Every Student in Macedonia to use Ubuntu Linux Computer

Canonical has announced that every student in Macedonia will be using an Ubuntu powered computer / workstation. This announcement has tremendous significance for Indian school children as well who are wondering why they cannot have Ubuntu powered computers and laptops.
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http://www.ubuntu.com/news/macedonia-school-computers

Every Macedonian Student to Use Ubuntu-Powered Computer Workstations

Popular Linux Distribution To Appear On More than 180,000 Classroom Desktops Nationwide

LONDON, November 20th, 2007 - The Macedonia Ministry of Education and Science will deploy more than 180,000 workstations running Canonical’s Edubuntu 7.04 as part of its "Computer for Every Child" project.

The Macedonia "Computer for Every Child" project is one of the largest known thin client and desktop Linux deployments ever undertaken. Half of elementary and secondary Macedonia students attend school in the morning, and half attend in the afternoon, so 180,000 workstations will allow for one classroom computing device per student for the entire Republic's public school population. The first 7000 computers pre-installed with Ubuntu were shipped on September 4th 2007

Ubuntu is the award-winning Linux distribution for the desktop, laptop, thin client and server which brings together the best of open source software every six months. It is free, community-developed and contains all of the necessary applications to be up and running immediately, from web browser to instant messaging. It also comes with English and Macedonian language packs.

"The Computer for Every Child initiative is the largest and most important education project undertaken in the 15-year history of the Republic of Macedonia," said Ivo Ivanovski, Macedonia's Minister for the Information Society. "By selecting Ubuntu as the operating system for all of our classroom virtual PCs, our education system can provide computer-based education for all school children within the limited financial and infrastructural confines that most institutions face today."

"Macedonia is showing tremendous vision by deciding its own destiny in choosing how its children will learn through computing – said Mark Shuttleworth, founder of the Ubuntu project. "By choosing Ubuntu which is free to modify, use and redistribute it turns students into participants in Information Technology and not simply consumers of it.

The Ubuntu operating system will run on 160,000 virtual PC terminals and 20,000 PCs (which each also support a student on the attached monitor) supplied by NComputing and procured and installed by The Haier Company, a diversified manufacturer and PC maker based in China.

The project will enable a range of innovative educational programs, including interactive web-based classes in which specialized experts teach lessons in such areas as mathematics, biology, chemistry and physics to multiple schools and classrooms around the country.

About Canonical and Ubuntu

Canonical, the commercial sponsor of Ubuntu, is headquartered in Europe and is committed to the development, distribution and support of open source software products and communities. World-class 24x7 commercial support for Ubuntu is available through Canonical's global support team and partners.

Since its launch in October 2004 Ubuntu has become one of the most highly regarded Linux distributions with millions of users around the world. Ubuntu will always be free to download, free to use and free to distribute to others. With these goals in mind, Ubuntu aims to be the most widely used Linux system, and is the center of a global open source software ecosystem.

Download Ubuntu from www.ubuntu.com/download. To learn about commercial support for Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Edubuntu, please see www.canonical.com/support. For more information visit www.canonical.com or www.ubuntu.com.

Lucknow Kanpur Computer Dealers short of trained staff to Install Ubuntu / Kubuntu Linux

Kanpur and Lucknow computer dealers - who have for years been selling proprietary operating systems are suddenly realizing that they themselves know very little about Ubuntu Linux operating system for desktops. On top of that, they have not invested in teaching their own support staff how to install Ubuntu or Kubuntu on customer laptops and desktops - that is customers who want to work with the best legal operating system already available in the markets. Many of these computer dealers have not even found the time to read the installation instructions from the Ubuntu website - www.ubuntu.com

Naturally these assembled computer dealers associations in Kanpur and Lucknow feel that first they have to learn Ubuntu themselves - and then - they have to teach their staff how to install Ubuntu or Kubuntu in one hour. What a bother. Learning Linux is sooo painful.

So it seems that intelligent Linux savvy school children will now have to teach these outdated computer dealers and hardware box vendors the fine points of Ubuntu Linux installation on laptops and desktops. One wonders when the computer assemblers will start giving themselves a crash course in Ubuntu and Linux so that they can install it on their customer computers in just one hour.

But go and see the home computers of children in Kanpur and Lucknow from schools such as Methodist, Jaipuria DPS, Christ Church - these kids know much more about the ease of Ubuntu installations than these hardware vendors - many of whom do not even have free CD to give to the customer just in case the customer tells them just to quote them a price for the hardware box. Many customers are deciding it is best to arrange Ubuntu CD themselves. Maybe Computer Science departments of top colleges will start distributing Ubuntu free also. For after all if children can install Ubuntu from CD by themselves, so can customers. And then maybe finally the staff of the hardware vendors will also learn how to install Ubuntu.

Many children of course prefer Kubuntu Desktop version because the KDE desktop is better to look at for those who only know how to send emails and chat on the Internet.

And last, the computer dealers will themselves shyly one afternoon decide to learn it themselves.

Where to download Ubuntu from ? http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download