Utah-based School District Multiplies Linux Desktop Savings
"We were facing a costly upgrade to Microsoft Vista in our keyboarding and testing labs from both a software and hardware perspective," said Karl Buchanan, Technology Director for Wasatch County School District. "Our fixed budget simply couldn't stretch to meet the growing demands for computers among our students."
Overview
Wasatch County School District is dedicated to helping all students in its eight K-12 schools develop to their fullest potential. In addition to teaching the fundamental skills of reading, writing and mathematics, Wasatch School District places a high priority on integrating technology into students' learning experience.
The Challenge
A key challenge to providing wider access to desktop computers for students, however, is cost. The costs of desktop hardware, software, network wiring, Internet drops, electricity, air conditioning, physical space and management associated with traditional single-user PCs add up very quickly.
"We were facing a costly upgrade to Microsoft Vista in our keyboarding and testing labs from both a software and hardware perspective," said Karl Buchanan, Technology Director for Wasatch County School District. "Our fixed budget simply couldn't stretch to meet the growing demands for computers among our students."
"That's when we took a serious look at Multi-station SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktops complete with OpenOffice, GroupWise, Novell Client for Linux, Firefox and other open source education applications."
The Solution
"With the Linux Desktop Multiplier, powered by Userful, we were able to put a four-user SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop computer in the back of our classrooms," continued Buchanan. "Rather than purchasing four separate computers, we purchased a single PC — and four monitors, keyboards and mice."
"As a result, the District has been able to save over 50% on hardware costs and even more on related management, infrastructure and electricity costs."
"We ran an initial pilot in one of our computer labs and were very impressed with the performance of the multi-station Linux desktops. We configured Novell Single Sign-on and students are able to login normally to the workstation and network and access their home directory and printers. Students have access to GroupWise, the web and education applications. The transition to OpenOffice from Microsoft Office has been very smooth."
The Results
"In addition to running the Desktop Multiplier in regular classrooms, we also run multi-station Linux desktops in a number of our keyboarding and testing labs," said Buchanan. "We have completed outfitting all of the classrooms in one of our schools with the systems and are now working on the second school. We will continue to roll out 40 or 50 stations at a time throughout the district."
"I would highly encourage other K-12 school districts to take a look at SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop and the Linux Desktop Multiplier. They can really help you stretch your budget and still deliver full-featured desktops for students."