We have been talking about installing Gnu/Linux Distro’s for the Computers in Savararayalu Government Girls Higher Secondary School at Puducherry, since Hemavathy, Principal of that school wished to migrate from Windows to Gnu/Linux after visiting & inspired by Kerala Schools.
We had discussions on what Gnu/Linux distribution we should install. Finally we chose Edubuntu (an official derivative of Ubuntu operating system) and the version is 14.04.1 LTS. We also had other choices like EduBOSS (official derivative of BOSS – Indian government funded customized debian derivative operating system by C-DAC). The number of packages that came along with EduBOSS is very limited compared to Edubuntu. Moroever, edubuntu gave more choices while installing with respect to leave out or include education tools based on the age category like elementary, primary or secondary level students.
We found out that Edubuntu can acts as a thick client serving thin clients connected via local network. Though, we did not use it due to the fact that there was no LAN in their school.
Prasanna, Sinduja & Sarath volunteered the installation session.Thanks to Sinduja, she had already installed various Free Software Educational tools in most of the machines running windows. There were Posters on Richard Stallman, Aaron Swartz, Charles Babbage, Free Software Philosophy, Linus Torvalds, etc., There were 9 Desktop in which Five machines running Windows 7 and four Windows XP. We tested Edubuntu performance in all the machines before installing. We disabled Unity interface and sticked with Gnome fallback environment because of low availability of hardware resources(1.25 GB of RAM) and the fact that Unity also consumes more memory of graphical overlay.
We installed Edubuntu in 7 machines along with the existing operating system as dual boot & in 2 machines we had to install it as a primary OS since their windows installation has already been corrupted and required a reinstall.
We named those machines after the name of Free Software activists, Privacy enthusiasts & Scientists (RMS, Linus Torvalds, Aaron Swartz, Edward Snowden, Jimmy wales, Julian Assange, Ramanujam, Charles Babbage, Lady Ada). We started the installation session at 2 pm and finished by 5.00 pm.
Thanks to Hemavathy Madam for allowing us to install Edubuntu in their school computer lab. Soon students will be using Gnu/Linux in their school. There will be continuous classes for students on various tools available in the OS. We are in need of volunteers to teach the students. We have lots of work to do. Gear up people.
Installation Pictures – https://prasanna.trovebox.com/photos/album-9/list
P.S: This Post is composed by Sarath and edited by Prasanna.
Puducherry Gnu/Linux Users Group 