LinEx: Free software in all the schools of Extremadura Bulgaria meeting LinEx: Free software in all the schools of Extremadura José L. Redrejo Rodríguez Sofia, 9 de Junio de 2009

History of the project (I) The regional government of Extremadura was transferred the Educational administration from the Spanish government on January 1, 2000. The Intranet was designed and began to be implemented in mid 2000. The Open Software solution began to be studied at 2001, and the decision to make our own Linux distribution was made on November, 2001. The first version (LinEx 2.0) was released in March, 2002, based on Debian Potato, made by a private startup company.

History of the project (II) In June 2002, the regional government took control of the development and released Linex 3.0, based on Debian Woody in October For the years, there have been several upgrades of the distribution. Now we are running LinEx 2006 version, planning to upgrade next summer. In Extremadura there are about 160.000 students in schools. With a goal of a ratio of one PC per two students we have 80,000 machines Today they all have been working only with free software for almost seven years

People and entities involved in the project The entity responsible for the project is the Consejería (Regional ministry) of Education. Initially, the project was divided in three main parts: The intranet was developed by one of the main Spanish phone companies The Linux distribution was originally prepared by a small Linux company. Some months later the government took over the responsibility of continuing the development of new versions by its own. Training, publicity and support for the project was made by government employees and a public IT company.

Budget allocation (2003 numbers) LinEx development: Hardware 170,000 € Software 89,000 € Training, support, and diffussion: 300,000 € TOTAL: 559,000 € Rest of the Technological Educative Network: School PC, servers and associated infrastructure: 66,710,000 € Training, support employees, and documentation: 540,000 € TOTAL: 67,250,000 €

General tasks we've done Customize Debian distribution changing some of its default configs to our users goals Translation of all pending applications Create new applications to fulfill some of the users demands First year, prior to the installation of the computers, all teachers in the region where trained in general use of the computer, specific use of the computer for their subjects Interactive boards in primary schools

Software developments we've done (I): ControlAula, some sysadmin tools Involvement in the development of some others: Debian, wxmaxima, Wims, Squeak, Gambas, recordmydesktop, qucs, atnag, glpi, etc. Customizations: default configs to make teachers and students life easier.

Software developments we've done (II): LinexEdu: special metapackages for mathematics, physics, languages, etc. with all the educative applications we have been able to find and package Prepare a special setup for the schools (different in primary and secondary schools) Prepare a special distributions branching from LinEx: Linex Colegios with a special setup for primary schools, and JuegaLinex, a DVD full of linux games.

School setups In every school: file server, dns server, proxy cache, ldap server, etc. (all these services in one or two machines) In every secondary school: one sysadmin to support hardware and software incidences. Mobility desktops for all the teachers. Mobility desktops for every student in secondary schools (they have one pc in every desktop, for every two kids). Special desktops for primary schools: they have several computer classrooms. Pyramid structure: One regional server, one server per school, desktops connect to that server.

Latest developments: (I) Automatic inventory of all the computers, linked with the front-desk application (ocs inventory linked with glpi) Front desk application, glpi, gpl licensed, added multicenter setup to the sources A bunch of free courses for teachers at the training centers (every year since the beginning of the project)

Latest developments: (II) Rayuela: internal organizative application for the whole educative community: parents, teachers, students, administration and government. From the economical management of the schools to the qualifications, or SMS warnings to the parents with the same application. Implementation of puppet as our standard tool to manage all the system. New classroom setup: the seven years old computers have become thin clients. Adding one computer per classroom we have fixed the obsolescence problem. In three months 50.000 computers have migrated to the thin client model, with a terminal server per classroom

Now working on: (II) New linex-colegios version, with changes in the interface Laptops deployment, to go to a one-one model. Next September we'll begin a pilot in ten schools. In the future, laptops will replace the old computers at then end of their cycle of life. Improvements over the linux terminal server project to achieve a perfect work of the multimedia applications New tools to increase the mobility of the computers in the schools (even taking them at home) New authentication system for primary schools Integration in the Debian Edu project to share resources, man power, knowledge and ideas

Past and present problems Teachers inertia for those who were used to computers Training of all the teachers, most of them didn't use computers, or at least didn't use computers for their classes. Sometimes,living on the edge trying to fix different problems with different approaches instead of using a global view (lack of time and trained people) The regional intranet was great in its beginning seven years ago, most people only had isdn or rtb internet access. Today, compared to our home adsl connections is too slow PC obsolescence

The future Finish the new intranet deployment Study, improve and integrate with some other projects with repositories of educative contents and applications, mainly focused on the students curricula and standarized thesaurus. All the projects should be integrated in a web site with one login/password. Study alternatives to the never-ending PC obsolescence: low-fat clients , operative system in an usb disk, speed booting of the computers, etc. New monitoring tools to get statistical data of the use of the computers (quantity and quality)

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