D&C GLug - Home Page

[ Date Index ] [ Thread Index ] [ <= Previous by date / thread ] [ Next by date / thread => ]

Re: What is/was your work desktop? was Re: [LUG] SIMS

 

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.