great blog it’s good to see someone using a blog for what it is actually meant for look forward to seeing further comments.

We actually do have OS X labs, and they’re always mentioning POSIX. I probably should’ve made that a little bit clearer, sorry! I believe at the moment there are 3 (or maybe 4) OS X labs

tanx

[...] Another Win For Ubuntu So I was talking to my lecturer about Ubuntu in general (he’s a fellow user) and I found out that hopefully, by the start of the next academic year at the University (Sept/Oct 09) the entire University should be in a dual boot situation with Windows, and all linked up to the network. [...]

Well, nice to know that your university is finally going forth to the normal way of teaching CS. Almost every cs program I’ve seen keep something POSIXy around for teaching students. This usually takes 2 forms a window lab and a pile of servers running *nix, or a linux and/or os x lab. I am surprised your program didn’t already have something similar in place.

I politely ask you to read that post again, and if you can tell me where I said _considering_ installing Linux, I’ll personally come and give you a cheque for my life savings.

My University is actually very Linux friendly from my experience. As I just mentioned I never said “considering” I know that they have a plan outlined for having it installed on all the computers by the next academic year

Seriously? A computer informatics university _considering_ installing Linux on some desktops?

What sort of alternate world is this?

How badly is your university rated in the first place? Is it called product-placement-university?

I mean; just WOW.

I would prefer a single boot Linux lab as well, however I can’t argue with the fact that this is still a step towards that becoming a reality.

I know that they intend to dual boot the systems properly (i.e. not Wubi installs), though I don’t know how this will be implemented. If done correctly I don’t see any reason why it should foul things up

@Ampers – The university is De Montfort University

It would help to know the University please?

Ampers.

It would be much better to have a fraction (say one half) of the machines run solo Linux, rather than let them all dual-boot. This way, you’re basically giving students the opportunity to restart the computer, a privilege that should be reserved to the maintenance staff only for security purposes.

At our uni, we have solo Linux and solo Windows labs, and a central computer hall where Macs, Windows PCs and Linux PCs coexist together, and the students are forbidden from restarting or shutting down the PCs by themselves. The currently sorry state of Linux installations aside, I believe this is for the best.