NSW considers giving students Linux laptops | Australian IT

NSW secondary school students could be issued with $56 million worth of Linux-based laptops as part of Kevin Rudd's digital education revolution.

The state wants government secondary school students to tote around computers built specifically for the education market.

Jim McAlpine, NSW Secondary Principals' Council president, said sellers could look at offering non-proprietary software for the laptops, such as Edubuntu, the education version of popular Linux distribution Ubuntu.

"The laptops can run on an open source operating system with a suite of open source applications like those packaged under Edubuntu.

"This would include Open Office for productivity software, Gimp for picture editing and the Firefox internet browser.

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