Skegness Grammar

I have been using Linux personally for 4 years off and on and realised very soon the potential it has for use in schools. Our network (Novell/Windows) has never been reliable enough for me, or my department, to be able to say that we can teach using transparent technology. Something had to be done! I produced a discussion document, which gave costings for upgrade to a Windows solution or a Linux solution. Linux was £80,000 cheaper when installed as a terminal server solution. I had already installed a 7 terminal network in our boarding house, which was seeing heavy use and proving stable so I was then cleared to install a full suite of terminal servers in the school as a test exercise. and the rest is history.

In the last summer holidays I configured and installed a 35-workstation computer suite with Internet access and print facilities using the LTSP solution. My terminals are p200 Dells with 32mb and no hard disk (bliss - no noise - pupils can hear me!). I have installed 3 servers. There are 2 application servers with Athlon 2000+, 2gb ram and 18 GB ultra SCSI hard drives loaded with a full RedHat 7.3 install (thinking of going with SuSE since I have had software anomalies with RedHat). There is no LOAD balancing, I simply allow first come first served DHCP access. These machines only get updated when new application/updates become available. There is a third server that is a low power Athlon and this holds/home which is mounted at boot onto the application servers and thence to the terminals. This machine also runs NIS to authenticate users and also our MySQL server and web server, it is backed up every night to a 120gb external firewire drive. This is the first time in my career as an ICT teacher that I have been able to teach ICT devoid of fixing OS problems I am thoroughly enjoying my Linux experience. I even have to keep my room open at lunch to allow the pupils to use it _ they have taken to it so well. There have been problems but these have not been the fault of Linux. Some new software is perfect for my teaching but I have had problems installing stable versions - bear in mind that I am teaching A-level ICT and database access is essential. OpenOffice is very Processor intensive when starting and also very bandwidth intensive so with large classes (30 or more) I tend to use - Kword, Gimp, Xfig, Abiword, Scribus (brilliant), Knoda (MySQL DATA access superb) Gnumeric (rock solid) and the pupils love the games (they are even playing networked Freeciv at lunchtime.) When punishing servers like such a large LTSP does it is important to get the largest CPU cooler available. I have had one server often lock up when under LOAD but this problem has been cured by using a massive fan.

As you may now have gathered I am delighted with my Linux network. It has done everything I intended and continues to surprise me with its abilities. This must be the way to go for schools. I can't understand how any ICT teacher could reject such a solution if they could see what I have! Total cost for everything £6000, need I say more?

Because of the success of the first suite I have been given the green light on another suite of 35 machines and then to spread to the rest of the school.

I would love to hear FROM any other teachers who are interested in this solution and offer an open invitation to anyone to visit and have a look.