OpenSource@SarsunaCollege : a bold initiative
By Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay

Sarsuna, Kolkata: On 13th March, 2003, the reporter along with Co-ordinator iLUG-Kolkata, Indranil Das Gupta visited Sarsuna College to take a sneak preview of the slow but steady migration of the College administrative systems to OpenSource Technologies.

With the prices of network cards falling through the floor, the project developer Nirmalya Lahiri has utilized one of the interesting concepts offered by GNU/Linux involving network cards. He has taken the route of Linux Terminal Server Project or LTSP or diskless PCs aka �thin clients� to reduce the cost of computing as well as design a scaleable and stable system.

When asked about why he chose such a design, Nirmalya had these reasons to offer:

� Clients do not have to be kept in non-dust, temperature controlled environments
� Data is more secure as it resides on the server and thus the backups are also centralized
� The clients, or �thin clients� are free from virus attacks. The risk, if any, is only at the server end
� Overall system administration cost is reduced as there is only one machine to worry about
� Clients are not required to be upgraded and thus the working life is extended
� Academic institutions work on limited IT spends in the budget, thus effective utilization of resources means certain areas can also be covered within one financial year.

As a concept, LTSP is not new. CUI-LTSP has long been used ever since the project really took off. In Sarsuna College, both iLUG-Kolkata members had an experience with GUI-LTSP. The server OS is running PCQLinux7.1 and the chosen desktop is KDE (Nirmalya states that he is more comfortable using and teaching people to use KDE). This report has a few accompanying screenshots that give a feel of the setup, available on request from the author.

LTSP is just one of the facilitating or enabling technologies that Nirmalya is using in his Office Automation Project. We also had a look at the prototype of the project (using PCQLinux7.1 as NetworkOS) in action. Aimed at an institution-wide IT setup, that eases administrative tasks by helping effective decision-making, the project is ambitious in nature. As of now, in the prototype stage, it works on the age-old design of a Client/Server application. The server database being the industry standard PostgreSQL. The Office Automation Project covers the entire range of functionalities from admission and fees collection modules to financial accounting, library information system as well as laboratory information system. Capable of robust performance and designed to produce exhaustive time-snapshot reports, the system when fully functional is designed to make IS a crux of College administration.

In any OS/application migration, end-user training forms a major bottleneck. As part of end-user orientation, Nirmalya has found an able user in Prabir RayChaudhuri. Prabir (or Nandan as he is affectionately called) says that �I was not one of the regular �yes sayers�, I bugged him to no end to incorporate features that the end users would find useful� and so it seems, as throughout our presence at Sarsuna College he was found to be utilizing the system as well as suggesting more of �tweaks�. The Head Clerk, Mr Sankar Bose was all praise for the system and how it has helped in point-of-time calculation of the fees collected. The other users of the system, Sadhan Roy, Siddharta Mukherjee, Mukul Sarkar were all praise for the ease of operations as well as the intuitive design of the interface. It seems that although they all took some time to get familiar with the workings of the system, as of now they cannot seem to do without it.

The Principal of the College, Dr Hrishikesh Chattopadhyay, graciously made time for us from his busy schedule. He stated that the Principals Training Session at IISWBM had made him aware of the need to integrate IS/IT with College Administration, and was keenly following the project. While the system is still at the prototype stage, Nirmalya assured us that within October, 2003, he will be able to let us check out a fully functional, stable, scaleable and cost effective OpenSource migration at Sarsuna College.

Till then we will be following the progress of his project and wishing him all success.




Necessary details:

Sarsuna College: 4/HB/A Ho Chi Minh Sarani, Sarsuna Upanagari, Kolkata-61


Nirmalya Lahiri: nirmala_bhaban@vsnl.net


iLUG-Kolkata chapter: www.ilug-cal.org


LTSP: www.ltsp.org


LinuxForYou: www.linuxforu.com [Vol 1. Issue 1 February, 2003]



The last 2 links are provided to understand the fundamentals behind LTSP. We do not intend to re-invent the wheel by copying what is already there on the net and these sites.

- posted by sankarshan @ 3/20/2003 06:34:00 AM