Kites rolls out new OS for schools

Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITES) has rolled out the latest version of its Linux-based free operating system “IT@Scho-olGNU/Linux 18.04” for schools based on the Ubuntu OS LTS edition.

In addition to being the ideal OS for teachers and students in schools, this can also be used for home computers for general purposes, government offices, DTP centres which used office packages, Internet kiosks, software developers, college students and other computer service providers as a complete computing platform which is free of cost.

Had these applications been proprietary, each computer would have cost a minimum of Rs 1.50 lakh towards license fee.

The cost for periodic updations for these proprietary versions would be over and above this.

“The deployment of the new OS in over 2 lakh computers in schools including 60,000 laptops as part of Hi-Tech school project and 55,000 laptops as part of Hi-Tech Lab project would be completed before the start of next academic year itself,” said K. Anvar Sadath, the KITE chief.

“The total savings is estimated at `3000 crore, considering `1.50 lakh each in over 2 lakh computers. More than the financial savings part, the biggest advantage of the Free OS is its ability to study and share without any restrictions and to make necessary modifications and publishing, which is of high relevance when it comes to the education sector."

The Operating System can be freely downloaded from the website of KITE www.kite.kerala.gov.in under the tab Services -> Download link. KITE would also arrange Install Fests for the public for free installation of the Operating System, throu-gh its Little KITEs IT Clubs networks

The new version of the Operating System (OS) featured several free applications which are not part of the Ubuntu 18.04 repository. Most applications have been updated to their latest versions and customised as per the state school curriculum.

Office packages, language input tools, database applications, DTP- Graphics- Image editing software, sound recording- video editing- 3 D animation packages, IDEs for Programming, Geograph-ical Information System, Database servers and desktop versions of Mobile Apps featured in the new OS.

Internationally acclaim-ed free software applications used to teach various subjects using IT, such as GeoGebra, PhEt, Stellerium, Kalcium, Ma-rble, RasMol, GPlates, gh-emical, GCompris, pySio Game and JFraction lab, have been customised and localised before incorporating in the OS. Edu-cational resources sites such as KITE VICTERS channel, Samagra Portal, and School Wiki can be directly accessed through the OS.