The Zolnierzy Sybiru high school in the Polish city of Lubawka says that switching school PCs to Linux has made them faster, while saving money otherwise spent on licences for proprietary software, reports FWIOO, the foundation for Free and Open Source Software. The school has converted 11 of its PCs to running Ubuntu Linux, shared by 55 students. The switch is the initiative of one of the school's teachers.

The 11 PCs were bought in 2005, using funds supplied by the Ministry of Education. The PCs were running a decade-old proprietary operating system. In September, the PCs were switched to running Ubuntu Linux. The education ministry was not involved in the plans for the migration, FWIOO says.

In September, the NGO published a brief report on its site, summarising the high school's switch to Ubuntu Linux. Not only is this collection of software applications free, it also does not require anti-virus applications. The systems and their applications are also easy to configure and manage.

The teacher has opted to make the students store their data in a free cloud solution offered by Canonical, the firm behind Ubuntu Linux.

"By using Ubuntu, these computers run faster and more reliable", FWIOO notes. "That is extremely valuable."

No thought control

Since its inception in 2007, FWIOO is reaching out to schools and educational organisations, promoting Linux and freesoftware. One of the Fundation's long-running projects, SWOI, aims at producing a whole ICT education curriculum based entirely on free software, along with a purpose-made GNU/Linux image. The Project's 'libre-licensed' products should be available in mid-2014.

More information:

Zolnierzy Sybiru high school's use of Ubuntu Linux (in Polish)
SWOI project