Juha Erkkilä

A Finnish company Opinsys has provided and maintained many thousands of Linux desktops in Finnish schools for about fifteen years now. This is a short introduction to the technology (called Puavo) they have developed for this purpose.

Puavo can be used to manage Linux desktops suitable for school environments. It is a combination of web software (Puavo Web) and a specially configured system (Puavo OS) using Debian GNU/Linux operating system as its base. Puavo Web is built for managing user accounts and devices. Puavo OS is designed for large-scale deployment in primary and secondary schools. The source code for both is free software under GPLv2+ license.