Abstract—In Ecuador most children are unable to access
basic computer education because they attend schools that
don’t have the budget to implement computer laboratories. A
proposed solution is to use desktop virtualization to provide
basic computer services (such as web browsing, email and office
tools) to schools and community centers, without new
equipment investment. Desktop Virtualization allows reusing
existing hardware and saves in electrical consumption and
licensing. Using virtual desktop technologies allowed us to reuse
the schools existing hardware saving the school limited
resources while providing a centralized environment of fast and
efficient administration. By implementing open source of imatic
tools, even more saving were possible, and at the same time, we
were able to align the schools policies with the open source
national government initiative. One final benefit was that the
low performance hardware we used on the student side had
lower power consumption than specialized equipment, and
because of it, we could help the sustainability national
requirements. In order to measure user’s requirements and
satisfaction, polls were performed in different middle schools in
Manabí (Ecuadorian coast province). These pools also helped us
to determine which computer tools the students were using; and
allowed us to elaborate some test environments for the
hardware performance.
Index Terms—Desktop virtualization, school, open source,
LTSP.
The authors are with the Network and Operating System at Escuela
Superior Politécnica del Litoral (ESPOL) (e-mail:
jemunoz@fiec.espol.edu.ec).
Cite:Muñoz-Arcentales José, Zambrano-Vite Sara, and Marin-Garcia Ignacio, "Virtual Desktop Deployment in Middle Education and Community Centers Using Low-Cost Hardware," International Journal of Information and Education Technology vol. 3, no. 6, pp. 651-655, 2013.