People/Successfull/PradenaMontejo
From TcosProject
[edit] Public Internet Centers in Pradena and Montejo (Madrid's Sierra Norte)
(Centros de Acceso Público a Internet - CAPI)
[edit] Background
These centers have been running for some years now, and are a public initiative to encourage a wider adoption of the Internet and new technologies in rural areas. Their main aim is to provide free internet access, and offer training courses.
Initially both these centers, and most in the region, were set up with Windows XP, but in the last two years, more municipalities have decided to change the management of the project, and have started to use Free Software. The centers in Pradena and Montejo have been running with TCOS and Debian since February 2008.
[edit] Why we chose a thin client installation
The thin clients used in both these centers are not such old machines (some AMD Sempron and some PIV), but the use of tcos allowed us to:
- Increase the number of clients with older machines
- Ease administration and maintenance tasks
- Allow compatibility with the different uses of the center: Free access to the Internet, and training.
When the computers are being used for courses, students should have total access to the computer, and be able to install, configure and investigate freely. But immediately after courses, the same machines must be up and running for internet access, and other uses. Booting with tcos, the clients are always ready and functioning without any problems, but each client can also be booted on its own to allow students to do anything with them.