On Thu, October 11, 2007 1:28 pm, Christopher Sawtell wrote: >> >> windows handles ext2/3 with the addition of a simple and free driver. > > By the same token, Linux can handle NTFS using the ntfs-3g system. > > The St. Albans Neighbourhood Network ( NN ) are a bunch of consumate > Microsoft Windows devotees. They are taking a huge leap out of their > comfort zone even considering having Linux files on a machine. At the > moment, I'd rather not push them any further. >
So we are left with a situation where it is actually not that easy to get a DVD image off their machine: 1. there is no DVD writer (according to another post) 2. You can't use the commonly available flash drives as they are default formatted with fat which probably won't take a file >2GB. 3. They won't install the ext2/3 windows driver which would allow a ext2/3 flash drive to be used. 4. They won't allow you to plug a laptop (or presumably an NAS) into their LAN, despite the fact that it is demonstrably virus free, and despite the fact that they allow us an ethernet socket in the meeting room, and despite the fact that if I wanted to attack their lan I could sit down at any of the other windows machines there. If the test of this facilty is the degree of use, its got to be made as usable as possible! Fankly we'd be better using a stand alone linux machine with a cossover network cable hanging off the back. I am all in favour of this facility, but something seems a little wrong with it. Another thought: the facility is obviously aimed at people without good net access (or they could download the iso themselves). However my experience with ubuntu is that once you install the OS there is typically update files in the order of magnitude of one CD to bring it up to date (the exact amount depends where in the release cycle you are obviously, but even quite soon after release there are quite a few). I guess the same is true of other distros too. Is anything being done to cater for the people who get home and find their computer wants to download 500M of updates over a modem? -- Nick Rout
