News

Linux in action: A public library's success story

May 10, 2004

Howard County, Md.-Over the past year, the Howard County  Public Library has migrated more than 200 public PCs from Windows 98 and Windows NT to Linux according to an article on Newsforge.com.

The library system-the main branch and five satellite branches-offers free Wi-fi access and the use of "kiosk-style" PCs to explore the Internet and search the catalogues.

When its 200 public-access PCs were running on Windows 98 and Windows NT the maintenance costs to patch and maintain them kept growing with every newly discovered virus or security hole.

There was finally another option when Dynix, a major vendor of library software, began to offer a new version of PAC, which enables public access to library catalogues. PAC can be used on any platform with a Web browser so it was an opportunity to escape the Windows cash crunch.

So it was only natural that, given the freedom provided by Dynix's platform-neutral offering, the use of Linux for the public access machines be evaluated as well.

Using Linux From Scratch as a starting point, the engineers built a minimal Linux kernel that included only the functionality required by the "kiosk style" machines. They added the Gnome desktop environment, the Mozilla browser, and OpenOffice.org to complete the picture.

The IT staff is happy because each PC runs a script twice a day to check for any configuration changes or patches, so they no longer have to visit each machine individually in order to roll out new functionality or upgrades.

Library management is happy because of the money it is saving. Those savings come from reduced administration costs and from hardware savings.

The hardware savings are the result of not having to buy new PCs capable of running Windows XP to replace older boxes which lack sufficient memory and power. That means the 15 new PCs purchased since the rollout are additions to the library's offerings, not replacements.