I think this is great. We resent the licensing costs from Microsoft and it will be nice to see an affordable, viable alternative. We had considered buying one of these Dell's or converting one of our older Dell workstations to use as a web fileserver. Ubuntu offers a version called "Edubuntu" which is designed just for schools. We are watching this particular distro with great interest because as it matures, it may offer us some needed extra options instead of constantly throwing away and upgrading our older Windows desktops. We really like the KDE desktop, however, and that is not an option right now in Edubuntu. Ubuntu does have a KDE variant, however.
What we are REALLY looking for. though, is a Linux distro that incorporates Moodle and Focus /SIS together preinstalled or a distro with a friendlier installer feature in its GUI similar to Windows. I think some distros are working on this, but I am waiting for all of the above to combined into one distro. When that happens, it will be a blow for poor Bill Gates. This is the main reason the education market does not move away from Windows. We also need a solution similar to WINE to run our legacy software that is reliable. This is when Linux will gain market share.
Greg Stroud
Headmaster
Life Gate Academy
stroudg@lga.heliohost.org