Microsoft+Alternatives?

This will be the page that will explore how we can try to keep up with changes without going broke. Here is a portion of a letter from Linda Wight to start the discussion.

Could we discuss how schools are funding tech support at their sites and also the long range plan for network use since school funding will never allow us to upgrade as fast as Microsoft wants to force industry to. Are their other options for schools in our district besides Windows? It is way too costly to purchase software and hardware and have it still filling a need instructionally and working properly, yet have the threat of having to take it off our network looming over us. What is the best platform for avoiding viruses and if you aren't using a machine for the internet, but just need network resources for shared printing and access to server-based programs, etc. what is the best way to go? I want to explore other possibilities besides Vista.

**Steve Harmon from Davis:**
Considering that my school does not have a budget line item for technology, I would say that there is no funding for it. I have heard that this is true at the District level also, but am unsure of the validity of that statement. In order to get most of our computers at Davis I have joined a group called StRUT (Students Recycling Used Technology - [|http://www.svstrut.org/.] They receive donatations from companies which they then farm out to member schools. Usually the computers are about three years old, but through StRUT I can load Windows 2000 on them for free. I usually install software for which we have a site license (such as AppleWorks and Contribute) or is available for free (OpenOffice, Acrobat Reader, Flash Player, Java Runtime, etc.). OpenOffice is an Office Suite from Sun Microsystems (http://www.openoffice.org/) which is similar to Microsoft Office, but this one is free.

As far as operating systems are concerned, there is always Linux - an open source operating system available in many different versions. The benefits of Linux are that it is free, it is virtually virus-free (there are a couple viruses out there, but they are usually localized to a specific account on a machine, thus cannot harm the entire system, and there are plenty of patches and fixes for them out there), and can run on almost any system. The detriments are that it is very difficult to set-up and configure – beyond most teachers’ interest and time-commitment levels. Also, some users find the interface confusing, but this is because they are not used to it (think of a Mac user switching to a PC or vice versa). A third detriment is that there is not a lot of software out there available for Linux (although this is rapidly changing as Linux gains marketshare and becomes mainstreamed). I mainly use Linux for servers. At Davis we use Linux for a file server, a web server and I am currently building an e-mail server. If you are interested in playing with a version of Linux, I suggest DSL ([|http://www.damnsmalllinux.org]) which is small enough to be loaded onto a CD business card (under 50 Mb), and will not damage the operating system on the computer you load it onto.

What I would like to see happen, is for technology to receive its own line item in the Davis School budget. If the budget gave me $5000 per year to purchase new equipment, then I would be able to buy about four computers a year as well as various sundries (like switches for classrooms, software, new mice or keyboards, etc.). Also, if a server died (like our STAR and Reading Counts server is about to die) then the budget would be large enough to purchase that bigger ticket item. (By the way, the reason I am not using Linux for the AR server is because those two programs will not run on Linux, yet.) At Davis, we have about 45 staff computers, which if we replaced four a year would mean that a teacher would have a ten-year old computer before a new one came around. Considering that industry designs computers to last about six years, we quickly see that even $5000 a year would not be enough, but at least it would be better than nothing.