Free Software Linux

ICT spending in UK schools is unsustainable but it could be cut by 90% with the help of Open Source software and the latest innovations in personal computing dubbed NetBooks. ARM wars? The latest salvo in the new chip war gives some indication of what is to come and just how soon it will happen. NVidia’s release this week of their ARM-based Tegra CPU [...]

In the past few weeks I have written several articles for this blog deprecating at length the wasteful power consumption of ICT facilities in schools and suggesting alternative strategies to tackle the problem. I do not intend to do go over the ground again because you can only hector folk for so long on one topic. In any case I don't need to, since wonderfully, the Cardinal Wiseman CTC in Birmingham has recently deployed the UK's first zero carbon ICT facility. The facility went l [...]

John Spencer talks to Tim Pearson Chief Executive of RM. RM is the largestmost successful supplier of ICT to the UK education market and, for good measure, is British too. Tim has been there from the start and so is really now Mr RM. This autumn he gave the school ICT world a jolt when RM announced its Asus miniBook. It retails to schools for only £169 and runs Open Source software throughout. The miniBook has preceded an ava [...]

In a previous 2005 report the Government quango Becta showed that schools could effect considerable savings by making use of Free Open Source software such as Open Office. In their study they simply looked at 'like for like' software replacement using existing networks and computers. Since this study we have seen the emergence of the new breed of ultra-portable Linux-based computers aimed squarely at the education sector and the inexorable build of Web 2 services such as Google Apps [...]

Yes, it does seem unlikely doesn't it? Windows has been the only reality for several generations of computer users. But is the tide finally beginning to turn? At the Education Show held in February 2007, the talk was of 'sustainable' computing and how schools could use technology to reduce their 'carbon footprint'. Nobody had any idea of what was to come – a host of Linux-based, ultra-portable, incredibly cheap and very green personal laptops.