Xavier School Deploys 600 Ubuntu Linux Desktops
Xavier is the latest K-12 school to move Ubuntu Linux to the head of the class. In fact, the school has deployed more than 600 Ubuntu desktops, according to Pierre Tagle, Xavier’s consulting IT director. During a recent email exchange with WorksWithU, Tagle described why the San Juan, Phillipines-based school has fallen for Ubuntu.
“Our large-scale deployment of Ubuntu began last April 2008,” writes Tagle. “The reason to choose Ubuntu started due to cost issues brought about by Microsoft’s base licenses and subscription licenses. The choice of Ubuntu is due to its ease of use as a desktop OS and the availability of Edubuntu.”
Still, Ubuntu has not made the leap from Xavier‘s desktops to servers. “Our servers are mostly Linux-based, though most of the run Red Hat or CentOS. Red Hat is required by IBM for a supported installation of Lotus Notes.”
Meanwhile, the school also has a 50-computer mobile lab, which is standardized on Ubuntu. “Aside from this, we have another 120+ MacOS desktops and 100+ MacBook laptops used by our faculty members,” writes Tagle.
In the months ahead, WorksWithU will take a closer look at Ubuntu in the K-12 and higher education markets. Also, we continue to amass the WorksWithU 1000 — a fast-growing list of Ubuntu deployments across the globe.
Nice to hear this piece of news. Good choice.
Xavier ? Isn’t that where the X-Men go to school ? Makes sense though, X-men, X.org … seems a natural fit for GNU/Linux don’t it 🙂
Good to hear. I haven’t switched my school to GNU/Linux yet because we use some applications (PageMaker and QuickBooks) that don’t work with Wine and there are no viable alternatives.
Will the school be using wine to run anything (maybe Microsoft Office)?
Anyways, good news. Thanks.
Alan
Instead of wasting your time on global Ubuntu deployments, focus on the local Philippine deployments and scenario. This is where FOSS will really shine specially since there’s no cost issue involve (unless you’re a politican then that’s a whole different story).
This is good news, wish their was this kind of sensible thinking here in the UK. My friend who is a teacher just this week pulled two pc’s out of a skip from his school and passed them to me as he knows I can always do with more hardware. These PC’s were 1.8ghz P4’s. The reason for them being thrown out….Too slow!
I have Ubuntu on them now and they run great, nothing wrong with them at all. Also to note that the school was for children aged between 4 and 11 so I fail to see how they needed even faster machines, unless they had just become gunked up with all the crud that attached itself to Windows.
Jack @4: As a global web site we can’t just focus on the Philippine deployments. But we will certainly write about them. And you’ll be seeing dozens of additional Ubuntu customer stories in the months ahead.
Its good news to hear to all Ubuntu geeks and fanatics.
Ubuntu is growing and growing and growing. Long Live
Ubuntu…
We should practice using open source applications now
a days cuz cuz its all free.
Keep up the good work, guys! Your site reinforces my faith in Ubuntu in particular, and open source in general. I hope to put the company I work for in your survey soon!
Why not make a survey of how many companies are also switching to go-oo (go-oo.org) or openoffice?
Our private school, Tayabas Western Academy, much smaller than Xavier, also migrated to Ubuntu back in 2008.
That’s 30 desktops for our elementary computer lab and another 52 in our high school and college lab. Plus the 8 desktops in the library. All running on Ubuntu. A handful of younger generation teachers are now happy “converts” after I convinced them not to spend their hard-earned money when there is a free and very good alternative.
I heard a good number of state-run universities here in the Philippines are now also using Ubuntu for their computer laboratories.
For basic user-proficiency courses like OpenOffice or LibreOffice plus Chrome to browse the Internet, Ubuntu is a much welcome thing for schools without deep pockets.