jamesb

Sounds almost identical to our situation here. We'll be switching over to new blade servers, with server 2008 running on them. The network'll be purely vanilla, we've currently got Ranger which is going to be removed, or rather not reinstalled on the new network when we re-image all of the PCs. The admin network, and the curriculum network, are essentially being scrapped. Data is gradually being moved across to our new servers, and the structure's being built up. Testing'll be done over the summer holidays and the whole thing should be live by the time the students and staff come back.

Not sure about for a larger school, but for about 150 stations we're paying just short of £700 for licenses. They get cheaper if you've got more stations. That, of course, is on top of the initial cost of the hardware which has run into a few thousand for us. Excellent piece of kit though, just a few minor problems that still need hammering out to do with the box itself crashing every now and then.

ICT - Information Communication Technology, yes? Computing would be processing data and learning to manipulate it. In DT people are learning, essentially, to design and build things. The purpose of DT is not to teach someone to use a drill, it is to teach them how to put a chair together. So why exactly is ICT expected to teach them how to use something which is unrelated to the actual technology? If its going to be about manipulating data, that's computing. If its going to be about the technology then stick with the name ICT and actually teach them about the technology. As to the concepts of word processing not having changed in several decades, they've only been around for that long. Even with the argument about the first true word processing software giving dates between about 1976 and 1984 word processing isn't that old. Even ignoring that the concept of how to present information has changed massively. Word processors now include such wonderful things as macros, can have scripting, images, animations, pretty much whatever you want. Go back a couple of decades and what you've got is none of that. So yes, concepts do change and so does the way we present information. In that case surely teaching students how to use a data gathering source should be ICTs job. So should teaching someone how to use a calculator, its a computer after all, and a tool, obviously it isn't math's job to teach a student how to use it. Then its computing, and not IT.

So just to confirm, what I need to do is download the source, apply the diff file, and build the source? And I take back some of my concerns about the support issues with Linux, the rest rely on this solution actually working.

Lets be honest though, by the time they finish school in a few years time most likely the application concepts themselves will have changed. Personally I think the very focus of the IT curriculum is flawed. It shouldn't be about applications, but much more of a focus on fundamentals such as networking, system architecture, interface design and so on. Technical support would be a nice one to add in as well. These are the things that people who want to focus on IT will actually need. As to learning to write a good document, that's English's job. Presentation? Art or graphical design, or any subject really. Excel spreadsheets? Maths. Why should IT have to carry the weight for these subjects while its own topics are ignored?

The correct and officially supported version of Ubuntu is 6.06. I've got it working quite happily there now. The problem with installing on 8.04, as I tried, was to do with a package. Specifically it was because of the package libgmp3 being repackaged as libgmp3c2. The installer failed to recognise this, and after spending three hours searching and trying various fixes I eventually gave up. This kind of highlights my major issue with Linux. Again though, I love the Linux philosophy, and the system itself. I have it running my home fileserver, as well as on my desktop and laptop. But that's because when they break down I have the luxury of trying to find a fix at my leisure, as well as having time to sit and play around with things to try and make something work. When I'm at work and something breaks, if I can't fix it with my own knowledge I need a central respository where I can be almost certain that there's a fix, and failing that I can use one of my TechNet subscription tickets if I absolutely have to. I know that there are wikis and similar for Linux but I've often found that they lack the solutions I'm looking for, or at least that the solutions to problems can be very hard to find. Which is why I'm planning to put quite a few of our services onto Linux servers. Possibly not the proxy yet, but for E-mail I'm trying to talk them into going with Zimbra over Exchange, and my print server will definitely be a Linux system. And a lot of followers are evangelical. I suppose its just my natural rebellion against being preached to that makes me sceptical of some aspects of Linux. Now, if someone can find me some sort of knowledgebase, or anything else, that gives me a fix for the Zimbra on Ubuntu 8.04 issue (just as an example), and can honestly say that they found it within an hour of searching, I'll quite happily take back my doubts about the support provided.

Even in that case a lot of the textbooks refer to Microsoft Office. Not something I agree with at all, and I'm actually in discussions with the Head of IT not only to move away from the ECDL to a proper GCSE course but also to move over to OpenOffice, but the point is that the schools I have worked at generally have office because it is simply easier when the textbooks match the program. If you know of any textbooks or other teaching materials based on OpenOffice instead, I'd love to hear about them. Not a problem I've ever really had with Microsoft to be honest. The service packs are big changes, and sometimes do break something, but I've never had a problem with it. Not only that but if something is broken (and in a way this is the really vital bit) I can phone Microsoft and get a workaround or fix. Linux support, in my experience (the free stuff, not the commercial support) is a little more piecemeal and often means spending hours looking through forums, wikis and similar in the vague hope that someone has had the same error. Because they don't know the system, simple as that. I'm currently struggling to get a few people to accept using an EEE PC instead of a full-featured, massive laptop. They're happy with the EEE PC itself, but all want Windows on it (I know that Windows can be put on them, I just prefer the Linux system that's already there).

I agree, wholeheartedly in principle, but unfortunately most of the teaching content for ICT teachers to use relies on certain programs. We do the ECDL qualification, and for that you have to use Microsoft Office (2003 irritatingly enough, which is what's holding us back from upgrading). As to going completely over to Linux all I can say is that while I love the operating system I wouldn't want to be the one to support it. With Microsoft patches come out each week, and I can quickly test those and ship them out, but a new operating system itself comes out once every four years or so. That's not enough for me to worry about. Many of the Linux distros I'd consider for school desktops change version every six months. That's twice a year. Sure much of the stuff may remain the same, but having tried to do something as simple as installing Zimbra on the wrong version number of Ubuntu server I can't help but think what a nightmare support could become when the new distro breaks something vital, simply by renaming a package. I'll happily use it for non-vital servers, in fact I prefer it, or even for certain vital systems such as proxy or e-mail, but I'm not so confident that users would be happy with it. One of the commercial Linux distros would reassure me a little more, but on the other hand then you're paying for it so the whole benefit of it being free vanishes.

I just picked myself up two low-specced, but reasonable servers from Misco for around £600 (that also included an extra pair of 500GB drives and a few other toys). Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Standard goes to schools at about £56.80 according to my Pugh catalogue, and I wouldn't imagine 2003 would be more.

Just pulled out my own EEE PC now and working through it. I'll note down as I go. Ctrl-Alt-T to pull up the terminal. This puts you into your home directory. Type "vi .bashrc" Once in the bashrc file scroll down to the end of the file, then along to the last character on that line. Press 'a'. Press enter to move to a new line, then again so you've got a little space to work. Type '# Proxy settings for ' Press enter. Type 'http_proxy="http://<:password>@<:port>/"' Press enter. Type 'export http_proxy' Press Esc. Type :wq to save the file and quit vi. Should then be held there and automatically export the variable each time. Hopefully that'll do what you want, its working on mine at least. Do not type any of the single quotes, but you do need the double quotes around the proxy address.

Go into the command-line, and type the text as described. If you need authentication though you'll need to make it: $export http_proxy="http://:@:/" That'll need to be done each time the machine is restarted, though you can edit /home/username/.bashrc to include the line.

Full suit, shirt, tie, jacket, the lot. If I have to crawl around under a desk, which doesn't happen too often, I hang up the jacket and tuck the tie in.

Original Neverwinter Nights might be worth looking at, multiplayer with co-operative or competitive, and you can adjust the 'gore' content of the game. Plenty of modules available online as well.