Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE) has completed the development of new FOSS based Operating System suite KITE GNU Linux 22.04, that could be used in three lakh computers available in public schools in Kerala, a statement said on Tuesday. V. Sivankutty, Minister for General Education, will launch the new OS suit on August 23.
It will be launched during the inaugural session of Little KITEs State Camp which would be held at Regional Resource Center of KITE at Ernakulam, the statement said.
This OS suite can be used freely as a complete computing platform not only for ICT learning in schools but also for students and teachers, as well as for general purposes on computers used in homes, government offices, DTP centres, printing presses, software development companies, engineering college students, and so on.
The new version of OS is developed using the Wayland system instead of xorg window mechanism currently used in the Operating Systems in schools.
The new OS suite which is a customized version of Ubuntu, the popular FOSS operating system, comprises of applications such as GCompris, Tux Paint, PictoBlox, Traffic game, Waste challenge, Omnitux, EDU Activate, PhET, GeoGebra, Libre Office package, Colour Paint, Scratch, Krita etc.
Given that Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been included as part of the ICT textbook for Class 7 from this year, this OS also includes tools to gain basic understanding of concepts related to Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, computer vision, and more.
The new OS also features elaborate systems for Malayalam computing, Ebook reader, Desktop Publishing software, Graphics and Image editing software, Sound Recording and Video editing tools, 3D Animation packages, Screen Recording and Broadcasting tools, IDEs for Programming, Database Servers and applications, Desktop version of Mobile apps and many more.
KITE has equipped schools with laptops that utilize entirely free software, replacing the previously licensed software used for courses in Higher Secondary schools and for NSQF job roles in Vocational Higher Secondary in public education sector. This resulted in a savings of Rs 3,000 crore from two lakh computers, which had attracted international attention.
“KITE will provide training for all School IT Co-ordinators for installing the new Operating Systems in all computers in schools”, said K. Anvar Sadath, Chief Executive Officer, KITE.
The new Operating System suite can be freely downloaded from the download link in the website of KITE (www.kite.kerala.gov.in) from August 23.
