Sebastian Klick, Jochen Dierichsweiler
Every teacher knows that the use of modern media in school lessons costs time and money. However, the main problem is that many schools cannot afford the costly maintenance of their computer systems. Therefore teachers have to try to stay on top of computer maintenance in many cases. This is complicated by the fact that students do not necessarily use computers "properly". Recently, our school bought Windows XP licences for the computer lab and we started asking why a school that is short of money spends substantial amounts on licences to install Windows XP. Why does the school not use Linux and other free software? This would offer the same and even more opportunities compared to commercial Windows systems.
We believe that this situation cannot be simply tolerated anymore. Therefore we decided to build a maintenance-free computer based on free software, the stick-computer. This stick-computer mainly consists of a motherboard, a power adapter, USB ports, LAN and audio connectors. In contrast to conventional computers, the stick-computer has no moving parts except for the CPU fan. This design is very shock-resistant and it makes hardware maintenance unnecessary. Every student should have their own USB stick which stores all of their data. The stick-computer only uses open source software such as linux so that the school does not have to spend on software licence fees.
We tested several versions of Linux focusing on available software. Initially, we thought that each student should carry a Linux-Live-CD to boot the computer and a USB-stick for storing data. Eventually, we succeeded in realizing a computer that boots from the USB-stick alone. The entire operating system including all software and all data of the student are stored on the USB-stick.
We also built an indestructible suitcase computer, which can withstand all challenges of school life.
