Linux Mint สำหรับโรงเรียนและหน่วยงาน

Linux Mint สำหรับโรงเรียน และ หน่วยงาน

I wrote a note on alternatives to WinXP which will be unsupported from April next year (see http://www.gotoknow.org/journals/127965).

I don't know how many schools, libraries, hospitals and clinics, government offices and private sector companies are still running WinXP. My guess based on my experiance in Australia is 2 in 3 offices are still running their computers on WinXP -- that means a few million machines!

In Thailand, I think the situation would be much the same -- millions of computers will affected.

(Let just say 1 million machines are affected for the sake of argument.) To update to Win7 or Win8,1 maybe possible for a few (late P4 CPU with 2+GB RAM) machines. Any older machines or machines with less than 2GB RAM will have to find alternative way to keep them going.

I suggested CentOS or LinuxMint (โอ๋ อโณ is trying LinuxMInt and likes it.)  Many other Linux distributions will also offer the same capability -- enabling Internet browsing, word processing, database applications, spreadsheet and 'slides' making, graphic editing, .... all with "free" software. Thai writing (input), unicode Thai encoding for multiple language documents, Thai filenames, ... will make easy document exchange,,,

[Thailand should adopt Unicode encoding in all official documents rather than Windows-874 encoding.]

I think schools and offices should try either CentOS or LinuxMint before they throw away the old machines and buy ones with Win7 or Win8,1. They could be saving a lot money in the next two years. (Computers don't last forever like books, and tablets will replace desktop computers in about 2 year time.)

Thailand would save some $60 million (1,800 million baht) in OS upgrades; $500 million (15,000 million baht) in hardware replacement; some $200 million (6,000 million baht) in other application software upgrades; ...

Imagine LinuxMint saving the country over 20,000 million baht! (I can ;-)

[I should get a medal for this ;-) but I think what I will get is a lot of rotten eggs and bashing-burning-booing ... stemming a tide of money mongering can have severe consequences ;-) ]

[Dr. Ple]

 

 

  Thailand should adopt Unicode encoding in all official documents ....

 

Saving the country over 20,000 million baht!....

[GD]

Thank you. I will forward your journal to my former students who are in charge of the computer center of a university. I hope they are already aware of LinusMint but still have no plan for  changing of the system being adopeted now. 

["พี่หนาน"]

1.เราต้องเปิดใจยอมรับปรับเปลี่ยนทัศนคติเป็นลำดับแรก

2.คำนึงถึงความเป็นไปได้ ของระบบใหม่ การลงทุน จุดคุ้มทุน

3.ทดลองหรือนำร่องในหน่วยงานของภาครัฐ เช่นมหาวิทยาลัยสักสองแห่งเพื่อเปรียบเทียบกับของเดิม

4.เห็นว่าดีกว่า ใช้ได้ไม่มีปัญหา ดำเนินการถ่ายทอดการใช้งาน การติดตั้งทั้งระบบ

5.ส่วนตัวยอมรับว่ายังไม่มีความรู้ทางด้านนี้  "ถ่ายทอดให้ผู้ไม่รู้ได้รู้เหมือนอย่างที่ท่านรู้" 

[sr]

Thank you Dr Ple : You give me another chance to talk about character encoding (TIS 620, MS code page 874, ISO/IEC 8859, Unicode and UTF-8 -- stuff like that ;-). Thailand's standard encoding is the TIS-620, but a number of government websites still carrying on with Microsoft's propriety codepage 874 --shame, shame, shame--. Unicodes have been to allow multiple character sets/languages in one document. The Internet has now adopted UTF-8 (which is a shorthand codeset for some millions unicode characters).

Why Unicode or UTF-8? 

1) document unterchange (partners in AEC); TIS-620 and MS-874 only encode Thai and English but not other character sets in AEC.

2) UTF-8 is preferred on the Internet; the Internet is "the" most used infrastructure for communications; compliance to Internet makes sense and better use of standardised resources;

3) MS-874 is being phased out and replaced by Unicode16/32 on Windows 7 & 8.1 conversion to UTF-8 from Unicode16/32 and TIS-620 is by computation and hence less costly than from MS-874 where table look-up is required.

UTF-8 is a more compact format for unicode --saving space/size-- and can be converted to Unicode16/32 efficiently.

What do we do with old documents coded in MS-874?

For archive purposes: just store them as they are;

For reference purposes (frequent retrival): convert them to UTF-8 (using LibreIffice or OpenOffice or MSOffice)

For use as forms: convert them to UTF-8 and save as Master documents; convert from the Master ducuments to PDF for public use.

There is no excuse for not creating new documents or saving recieved documents in UTF-8. Absolutely!

Here is what Wikipedia says:

The Microsoft Windows code page 874 as well as the code page used in the Thai version of the Apple Macintosh, MacThai, are extensions of TIS-620 — incompatible with each other, however.

UTF-8 (UCS Transformation Format—8-bit[1]) is a variable-width encoding that can represent every character in the Unicode character set. It was designed for backward compatibility with ASCII and to avoid the complications of endianness and byte order marks in UTF-16 and UTF-32.

UTF-8 has become the dominant character encoding for the World Wide Web, accounting for more than half of all Web pages.[2][3][4] The Internet Mail Consortium (IMC) recommends that all e-mail programs be able to display and create mail using UTF-8.[5] UTF-8 is also increasingly being used as the default character encoding in operating systems, programming languages, APIs, and software applications.[citation needed]

[sr]

Thank you Dr GD for giving attention to what I said. I think, most self-respecting 'system admins' would be 'au faire' with Linux of some flavours (distros). Very likely are systems with WinXP workstations (terminals) and Linux servers. Many  hybrid configurations have been worked out and used around the world. (Sssshhhhu, even Microsoft uses Linux servers ;-). But, system admins don't always get to make the right decisions on system upgrades. many times money blurs management eyes and taxpayers' money is wasted on "wrong decisions" that system admins have to work harder to keep the systems going.

However I am glad to know that you too are concerned with Thailand's expenditure and standardisation.

 

Hi "พี่หนาน" : Yes, we can go and write up a proposal, make some tests, submit to a committee with cost/benefit and recommendation for any thing. If we can convince "the boss" to go with it. (If we can whisper some right words the boss wants to hear.) You and I know how to write a submission for a budget allocation, right? Try writing one that says "we will not buy but spend money on training people" -- staff development has ...? priority ranking at your work?

Linux has been around for a few years -- not a new kid on the block. It is tried and tested by millions around the world especially in educational institutions and there are a lot "ecperts" who deserve some work -- perhaps Thailand can also build up Linux skills which can apply to Android tablets and Android phones -- the essential comm devices for 21C. So we may save 20,000 million baht and become Linux savy at the same time.

Would you now want to write about it? Or just sit on Windows and sulk?

;-)