in the case of the nursery).
- It will run on very cheap or free hardware, saving them even more money (and reducing the problem of disposing of what is essentially toxic waste).
- Thy do not need to track complex licenses or license keys to keep within the Law.
- They know they will work reliably and consistently and will not require expensive skilled work to keep them up to date and virus free.
- Spyware with inappropriate advertising will not install itself and slow the computers down wasting their time.
- The security is also very important to them as many deal with difficult cases and vulnerable people. They have a responsibility to these people to keep their information safe.
Im not sure that the Linux community as a whole, many of which only use their computers at home, fully realise the potential of what they have created to help increase productivity of community, voluntary and educational groups. With so many new competing “uses” for government money around the world at the moment many of these groups are struggling to equip themselves to do their very important and much-needed job. Please people, if you have spare time or equipment, go down to the nearest drop in centre, nursury, school or charity and offer to help them out. Feed back your findings both technical and anecdotal to the programmers who create the supurb thing that is GNU/Linux – so it can be made even better!!!!
Anyway, thanks again for your supurb work, here are some more cute pictures of some of the results or your labours and expertise.
They also continue on and talk about how they are using open source, including at a festival they did. But for those curious, here is the link to the education version of Ubuntu called Edubuntu.
Tags: Interesting, Linux, News, School
