As I prepare to install Ubuntu on some older computers at school, I am inspired by this librarian’s Ubuntu story.
My computer needs constantly outstrip my ability to purchase new hardware. Which explains why I’ve been meaning to give Linux a shot at some of the older hardware I have. There’s plenty of discussion about putting Linux on old hardware: on Digg, on LockerGnome, and on Linux.com.
I’ve experienced ups and downs in using open source software at my small private school. The kids love The GIMP (a Photoshop replacement) but Open Office version 1.4 was booed by the student body. Ubuntu stands to be popular because I can use Firefox — which is already our standard web browser. If a kid really needs Word, he can wait for a Windows machine to come available. 😉
Megan Hayes-Golding 
I too am a Linux user. I started out on Linux in 1998. Since then I’ve used Red Hat, Mandrake, Suse, Fedora, Debian and most recently Ubuntu. We too use Gimp in our school on both Windows and Linux. We too have used Open Office 1.1 and 2.0 and we’re going to switch back to MS Office 2000 on the Windows desktops because some have complained that we’re not preparing our students by not exposing them to MS Office.
We have a K12 Linux Terminal Server that is used as our network dhcp server and we have thirty thin clients connected to it. We’re using the Centos variant of the K12LTSP distro on a Dell 1425 server with 4 gigs of RAM. It’s been running well for two school years.
I too enjoyed the Librarian’s experience with Linux. Though our own network is primarily Microsoft Windows and Windows servers I can see a real use for Linux both on the desktop and especially on the server side of things.
This year I donated my time setting up a computer kiosk in our town hall using the K12 distro and donated computer equipment, http://countrycontemplative.wordpress.com/2006/12/17/free-software/
Thanks again for your great work and writing. I intend to continue reading your blog.
Thanks, Don, for the great words of encouragement.
I will be looking into the thin clients you mentioned because I get a lot of donated computers that would work great for web browsing and the like.