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Go to a bookstore and look at the O'Reilly book covers or check out the Alphabet Riddle. No fact is too obscure for Google if you got the time to look. :)

The Beaverton School District is very anti-Linux (I've been a student of the BSD for my whole life up 'till last year). I've tried emailing them about using Linux but my single voice isn't enough to rock their boat. I'm going to try to give some reasons why you should email them too. ;)

At Merlo, the students recently were told they could build their own server, but when they wanted to install Linux on it, the IT guy at the school said no since the District wouldn't provide support.

Installing Linux workstations is something that the students want, but the District IT folks and the school (Merlo at least) IT folks won't support it. So we'd have to get non school computers to put Linux on, but even then, the current policy regarding computers on the school network is that they have to look like a windows box (from a port-scan point of view). This is a stupid requirement that means we can't run servers like NIS/NFS which would be helpful for a network of workstations. Its also a stupid requirement since we have Apple OS X machines, which probably don't look like Windows (I'm not sure about that though).

So Linux clients and servers are just about impossible... well, you say, can't people just telnet to their linux computers at home to do work (programming, or whatever)? No. The BSD has blocked the telnet port. They blocked the ssh port. They even blocked the RTSP port, which some clever students were using to run ssh on at home. The only open outgoing ports are FTP and HTTP. Yes, I know its possible to tunnel ssh through HTTP, but some people want to run web servers at home (and ftp servers).

If you are upset about this, as I am, you can email the district and tell them what you think. Maybe if enough people complain they will realize they cannot continue wasting peoples' tax money on inferior technology when Free software is ready and people are willing to installl it for them!

Thanks!

shark28 _ 6 at yahoo .d0t. com
(to lazy to log in).

The Beaverton School District is very anti-Linux (I've been a student of the BSD for my whole life up 'till last year). I've tried emailing them about using Linux but my single voice isn't enough to rock their boat. I'm going to try to give some reasons why you should email them too. ;)

At Merlo, the students recently were told they could build their own server, but when they wanted to install Linux on it, the IT guy at the school said no since the District wouldn't provide support.

Installing Linux workstations is something that the students want, but the District IT folks and the school (Merlo at least) IT folks won't support it. So we'd have to get non school computers to put Linux on, but even then, the current policy regarding computers on the school network is that they have to look like a windows box (from a port-scan point of view). This is a stupid requirement that means we can't run servers like NIS/NFS which would be helpful for a network of workstations. Its also a stupid requirement since we have Apple OS X machines, which probably don't look like Windows (I'm not sure about that though).

So Linux clients and servers are just about impossible... well, you say, can't people just telnet to their linux computers at home to do work (programming, or whatever)? No. The BSD has blocked the telnet port. They blocked the ssh port. They even blocked the RTSP port, which some clever students were using to run ssh on at home. The only open outgoing ports are FTP and HTTP. Yes, I know its possible to tunnel ssh through HTTP, but some people want to run web servers at home (and ftp servers).

If you are upset about this, as I am, you can email the district and tell them what you think. Maybe if enough people complain they will realize they cannot continue wasting peoples' tax money on inferior technology when Free software is ready and people are willing to installl it for them!

Thanks!

shark28 _ 6 at yahoo .d0t. com
(to lazy to log in).

Hey, its not really fair to just out Beverton as the only district running *nix on their servers. Here is what Netcraft says about other Oregon School Districts:

Starting with the MS supporters we have:
Lake Oswego is running IIS 5.0 on Win2k
Hillsboro is running IIS 5.0 on Win2k

And now on to the *nix supporters:
Eugene is running Apache 1.3.12 with php and ssl on Solaris 8
Tigard is running Apache 1.3.22 with php ssl and perl on Red Hat (I really wish netcraft would be more specific on os versions, oh well)
Portland is running Apache 1.3.24 with php and perl on "linux" (wont say which distro)
Gresham is running WebSTAR (whatever the hell that is) on "Linux"
I'm asuming that Oregon City is running AppleShareIP 6.3.1 on Linux since it has two history entries as such, as well as two unknowns (which is what it is reporting now)

Including Beaverton, that makes it 3:1 in favor of *nix on servers of major Oregon School Districts

Yes, I do live in Oregon, and yes I do go to a Beaverton School but I did have to use the power of google for most of those links

According to the Netcraft poke, http://www.beavton.k12.or.us, the public webserver for the Beaverton (Oregon) School District, runs Linux/Apache. Interesting. Guess the ban on non-Windows and non-Mac machines doesn't extend to things that actually require stability. :)

-SymphonicMan

Taking advantage of this, I talked Mr. Hamilton (the philosophy, history and computers teacher, who's vastly knowledgable in all three) about getting a Linux club and class going, got the club going, and about a third of the students in the Computers class executes thier studies on the Linux cluster I started.

Inside the building, we have our own TLD, .nrst, and two domains: strut.nrst for the technology recycling program and the main Linux cluster, and beowulf.nrst, for the small Beowulf cluster we're trying to pull together (If you've done this on Debian, please email me).

My recommendation: See if your district offers a tech school and transfer out to that. The plan will be much more well recieved.