Macedonia Deploys 5,000 GNOME Desktops on an Ubuntu distro in Public Schools

Posted by Vivek Gite [Last updated: December 6, 2005]

The Republic of Macedonia is a small country in Southern Europe with a population of around 2 million. Internet penetration is only around 5% and software piracy rate is rampant. Also, the government does not play any major role in the development of the ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) and a private sector is dominated by Microsoft technologies :/?

As a part of a joined project called "E-School.MK", US Agency for International Development (USAID), Education Development Center (EDC) and the Macedonian Ministry of Education and Science (MoES) decided to install Ubuntu Linux in all the 468 schools and some 182 computer labs all over the country.

Read on to find out more about their reasons for using GNOME on an Ubuntu distro. I hope will read more such stories in coming years and more dumping of M$ windows