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<div>With your support regarding this 'School Linux Project', do you think this is achievable within the time scale of the school opening on 2nd Sept?</div></div></div></blockquote>
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<div>No. These things <em>always</em> take longer than you think. The worst advert for Linux is a messed up half-deployment</div>
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<div>Plan out precisely what you need to do and how long realistically each one of those things will take. Then add 30% to cover unforeseen problems. </div>
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<div>Remember, you're doing this to improve their user experience. This project is <em>about</em> your users - it's not about making a political statement about Microsoft. Make sure you approach the project with your users' satisfaction number one priority at all times.</div>
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<div>Finally, make sure you throughly scan the computers in question (especially the laptops) for files stored locally. If you obliterate a teacher's family photos or their lesson plans they're not going to be happy. It doesn't matter that the files in question might not be work related - they still won't be happy and that's <em>bad</em> for you and the project.</div>
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<div>Be prepared for people to resist change. Make sure your argument focus on the benefits to your <em>users</em> not to the school's bank balance. Don't at any time mention software freedom. Users don't want or care about. Say that Linux is more secure against viruses, faster than Windows 7 on the same hardware, Open Office's UI is more consistent with their old UI than Office 2007 etc.</div>
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<div>Focus on the <em>user.</em></div>
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<div>Good luck, it sounds like an exciting project.</div>
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<div>Cheers,</div>
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<div>Simon </div>
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