My sister is the assistant director of a day care center. They've just
received a small grant, $5K, to get some computers and she's asked me for
some advice. The hardware is easy, you can get some pretty decent machines
for less than $400 for example a Compaq Sempron system with 1G of RAM is
about that price, I bet you can get an E-Machines for even less. However
the recommendation for an OS is more difficult. On the one hand they will
have a much wider choice of learning programs for Windows but personally
Windows scares me because of all the malware that's out there. My sister
is clueless about computers, and I suspect her colleagues are also, but I
easily I switched her to Linux after she got a virus on her Windows system
that was calling a 900 number and running up phone charges. Even though
she has minimal computer skills she had no trouble adapting to the FC4
system that I set her up with since Evolution, Firefox and OpenOffice all
work the way Windows users expect them to work. Therefore I'm not
concerned about the ability of unskilled users to use a properly
configured Linux system. However I'm very concerned about their ability to
set up a Linux system in the first place (I can't help, I live in
Massachusetts and they are in Chicago). I also don't know anything about
educational software for any platform so I don't know what's available for
Windows, Linux or the Mac. I have seen mention of various education
projects for Linux and the EduBuntu distribution so I know there is some
activity in that space. My questions are these,

1) Does anyone have any experience using Linux in this type of application?

2) Is there a reasonable amount of decent quality free educational
software available for Linux? Daycare centers don't have much money so
free software is helpful to them.

3) If Linux isn't practical, what's the state of the Mac these days?
Although Macs are a little more expensive they are much easier to use then
Windows and more importantly, they aren't subject to viruses.
Historically they were the platform of choice for schools, are they still
a practical choice?

4) If XP is their only choice can they get away with XP Home vs XP Pro.
I've never seen an XP Home system but I'm under the impression that the
networking on them is crippled. Can you set up a network of 5 or so XP
Home machines or is XP Pro required?

I know the last two questions aren't Linux related but many readers of
this group will have knowledge of Macs and Windows and more importantly
will know how they compare to each other.

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

"General Schvantzkoph" <schvantzkoph@yahoo.com> schreef in bericht
news:pan.2006.01.10.20.39.33.265807@yahoo.com...
> My sister is the assistant director of a day care center. They've just
> received a small grant, $5K, to get some computers and she's asked me for
> some advice. The hardware is easy, you can get some pretty decent machines
> for less than $400 for example a Compaq Sempron system with 1G of RAM is
> about that price, I bet you can get an E-Machines for even less. However
> the recommendation for an OS is more difficult. On the one hand they will
> have a much wider choice of learning programs for Windows but personally
> Windows scares me because of all the malware that's out there. My sister
> is clueless about computers, and I suspect her colleagues are also, but I
> easily I switched her to Linux after she got a virus on her Windows system
> that was calling a 900 number and running up phone charges. Even though
> she has minimal computer skills she had no trouble adapting to the FC4
> system that I set her up with since Evolution, Firefox and OpenOffice all
> work the way Windows users expect them to work. Therefore I'm not
> concerned about the ability of unskilled users to use a properly
> configured Linux system. However I'm very concerned about their ability to
> set up a Linux system in the first place (I can't help, I live in
> Massachusetts and they are in Chicago). I also don't know anything about
> educational software for any platform so I don't know what's available for
> Windows, Linux or the Mac. I have seen mention of various education
> projects for Linux and the EduBuntu distribution so I know there is some
> activity in that space. My questions are these,
>
> 1) Does anyone have any experience using Linux in this type of
> application?
>
> 2) Is there a reasonable amount of decent quality free educational
> software available for Linux? Daycare centers don't have much money so
> free software is helpful to them.
>
> 3) If Linux isn't practical, what's the state of the Mac these days?
> Although Macs are a little more expensive they are much easier to use then
> Windows and more importantly, they aren't subject to viruses.
> Historically they were the platform of choice for schools, are they still
> a practical choice?
>
> 4) If XP is their only choice can they get away with XP Home vs XP Pro.
> I've never seen an XP Home system but I'm under the impression that the
> networking on them is crippled. Can you set up a network of 5 or so XP
> Home machines or is XP Pro required?
>
> I know the last two questions aren't Linux related but many readers of
> this group will have knowledge of Macs and Windows and more importantly
> will know how they compare to each other.
>
>
>
>
>

Dear General,


Why not contact Red Hat and ask them about their K12 program?


Kind regards,


Jan Gerrit Kootstra

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

While stranded on the hard shoulder of the information super highway schvant
zkoph@yahoo.com typed:

> 1) Does anyone have any experience using Linux in this type of application?[/vbcol
]

I work at a grammar school (year 7 to year 13) and we have four Linux IT
suites.  Each of these has 30 screens.  The younger students don't have any
problems with it; the older students (those who remember when we had NT)
have a psycological problem - it ain't Windoze so it must be crap.
They seem to have forgotten the uptimes we had on the Windoze network;
if we were lucky 2 of the 3 rooms we had then would work.  We now enjoy
almost 100% uptime.  We've had two outages in the last 12 months, both
being hardware related, and we only lost one server each time.  The rooms
were still operational, but on reduced performance.  Also we sometimes get
the local primary schools coming in to use one of the suites, and these
younger children have no problems when it comes to using the applications,
such as Firefox, OpenOffice, TuxPaint and the KDE edutainment programs.
[vbcol=seagreen]
> 2) Is there a reasonable amount of decent quality free educational
> software available for Linux? Daycare centers don't have much money so
> free software is helpful to them.

Have a look at the LTSP (www.ltsp.org) which is what we use.  You can spend
your money on servers, which is where the power needs to be, and use any old
bits of junk as the thin client.  Our thin clients are PIII 200s and we got 
a
pallet load of ebay for £13 a box.  Prior to this we had a assorted range o
f
PIIs and PIIIs which were donated, scrounged or salvaged.  They didn't look
pretty but they did the job.  When we managed to get more funding, I suggest
ed
that we got the PIIIs, put them under the benches out of site and spend the
money on TFT monitors, optical mice and decent keyboards.  Voila! a decentis
h
looking IT suite.  Next stop is proper thin clients (ie fanless).

Your servers don't need to be supa-dupa twin processor boxes either.  We hav
e
successfully run 15 clients all running OO, on an AMD Athlon XP2700+ with 1G
B
memory.  It would have been better if the machine has 2GB or more, but that'
s
all we had available at the time.

> 3) If Linux isn't practical, what's the state of the Mac these days?
> Although Macs are a little more expensive they are much easier to use then
> Windows and more importantly, they aren't subject to viruses.

That be because OSX is built on Unix (BSD I think)

> Historically they were the platform of choice for schools, are they still
> a practical choice?

The music dept at school has a few MACS.  They got those 'cus the teacher
was familar with whatever software they use to control their midi keyboards.
I see last week that they got a copy of M$ Office for each one, which I know
was very expensive.

--
Trog Woolley | trog at trogwoolley dot com
(A Croweater back residing in Pommie Land with Linux)
Isis Astarte Diana Hecate Demeter Kali Inanna

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

On Wed, 11 Jan 2006 00:05:28 +0000, Trog Woolley wrote:
[vbcol=seagreen]
> While stranded on the hard shoulder of the information super highway schva
ntzkoph@yahoo.com typed:
> 
>
> I work at a grammar school (year 7 to year 13) and we have four Linux IT
> suites.  Each of these has 30 screens.  The younger students don't have an
y
> problems with it; the older students (those who remember when we had NT)
> have a psycological problem - it ain't Windoze so it must be crap.
> They seem to have forgotten the uptimes we had on the Windoze network;
> if we were lucky 2 of the 3 rooms we had then would work.  We now enjoy
> almost 100% uptime.  We've had two outages in the last 12 months, both
> being hardware related, and we only lost one server each time.  The rooms
> were still operational, but on reduced performance.  Also we sometimes get
> the local primary schools coming in to use one of the suites, and these
> younger children have no problems when it comes to using the applications,
> such as Firefox, OpenOffice, TuxPaint and the KDE edutainment programs.
> 

Thanks for the response however you are are dealing with slightly older
children. This is a day care center, the children aren't old enough to use
OpenOffice. What sort of programs are available for 3 and 4 year olds?

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

"General Schvantzkoph" <schvantzkoph@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:pan.2006.01.11.02.23.25.615411@yahoo.com...
> On Wed, 11 Jan 2006 00:05:28 +0000, Trog Woolley wrote:
> 
>
> Thanks for the response however you are are dealing with slightly older
> children. This is a day care center, the children aren't old enough to use
> OpenOffice. What sort of programs are available for 3 and 4 year olds?
>

My 2,3,5 year old like Open Office (Writer) and Firefox (www.nickjr.com ,
www.lego.com ) more than all the thousand titles of software I have bought
and downloaded. Just put the homepage of the Firefox to be www.nickjr.com
and it's safe (can't go nowere but nickjr) and they'll have fun and learn
for hours (you will have problems telling them to stop using it).

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

"Enrique A" <atk@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:OGdxf.29$PL5.5@newssvr11.news.prodigy.com...
>
> "General Schvantzkoph" <schvantzkoph@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:pan.2006.01.11.02.23.25.615411@yahoo.com... 
>
> My 2,3,5 year old like Open Office (Writer) and Firefox (www.nickjr.com ,
> www.lego.com ) more than all the thousand titles of software I have bought
> and downloaded. Just put the homepage of the Firefox to be www.nickjr.com
> and it's safe (can't go nowere but nickjr) and they'll have fun and learn
> for hours (you will have problems telling them to stop using it).
>

BTW,  Do they speak English ? or a foreign language ?

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

>
>
> BTW,  Do they speak English ? or a foreign language ?

English

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

General Schvantzkoph wrote:

> 2) Is there a reasonable amount of decent quality free educational
> software available for Linux? Daycare centers don't have much money so
> free software is helpful to them.

Yes and some that are reasonably priced also, for example since you
mentioned Day Care Center;

http://schoolforge.org.uk/index.php/Linux_for_Education

http://sourceforge.net/softwaremap/...php?form_cat=80

http://www.phelios.com/linuxgames/lualua.html

My grand-daughter's (four and six) like;

http://gcompris.net/-en-


--
"A personal computer is called a personal computer because it's yours,
Anything that runs on that computer, you should have control over."
Andrew Moss, Microsoft's senior director of technical policy, 2005

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]