Ubuntu/OpenSource for my school

[mD3m4r415]

Hello all,
My town/school is very under budget (idk if that makes sense).
i want to go and propose that they start to use ubuntu or at least opensource apps for windows xp.. i think they should use:
1) open office
2)evolution
3) foxit reader (idk if it is open source tho)
4) firefox

any suggestions on how i should propose this idea.. or any more apps..


BTW: it is a high school 800-1200 students

[Espreon]

Foxit is not FOSS. For Windows I would sugest Sumatra PDF. For Ubuntu just use Evince which is included...

[drascus]

Get in touch with you schools IT admin. If you know a Tech teacher that is into Gnu/Linux talk to them and find out the landscape of the schools politics. Find other students who like this idea as well. Then you can have a small coalition pushing for this. With that it shouldn't be to hard to put together a group to push for a change.

[cardinals_fan]

They may not be ready to switch to Linux, but using Firefox is a no-brainer. It has more features and is vastly more secure than IE.

[aysiu]

I'd start with OpenOffice and GIMP in Windows, as those will give the school cost savings on licenses (Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop). Once they understand that open source is a positive thing, you can start moving them to Firefox, Audacity, FileZilla, and a host of other open source programs available for Windows.

And if they dig all that, it shouldn't be too difficult to switch them over to a Linux distro to save on all those Windows licenses and security headaches, too.

Be aware of all the restrictions they have in place. Even though OpenOffice may work fine for the students and faculty, the staff may require a lot of Windows-only software (Filemaker Pro or Quickbooks, for example).