The Greek free software advocacy group Greeklug donated a computer lab based on free and open source software to a shelter for children in the village of Filyro, north of Thessaloniki. Apart from donating installation and hardware, the group is also organising training courses for the children.

"We contacted the orphanage, offering our expertise, our time and efforts", comments vice-president of Greeklug and paediatrician Kostas Mousafiris. The group members donated some of the hardware, including seven PCs, one server, a laptop, network cables and other peripherals

The computer class room for the child care centre, Elliniko Pediko Xorio, was refurbished in December and January. The group announced its work in a press statement published last month.

Most PCs and the server run the Ubuntu Linux distribution. One PC is fitted with a Ubuntu derivative, gNewSense. Mousafiris: "These Ubuntu distributions offer an enormous repository, complete with all sorts of educational applications. We use their so-called 'Long Term Support Edition' and that minimises the maintenance effort."

The Greeklug also implemented Squid as a proxy server and configured Dansguardian to filter unwanted web content. For the project the free software group also translated some of the software into Greek. The group is making these translations publicly available.

One of the group members, primary school teacher Yannis Kaskamanidis, has offered to help making the children familiar with the new set-up. "The centre is busy scheduling a number of classes."

The advocacy group has recently started to work on second, comparable computer lab. It will be built for a primary school in Pilea, a suburb of Thessaloniki.

More information:
Greeklug (in Greek)
Children Village (in Greek)
Municipal Centre for Informatics and Free Software in Pilea (in Greek)