On Fri 02 Nov, Phil Driscoll wrote:
Just returned from an excellent day at Silcoates - thanks to all involved. We could do with more events of that type!
Cheers
I would be very happy to second that. Just for those that weren't there... Silcoates moved from a classroom based peer-peer networking arrangement to a school server based network. And they decided to use LINUX as their servers for authenticating W95/98 logons as well as Email and Web services (spread over a couple of servers). Considering the cost of NT servers serious questions should well be raised nationally as to why schools use NT servers....or indeed why Educational suppliers like RM don't promote and support this kind of solution (it could save them money from customer support - as it works so well - and save the customer too!). I was also interested to see them using their own filtering based on 'lists' from Toulouse Universty - which saved on the cost of commercial filerting products. I still can't see LINUX as being accectable as a general desktop solution for schools due to the large number of commercial software packages that depend on windows and the time to sort out testing for whether or not using WINE would allow them to work. However, I could see Star Office 6 as being a very acceptable replacement for Microsoft Office. -- Alan Davies Head of Computing Birkenhead School