Linux/Unix in the classroom

Bill Mullen moonmullen at attbi.com
Sat Jan 18 17:13:02 EST 2003


On Sat, 18 Jan 2003 keyser_soze at bad-one.com wrote:

> On Sat, 18 Jan 2003, Jerry Feldman wrote:
> > It would be nice if I could get Northeastern to do something like use
> > dual boot. But, I only teach 1 course per quarter. But, my suggestions
> > to NEU were pretty much on the same line.
> 
> 
> Another alternative is to set up clones that boot up over the network.  
> You would distribute boot disks that only contain boot loaders.  When
> the clones boot up, they would retrieve the kernel and root file system
> image from the boot server, and place the rfs on a ram disk created by
> the boot loader.
> 
> Advantages are that you can run linux on all available pc's all day
> long, without ever having to install it on any of them (cept the boot
> server of course).  So you don't have to create any dual boot setups, or
> buy any removable hardware, etc.  To return a clone back to winDOH's,
> just remove the boot disk and reboot.  There will be no trace of linux
> ever running on the pc's depending on your setup.

Jerry, perhaps one good solution for you is to burn yourself a few copies 
of the single-CD Knoppix distro. Current ISO is available at:

ftp://ftp.webtrek.com/pub/mirrors/knoppix/KNOPPIX_V3.1-2003-01-01-EN.iso

MD5 file is:

ftp://ftp.webtrek.com/pub/mirrors/knoppix/KNOPPIX_V3.1-2003-01-01-EN.iso.md5

This is a Debian-based distro that boots and runs from the CD, without 
installing anything on the hard drive(s) at all. It detects all hardware 
at bootup, and does so surprisingly well. I routinely use it as a rescue 
disk, and to quickly determine hardware compatibility on a system; I just 
boot it, and once it's up, I can poke around /etc and see how it set up X 
or the NIC(s) or whatever, and all the usual logs are there as well.

You need to use 700MB CD-Rs for this puppy, because it's packed with just
about everything but the kitchen sink. It has KDE3, Gnome 1.4, IceWM,
Koffice, OpenOffice 1.01, Xine, Ogle, Mozilla, the GIMP, Wine, CUPS; the
list just goes on and on. It runs the basic system in a ramdisk, and the 
rest is pulled in off of the CD as needed (w/ on-the-fly decompression).

If I were teaching a Linux course on other people's hardware (especially 
if that hardware is running Windoze now, and the owners prefer it to stay 
that way), using Knoppix discs would be the way that I'd do it.

-- 
Bill Mullen   moon at lunarhub.com   MA, USA   RLU #270075   MDK 8.1 & 8.2
"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people
very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move." - Douglas Adams




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