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On Thu, 17 Jan 2008 16:17:31 +0000 Rob Beard wrote: > Grant Sewell wrote: > > >> I have difficulty trying to get away from the big M at university, > >> for example I got told for one of my assignments I had to call my > >> ER diagram "er.doc". > > > > I usually submit my stuff in both their preferred format and in my > > preferred format, zipped up with a readme.txt file explaining why I > > have done what I have done. It has annoyed some people but others > > have commented that they were completely unaware of the other > > options available to them. > > > > A colleague of mine was e-mailed a .docx file yesterday. I managed > to open it after downloading a 27MB update for Office XP (which in > turn needed another couple of megs of Windows updates!!!). I did > tell him though to ask the sender to either next time send the > document in Word 97 format, install PDF Creator (which is GPL) or > install and use OpenOffice! "But you managed to open the file I sent you last week... *puzzled look on face*" > > <gripe> > > I have run into a bit of a pickle myself recently... one of the > > topics I teach has something along the lines of "install and > > configure a linux machine" as part of the "indicative content" of > > the course. It is not actually an assessment objective, so it > > doesn't have to be tested, but it does have to be taught. All the > > machines easily available for them to work on have WinXP on them, > > as mandated by the IT Services dept, and installing a dual-boot > > would be a serious no-no, so they have to go down the route of > > virtualisation, which although it is a useful tool it doesn't > > really give fully native-install experience. </gripe> > > > > Sounds like you could do with some older machines to use as Linux > boxes. When I worked at Exeter College (ooh, going back 10 years > now!) they had a room full of old computers (386's) which the IT > course trainee's used to learn technical hardware skills on. It > didn't matter if the machines were trashed as they were being > replaced with fancy new Pentium 100's (I remember them well, running > Windows 95 and Office 95). > > Sounds like that's what the IT Services dept should do for the topics > you teach, maybe provide a few older P3/P4 machines (surely they're > replacing some of the older ones with new machines?). They'd be fine > for teaching about Linux on real hardware and if they get trashed > what does it matter? > > Rob Oh, we have some "old" machines for them to work on. Most of them have some severe problems - I've even had one which had a knackered VGA BIOS on the onboard display adaptor, only 2 PCI slots, both of which were needed. Hmm. Oh, and the College seem to have an agreement with Dell now, so we don't have "old machines" anymore. :( In the end I got them to install in a virtual machine on the laptops (since they're the more powerful machines we have around, at the moment), and then we were faced with how to get VirtualBox's tunnelled network interface to work when bridged to a wifi card. :s We're getting there... slowly. Grant. -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html