I agree with a lot of the advice given by others on the list. Email bombardment is probably not the best way to success. Making the Tech your enemy clearly a losing proposition, too. The Knoppix idea, or SSH - not bad at all, but clearly worrisome for the Tech, if he's not that familiar with Unix and Linux based stuff. How would he know the difference between putty and BackOrifice or other nasty programs?
And to be quite honest, it is probably not entirely fair to ask him to learn all kinds of new stuff on your time line. Getting the Principal involved - I honestly don't like your chances, unless there are a ton of other students with the same issue.
Essentially you are asking a lot of people (the Principal, the Tech, member of this mailing list) to invest their time, so that you can save a bit of yours --- mmmhhh, is that really how you want to be perceived? I assume it is not, but that you are being carried away by your enthusiasm a bit.
So let's step back, and take a bit of inventory of your issue:
Step 1: What is your objective?
I hope, I'm not unfairly misrepresenting you, but I have the funny feeling, that this is not really about Linux at all. If it was about Linux in school, you would start a battle cry of adding Linux boxes into the school setup, and they wouldn't even have to be networked with the other stuff, or the Internet. If you were personally really totally bent on learning Linux, you would get it going on your Mac at home.
Since you thought, SSH (e.g. via putty) was going to solve your issue, it sounds to me (again I'm taking a guess here, and please correct me, if I'm wrong) that what you are trying to achieve is mostly rather basic connectivity to your computer at home, maybe to ship some work back and forth, or to have access to some documents on your computer at home.
Step 2: So take inventory of what you have (rather than what you don't have):
* It sounds like you have Internet access from your school computer * It sounds like you have a browser on the school computer
The above 2 items are your toolkit one one side. It is obviously quite difficult to change that side of the equation, so why not focus on the other side (i.e. your home)?
* Your home computer is running Mac OS/X - a Unix based operating system
* You have an Internet connection, and know how to install and run a server (like you have done with SSH), which can listen to connections from the Internet.
* You are skilled in managing your home computer, or at least not afraid to figure it out.
Step 3:
So instead of asking this mailing list for help in changing the school system for you, you might actually rather want to ask for advice how to set up your home computer, that it can be accessed from your school computers given the constraints you are facing there. Change the problem from a social/human problem (the Tech, the Principal, The School Board, ...) to a technical problem - that's what us Linux geeks really like doing :)
Other members of this list may have better ideas, but here is one of mine:
Try to see, if you can get a "webmin" server going on your Mac OS/X system at home. It would allow you to access and manage your home computer remotely through a browser, without having the need for any additional software installations on your school computer. I have never tried it for OS/X, but here is a page specifically dedicated to that:
http://webmin.com/osx.html
While it involves a bit of effort, it will be much easier and quicker than changing the Calgary School system :)
What do you think?
Kind regards,
...Niels
p.s. Aaron, as per our conversation after last week's CLUG meeting: now you know why I like browser based tools :)
Andrew Graupe wrote:
I am a 14 year old confessed Linux geek going to John Ware Jr. High in SW Calgary. Like most schools, two computer choices are presented:
iMac, running OS X. Terminal and C Compiler disabled. Computers frequently freeze up, and are often unable to boot for some time afterword.
Pentium PC, running Windows 2000. EVERYTHING USEFUL disabled. MS Office and MS-IE are the ONLY things that work. Right-clicking is disabled.
Clearly, these are not satisfactory for someone like me. My fight to use Linux has gone through two stages:
1. Use knoppix. Result: Using Knoppix now results in 1-month ban from computers because "you can see things" on the drive, which, being NTFS, cannot be written to.
2. Use SSH to log into my G3 Powerbook running Yellow Dog Linux. Result: Paranoid tech says "I'll have to check it first," and never gets around to doing it. I nearly got in trouble for using it today...
I have tried to explain to him the concept of SSH, and that nothing can be done to the computer running the SSH client, anymore than I could hack into it from where I am sitting at home. Despite the fact he appears to be a qualified professional, he doesn't understand these arguments and is now paranoid of PuTTY (the SSH client).
To all Linux users in Calgary: please help me! There is no danger to the CBE network for Linux, and I intend only to do my work in a more efficient environment, and also so I don't have to e-mail copies of work to myself to work on them at home/print them.
I am prepared to fight for this. You can contact my school at (403) 777-7930. I would appreciate it if you didn't use my name. You can contact my principal at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Please help me support Linux in my school.
Thanks.
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