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On Wed, 2004-12-15 at 19:04 +0000, Grant Sewell wrote:
Windows XP as the "main OS"? If you wanted to run "another OS" on these machines would a dual-boot setup be permitted or would there have to be some odd arrangement of a boot-floppy and a USB harddrive?
Yes, XP is the main O/S. Use of another O/S will depend on who you are. Staff can probably run another O/S using vmware (as I do with the laptop). Dual-booting may be a prossibility, I did that for a short time, but it may require approval. Students cannot do this (vmaware or dual-boot) because of the reboot business. My understanding of the lease is that RM engineers must have MS windows access to the machines should they go wrong. As such if you overwrite XP with, say, linux then you will be breaking the lease agreement between the University and RM.
Or is the only way to run other systems to bring your own machine?
Nope can't do that, network security will prevent it. Staff can of course get their own department/faculty to buy a PC/server/whatever, get networking to allow it on the network, and then run another O/S on it.
I had guesses that it would have to be a Windows only thing... apart from *true* dumb terminals (where they have no local OS or fixed storage device) I can't think of a system that would allow a remote reboot/reload without regard for OS.
Okay, I have spoken to the apps people about this since I wasn't totally sure myself (not being a Windows person it doesn't really affect me :-)) Each *student* desktop PC has a third-party program installed when the PC is initially configured. This program causes the PC to reboot overnight and return to an 'initial' state. Hence any programs installed during the day will be lost. Secondly, the PC has Windows patches applied each night and, in effect, a new 'initial state' is created. Hence any subsequent reboot includes the new patches. So actually the PC is rebooted twice. Forget the bit about SMS I said before, that was obviously wrong unless it is that which applies the patches). Staff PC's are not affected. As I found out last night my XP laptop happily ran all night with vmware running linux - no reboot. John. -- --------------------------------------------------------------- John Horne, University of Plymouth, UK Tel: +44 (0)1752 233914 E-mail: John.Horne@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Fax: +44 (0)1752 233839 -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG Mail majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe list" in the message body to unsubscribe.