Proyecto Ceibal: Uruguay's project for OLPC deployment
Paw Prints: Writings of the maddog
Last week I was in Montevideo, Uruguay. While there I visited the people who are rolling out the deployment of the XO (nee OLPC) systems, named "Proyecto Ceibal".
Ceibal's office was located in an incubator where small businesses are started. Project Ceibal occupied two locations in the series of "incubator" buildings. Uruguay is very serious about deploying the laptops, and today the project is deploying about 1,600 laptops per day. They believe that the first wave of laptops will be completely deployed by the end of 2009 (the country of Uruguay has a population of 3,460,607 people according to a July 2007 estimation).
Along with the notebooks, of course, is the deployment of servers and Internet connectivity. Some servers support up to 1000 laptops, others as few as five. One teacher reported that before the project brought the laptops to his five students, there was no electricity in the village, not even a light bulb. Now the parents of the children are also coming to the school to "connect to the Internet" for the information they need.
Proyecto Ceibal has rooms of people who are performing tasks such as assembling and testing access points and antennas. Other rooms have people planning placement of those access points and antennas to assure line-of-sight radio over long distances, and good WiFi coverage throughout the rooms of a school. Still more rooms have a group of support people, who can remotely monitor the servers and laptops seeing if they are still working properly. If not, they try to log in and fix the problem, or dispatch a person to a potentially far-flung village to help get the system(s) back on-line.
Proyecto Ceibal is busy trying to figure out how to remotely administer and support all these servers. Part of the problem is that download speeds are fairly high, but upload speeds are relatively small. The budgets of these small schools do not allow for the larger update speeds.
Despite some issues, the Ceibal people keep delivering laptops to children.
comments powered by DisqusSubscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Canonical Releases Ubuntu 24.04
After a brief pause because of the XZ vulnerability, Ubuntu 24.04 is now available for install.
-
Linux Servers Targeted by Akira Ransomware
A group of bad actors who have already extorted $42 million have their sights set on the Linux platform.
-
TUXEDO Computers Unveils Linux Laptop Featuring AMD Ryzen CPU
This latest release is the first laptop to include the new CPU from Ryzen and Linux preinstalled.
-
XZ Gets the All-Clear
The back door xz vulnerability has been officially reverted for Fedora 40 and versions 38 and 39 were never affected.
-
Canonical Collaborates with Qualcomm on New Venture
This new joint effort is geared toward bringing Ubuntu and Ubuntu Core to Qualcomm-powered devices.
-
Kodi 21.0 Open-Source Entertainment Hub Released
After a year of development, the award-winning Kodi cross-platform, media center software is now available with many new additions and improvements.
-
Linux Usage Increases in Two Key Areas
If market share is your thing, you'll be happy to know that Linux is on the rise in two areas that, if they keep climbing, could have serious meaning for Linux's future.
-
Vulnerability Discovered in xz Libraries
An urgent alert for Fedora 40 has been posted and users should pay attention.
-
Canonical Bumps LTS Support to 12 years
If you're worried that your Ubuntu LTS release won't be supported long enough to last, Canonical has a surprise for you in the form of 12 years of security coverage.
-
Fedora 40 Beta Released Soon
With the official release of Fedora 40 coming in April, it's almost time to download the beta and see what's new.