Cassidy: Linux could ease schools’ tech crunch

“‘One viable solution to getting the old computers working again
is to install Linux on them,’ Peter Perpich, a San Jose Web
application engineer, wrote in an e-mail. ‘Linux needs
significantly less processing power than Windows and is free. There
is also a wealth of free open-source software for the
platform.’

“Perpich was thinking of Davis Intermediate School when he wrote
to me. My column talked about how the San Jose school was grappling
with a problem that illustrates the struggle many cash-strapped
schools have when it comes to computers. The PC lab at Davis is
filled with computers that are so old they can’t handle an upgrade
to the Windows version they’re running. The Windows version is so
old that Microsoft will soon stop supporting it, leaving
administrators worried about increased vulnerability to viruses.
Replacing the computers isn’t in the budget. And so the school
principal has been considering disconnecting the machines from the
Internet, rendering them slightly more functional than paper
weights.”

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