Linux-related job postings - Hopkinton NH School District

[Fred]

On Tue, 2005-01-11 at 09:49 -0500, Dan Jenkins wrote:
... much good stuff skipped ...
> They still get viruses and spyware. Antivirus software is disabled by 
> kids or teachers (and by some of the newer malware) sometimes. They 
> click on all sorts of links, popups, etc. We do filter a lot at the web 
> proxy, but, due to the testing software requirements, we can't block 
> whole classes of problems. Folk bring in Word & Excel documents from 
> home. There is a public library attached to the school (and to the 
> school's network) with publicly accessible computers. The library has 
> been outside our purview until quite recently. All the library's 
> equipment, software and support came from a grant from the Bill and 
> Melinda Gates Foundation, no less.
> 
> Anyways, progress is being made. I hope to use Linux more extensively 
> there to solve more problems.
> Without it, they would already have melted down.

Sounds to me you have a certain sense of dedication to keep them going.
My hats are off to you. It's like trying to clean up behind 200+ cats
all doing their own thing. I personally would not want to do work like
that for anything less than a figure *well* into the 6-figure range.

Just a suggestion:

You might be able to force-phase in Linux by creating a bootable CD --
say, a modified Knoppix or some such -- and then get control of the
workstations that are doing that using scripts, etc.

I know that'll be an uphill battle, but might work for at least part of
the deal. And, assuming they are using VFAT, you could even do some
maintenance that way whilst leaving them in Windows land. Just tell'em
to "boot this to clean your system" then you are off and running. That
will at least get *some* of the cats hearded. At the very least you
could "sneak in" an SSHD server on all of their boxes running Windows
allowing you a bit more control.

Of course, any workstations that don't have CD drives or can't boot from
CD are SOL. I've run into that situation before. I forget that people
sometimes *still* have computers back from the dinosaur era...

Well, I think that dead horse has been beaten to death...

-Fred