Promoting Open Source in Schools

[paul sutton]

If you are installing software over the network this kind of eliminates 
the need for a cdrom altogether,  given that you can produce a image 
either locally or on the server.  add this to removing the floppy driive 
given they are no longer really requied,   yes change the BIOS password 
to prevent boot not from the above but from usb drives,  which can hold 
entire operating systems.  However if you just have monitors on the 
desks and hide the main PC boxes behind panels, then you could eliminate 
a lot of attempts to hack the system or run things.

Clearly the USB pen drives have their good uses, so this could be 
problematic,  however just solve this by allowing VPN access to the 
system for the students, so they can save homework to the school network.

I think I read somewhere that the best way to prevent people hacking (or 
cracking a system) is to prevent physical access,  once I have that I 
can do quite a lot.

Paul

, 

>>
>>
>> As easy to do in Linux as it is in Windows. To prevent, add BIOS 
>> password
>> and disable boot from the CDROM.
>
>
> How simple and obvious... :)
>
>>> But the real question I have is the following.
>>>
>>> Wouldnt it be less expensive to use just one powerfull machine for
>>> entire school/organization and connect to it by using 100$ terminal
>>> machines only, and run in that way any X applications?
>>
>>
>>
>> It really depends. If the school already has h/w, then there is a big 
>> cost
>> of getting a new powerful machine. If they need new machines anyway, I
>> think the terminal setup ends up cheaper overall (so I heard, I 
>> didn't do
>> the math).
>
>
> It would indeed be good to have some deeper studies on that, not to 
> speculate.
>
> If that is so, I would believe that this is a good argument for using 
> Linux. Why? The lifetime of computers used is rather short and 
> probably does not extend in average to more than let say 3 years. 
> Hence, it might be a good idea to instead of changing all computers to 
> use the oldered as terminals and invest available money into buying a 
> new central one.
>
> zb.
>
>> Cheers,
>
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