Several schools in the Sheffield area have come to the conclusion that they need to use GNU/Linux rather than someone else's software.  The main consideration is the cost of GNU/Linux when compared with other manufacturers software.  They also find that GNU/Linux has a great potential in the educational arena.    There are free versions of Linux and also commercial versions.  It's possible to get hold of commercial versions at low cost.  If you want more information about that send mail to   You should get an answer fairly quickly.  I've heard several people say " Just how do we get support for Linux in Sheffield schools " ?  The answer is very simple.  A number of us do this as a free service in our spare time.  There are also a few people who offer to do support on a part time basis for money.  This is by telephone or through our discussion list.  They can also come round to your school.

If you do decide that GNU/Linux is for your school then we can put your Linux schools page here as well as point our page at your page.  This will help all of us to provide quality IT education at the same time as saving on the schools budget.  We have a discussion list which provides technical support for schools already.  We also have one or two children on that list who use Linux at home with their parents help.  To subscribe to that list you can click here.   You'll receive an authorisation code in return which you must send in to subscribe to the list.  It works that way so that spam isn't sent to the list.  We have to look after our younger Linux users.

So, to sum up you don't need to sit there on your own.  You can join in with the rest of us :)  Hope we see you soon.  

Just to repeat the words above and make it easier to understand..........

• Linux is very reliable and stable it's also low cost.
• Samba gives you a complete replacement for NT4 and MS Windows 2000.
• Open Office is available for free from www.OpenOffice.org - this will read MicrosoftTM  Lotus and Corel spreadsheets and word documents.  There are also many other free office suites.
• State of the art e-mail software - Free.
• The same software runs most of the internet and is also used in most UK Universities to train IT people.
• Pentagon class security - Free.
• Worldwide software support from newsgroups and discussion lists like our own ShefLUG list.
• Regular updates and new releases - Free.