Just as the world's economies started to tank, Australia's Governments got themselves into an economic bind by promising to supply public school children with laptops. However, a leading systems integrator has issued a blueprint for an affordable blanket laptop roll out using Linux and netbooks.

Intel insists that its project to make low-cost laptops for school children in poorer nations began nearly three years ago, before it heard of Nicholas Negroponte’s initiative, One Laptop Per Child.

As Ubuntu popularity grows, more and more students are recognizing the added features and potential savings offered by an Ubuntu laptop. Netbooks and laptops are the students solution to computing because of obvious portability reasons.

It comes as both a surprise and not a surprise that the New South Wales (NSW) state government chose a "safe bet" of Lenovo and Microsoft to supply many thousands of taxpayer-funded laptops to secondary school students. Was Linux ever on the short list?

There's been a lot of talk about the OLPC's cute little mesh networking laptop at Linux.conf.au this week. The foundation is taking its low-cost, robust laptop the XO to underprivileged kids around the world, but it's also funding its work by selling XO laptops to the public. The cool news from the LCA conference was that a local OLPC group is setting up in Australia to help get computers to kids across Australia.

NSW secondary school students could be issued with $56 million worth of Linux-based laptops as part of Kevin Rudd's digital education revolution.

“With the laptop we can say that our school is really elevated because the children are really learning more... They see themselves discovering things that they have never been doing before.” — Mrs. M., Galadima School, Abuja, Nigeria ...

Two teenage sisters from Boston, along with their family and school, have joined forces with an American non-profit organization to provide laptop computers to underprivileged children in South Africa.

Some of the two million primary school students in Sri Lanka soon may get to own the “$100 laptop” if an ambitious plan to introduce the product into Sri Lanka gets adequate support, officials said.