Hi Calum!
Sorry for being so long in reposting to this thread, but this is a very busy time of year for me. My "average" workday is 12 or so hours and a lot are much longer. But anyway, Knoppix kind of failed me. The POS I installed it on only has 128 MB of RAM and with the 50 MB RAMdrive that Knoppix sets up, things bogged down pretty quickly after I made my first post.
The good news is that I went to IT and asked if I could have another 256 MB of RAM installed on that computer. I told them that it was bogging down on me with some of the "work" I was doing and I needed more RAM. I wasn't very specific. They told me that this machine would be taken out of inventory within the next few weeks and they wouldn't put anything into it now and it would be replaced with a nice new WinXP box shortly.
I told them that since one of my needs was to talk to a bunch of stupid Z8 chips that didn't do Windows (much like me) that I still needed a computer that would boot to DOS and could run Kermit, ProComm, or Comit for DOS, or a similar dumb terminal emulator. They started yapping about Hyperterminal and such, but I was able to convince them that I not only had to keep the computer, but that to do my work I needed to upgrade it. I was told that I could spend my department's money and do whatever I wanted to to the computer, but that IT would not support it. I verified the "anything" a couple of times and was informed that as long as I didn't request support from them (that ain't happened in the 14 years I've been there) I could do whatever I want to the machine. Near as I can figure, that means upping the RAM, throwing in another hard drive and putting Linux on it.
Since Knoppix proved that I can access the internet and that the hardware is Linux compatible, I should be up and running Linux at work in a couple of weeks! SInce I'm most familiar with Red Hat, I gues that that's what will be getting installed.
My goal had been to be totally Windows free at home and at work a couple of months ago. I didn't make it, but I'm well on my way! A few months late, but hey, I'm doing it.
On a related note, I managed to convince the College to support the local Linux users group by providing them a home at no charge. I had the support of two faculty members, some alumni (former students of mine) and current students (also mine), but beginning next month, the SyrLUG will be holding its meetings at Le Moyne College (where I work). I thought that I might catch some flack from the IT folks and still might. But when I thanked the Academic Dean and Vice President of the College for supporting the request, he *thanked* me for being an administrator bringing this group to campus and being willing to work with students to help educate them in open source operating systems since the College offers no formal courses in that field. Even my direct boss, the VP for Finance and Administration, asked me to put something together about the relative advantages/disadvantages of open source in academia. His primary interest is cost containment, but he knows that I'm a strong Linux advocate and has asked me to look into opportunities to reduce costs with open source software.
My next push, not yet begun, will be to convert my Court's computer and its functions to Linux. I work two jobs, I'm a full time administrator at Le Moyne College and a part time NYS judge. I already refuse to use any of the "State approved" court management programs. I use my own (based on M$Access
) I need to learn enough about Linux databasing programs to put together a "user friendly" point-and-click databasing court-specific program that my clerk can live with. I've had enough trouble with the State Office of Court Administration over using my non-approved program, even though they do admit that it addresses several shortcomings in their approved programs, and they have allowed me to continue using it since the reports are all exported to Excel spreadsheet format which they can read. Given another year, I hope to be able to break through here too.
Sorry, didn't mean to write a book... it was just supposed to be a post.
Jim Dishaw
Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2003 5:18 am