[Lancaster] Fw: [was lugmaster] Fwd: Linux-refurbished Laptops for Nepal Appeal!

[Mark Williams]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 11:27:38 +0000
From: "Mark Broadbent" <mgjbroadbent at googlemail.com>
To: lugmaster at mailman.lug.org.uk
Subject: [lugmaster] Fwd: Linux-refurbished Laptops for Nepal Appeal!

Hi All,

I've been asked by a member of my LUG (Herefordshire) if the following
notice could be circulated around as many LUGs as possible please.

All follow-ups to this should be directed to Matt Rhys-Roberts at
eccn at spherica.demon.co.uk

Thanks
Mark Broadbent
Herefordshire LUG

---------------
A small business in North Wales has hit upon the idea of supplying a
school in an impoverished area of Nepal, with refurbished laptop
computers running Linux. In their own words:

"The Shree Garma Secondary School is in the Solukhumbu district of Nepal
and is only 40 miles from Everest. It is extremely isolated and there are
no roads. It can be reached by an internal flight from Kathmandu followed
by a three hour walk. It is obviously very poor and most people are
subsistence farmers.

The school caters for around 150 children of all ages. They have only the
most basic facilities and no electricity. Their main priority is to have
computers. Initially we are going to try and supply them with six lap top
computers which can be charged in houses which do have electricity and
longer term our aim is to develop a hydro power station which could
potentially provide electricity to many houses as well as the school.

Katlan Trading Company based at The Souk in Llangollen is committed to
helping this school through importing goods from Nepal. A percentage of
all sales will go direct to the school. We are not a registered charity
but instead are aiming to help through direct trade."


The company wishes to enlist the help of any UK LUG members who can a)
gather unused laptops, b) install Linux on them, and c) send them to a
central collection point to be announced.

The ideal Linux distro remains to be decided, since equipment will vary
greatly. However it is hoped, hardware permitting, that each laptop will
have installed on it a minimum of: a working X server, OpenOffice (or
smaller office apps for lesser machines), a graphics package, printer
and network support, email, IRC, and of course the Nepali language as
far as possible. There appears to be a Nepali distro already underway at
http://www.nepalinux.org/ , which may be suitable for some hardware. For
lesser machines, perhaps Damn Small Linux, Vector Linux or Knoppix may
be more appropriate.

The village has no phone network yet, but one is anticipated there
within the next 2 years!

Please contact me if you can contribute in any way to this project. I
aim to help coordinate efforts to source donated laptops, test them,
install appropriate software, then perform a final quality check. We are
still at the planning stage, seeing who's really available to help. No
doubt this project could generate some very good publicity for Linux
abroad, waste prevention and fair trade.

Regards,
Matt Rhys-Roberts, Wrexham
eccn at spherica.demon.co.uk
(Herefordshire LUG member)

PS. Further reading for inspiration (it looks like there's already a
good & growing Nepalese Linux user base!):

http://www.researchut.com/repository/linux-nepal.html
  A non-profit organization dedicated to promoting GNU/Linux in the
kingdom of the Himalayas
http://www.nepalinux.org/
  The new release NepaLinux 1.1 is a relatively bug-free and revised
version of the previous beta release.
http://www.linuxnepal.com.np/aboutus/
  A Linux enthusiasts' site in Nepal
-------------------------
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-- 
Mark Broadbent
* http://www.wetlettuce.com/

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