SIMS and Linux

[Jawloms]

You might want to speak to Orwell High School, in Felixstowe on the East Coast of England, they are linux base

 

 

I think its about time that the LibLabCon got their own programmer who can write a free open source software for IMS system.

 

Orwell High School (Where I work) binned Linux around 4-5 years ago as it was simply not practical, no matter how much of a lovely idea it was. We still get enquiries from all sorts of places asking how it's going!

 

Stuart

[garrysaddington]

Orwell High School (Where I work) binned Linux around 4-5 years ago as it was simply not practical, no matter how much of a lovely idea it was. We still get enquiries from all sorts of places asking how it's going!

 

Stuart

 

I think that it was more to do with politics than with practicality if I remember correctly, although you may be able to put me straight on this? I ran a whole school Linux network at Skegness for 6 years and it was more than practical, and it worked reliably all the time.

[pete]

I think that it was more to do with politics than with practicality if I remember correctly, although you may be able to put me straight on this? I ran a whole school Linux network at Skegness for 6 years and it was more than practical, and it worked reliably all the time.

 

Heh, I still get "you should talk to that Garry Saddington bloke, he's got Linux running on Wyse terminals" occasionally.

[garrysaddington]

Heh, I still get "you should talk to that Garry Saddington bloke, he's got Linux running on Wyse terminals" occasionally.

 

Yes we did, got 500 of them at about £3 each from Ebay. Replaced them with HP dedicated thin clients in the end though. However, the problems with Linux were amply illustrated at Skegness, because when I left to work full time on ScholarPack, instead of looking for a Linux sysadmin, they took the path of least resistance (but massive cost) and reverted to MS. Amusing really as we had all up to date software - 2009 versions when I left, and they went back to Win 2000:(. Still that's life.

[pete]

I think I did talk it over with your tech there - fairly long time ago though.

 

Still that's life.

 

No that's schools being bloody clueless about IT and not having proper hiring practises for support staff.

 

"Hey, we can pay $bit_extra/look a bit longer/make sure the job spec is correct and get what we need to continue stable network or we can hire $random_cheap_ms-only_asshat and pay $moon_on_stick to rejig everything and suffer the disruption that'll cause, what shall we do?"

 

"Oh, $moon_on_stick rejig, please."

 

I'm writing the job spec for my successor on stone tablets and padlocking them to SMT's legs if I leave.

Edited March 16, 2010 by pete

[infoseeker]

I have recently posted this tread on Capita support net please login and add your point of view

 

you should be able to find it under techincal area

 

Should Capita build SIMS.net to work on Linux Unbuntu 0S?

 

 

 

Recently I was engaged on a very interested topic that I felt I should bring up here on this forum room.

 

 

If there was enough demand from LEA’s / LSU and from Schools would Capita seriously consider Writing SIMS for Linux 0S. Of course Capita would still need to sell their product for money to stay in business.

 

 

The people that I had a lively debate were serious keen to move away from Windows OS because its

 

 

• Very expensive 0S to maintain

• Lack of stability within OS

• On top of buying the OS you still have to buy Office suite that too requires upgrades from time to time hence more expense.

• Anti-Virus software is another cost factor

• Recent events such as migration from SQL2005 to SQL 2008 has added cost to some school that are still running Windows 2000 that is no longer supported by Mr Gate.

 

I think most people would agree that most school use their PC for

 

• managing pupil data

• mail merge letters and so forth

• Design Newsletter and so forth

• Emails

• Web

So why would you want to buy Windows 7 OS when all this can be done with windows 2000 , How could that be call productive.

 

 

Benefit of Linux Unbuntu

 

 

• Cheap free alternative OS that is maintained by Canonical Ltd

• Built by worldwide team of expert developers.

• Extremely satiable

• Debian derived Linux system.

• Free Office product such as OpenOffice.org by the way why is Capita not supporting OpenOffice ? This would save lots of money from school point of view.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

so there you go its now over to you the LEA / LSU / Schools to put your point of view across and let Capita then decide which route to take. After all they do want to listen to their paying customers.

[garrysaddington]

Benefit of Linux Unbuntu

 

 

• Cheap free alternative OS that is maintained by Canonical Ltd

• Built by worldwide team of expert developers.

• Extremely satiable

• Debian derived Linux system.

• Free Office product such as OpenOffice.org by the way why is Capita not supporting OpenOffice ? This would save lots of money from school point of view.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

so there you go its now over to you the LEA / LSU / Schools to put your point of view across and let Capita then decide which route to take. After all they do want to listen to their paying customers.

 

I don't know how much I can say without getting pulled again. So I'll just say that our product is fully supported on any recent Linux distribution.