:Community: Italian Province Schools Migrate to Linux
Community: Italian Province Schools Migrate to Linux
Aug 31, 2005, 16 :45 UTC ( Aug 31, 2005, 16 :45 UTC ( 0 Talkback[s] ) (2826 reads)
(Other stories by Antonio J. Russo
[ Thanks to Antonio J. Russo for this article. ]
During the months of July and August 2005, the computer infrastructure of all public and private schools in the Autonomous Province of Bozen in Italy have been upgraded to the free operating system FUSS Soledad GNU/Linux. This operating system is a customization made by a team of experts for the South Tyrol schools, based on the wiodely-used Debian GNU/Linux distribution with a GNOME desktop environment.
This initiative is supported and funded by the Italian Scholastic Intendancy of the Province of Bozen, the European Social Fund, and the Center for Professional Formation (CTS "Luigi Einaudi" in Italian).
With the participation of all the public and private schools, all the students, families, teachers, and operators from the educational world will gain the opportunity to easily use a entirely free operating system, both at school and at home.
Besides the the multi-language software added into the distribution, about 20,000 LiveCDs will be delivered to students and teachers, with the help of Alpikom. All students and families will have, free of charge, the same software environment and applications available in the computer classes at school.
This process of migrating and training users about the new operating system--and to free software in general--within several educational programs will be supported by a specialized team during the entire academic year 2005/2006. The main task to be accomplished by this team will be to offer support and to develop reaserch tasks, both on the technical and the educational arenas for all the educational units.
The switch to the new operating system will be facilitated, beginning in September 2005, by several courses for all the schools' operators, and almost 40 installfests. This approach will allow all educators in the schools learn about this peculiar version of the GNU/Linux operating system. The installfests will let everyone to have their computer system installed with the FUSS Soledad distribution.
Along with the great didactic and pedagogical research effort made by the Intendacy, the project will offer schools an important choice towards knowledge freedom and sharing free software solutions. It also delivers a full-life right to learn and increased freedom for all the users to use, copy, redistribute, and modify the software and the operating system without any restrictions.
The project is coordinated by Paolo Zilotti and Antonio J. Russo and supported by the excellent technical staff guided by Christopher R. Gabriel of Truelite srl, which completed the deployment of 2,460 PCs in 23 working days, guaranteeing a high-quality standard defined in the analsys phase of the project.
For the Province Council Member for Italian schools Luisa Gnecchi and the Scholastic Intendant Prof. Bruna Rauzi Visintin, this project will introduce a higher level of pedagogical impact and a fundamental choice towards a more dynamic and distributed use of information technologies.
Free Software is a cultural and professional enrichment that can't be excluded from the education world, a philosophy strongly supported by the department director Dott. Barbara Repetto and the director of the CTS "Luigi Einaudi" Dott. Giandomenico Sbop.
For more information:
http://www.fuss.bz.it
info@fuss.bz.it
Related Stories:
Linux Journal: Linux in Italian Schools, Part 1(May 18, 2005)
IDA: Italian Government Compares Office Suites(Sep 23, 2004)
IDG.SG: Rome City Council Opts for Open Source(Feb 27, 2004)
Durante el verano está siendo instalada una distribución del sistema operativo GNU/Linux en 2.460 equipos en la provincia de Bolzano de Tirol del Sur. Este despliegue incluye las 70 escuelas públicas y privadas, y afecta a más de 16.000 estudiantes.

La distribución instalada, ''FUSS Soledad GNU/Linux'', es una versión creada a partir de la popular distribución Debian GNU/Linux. ''FUSS Soledad GNU/Linux'' tiene soporte multilingüe y utiliza el entorno de trabajo GNOME.

Además de los equipos de sobremesa en las escuelas, se crearán más de 20.000 "LiveCDs" para ser distribuidos gratuitamente a los estudiantes y a sus familias. Estos LiveCDs permiten a los estudiantes utilizar en sus casas el mismo software que utilizan en las escuelas.

El co-director del proyecto, Antonio Russo informó que, "Con la participación de todas las escuelas públicas y privadas, todos los estudiantes, familias, maestros y operadores del mundo de la educación tendrán oportunidad de utilizar un sistema de operación completamente libre, tanto en la escuela como en casa."

Este proyecto fue financiado por la provincia de Bolzano, el Fondo Social Europeo y el Centro para la Formación Profesional en Idioma Italiano.