Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Linux Support In Universities?
An anonymous reader writes "I study Computer Science at a university in Melbourne, Australia. I recently went to a 'Directions of IT' seminar run by our central IT department, where students were invited to discuss issues with the senior management of IT. During discussion about proposed changes to our campus-wide wireless network, I asked if the new system would support Macs, Linux and other Operating Systems. Several of the managers laughed at this question, and one exclaimed 'Linux!' as if it was the punchline to a joke. The head of IT at least treated my question seriously, but I didn't get a concrete answer. So, I would like to ask Slashdot: Does your university/college provide support for Linux/BSD/etc users to connect to the on-campus wireless? How does IT support Linux users generally? Have IT staff ever ridiculed you for asking questions about Linux?"
Does your university require some sort of special software to access its wireless network or something? My university has hotspots just like any wireless service. You can connect to it with whatever OS or device you like. They don't support Linux directly, but they certainly don't block it from the network.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
How does IT support Linux users generally?
Not in university, but I would assume it’s still the same old “if you use something other than windows or maybe mac, you are free to do so however you are on your own to figure it out and resolve any issues!” attitude. Which really I think is fair. At least now Novel is mostly dead so you don’t need to deal with that shit ;p
I guess the question here would be, what specifically about the network do you need to support Linux. Basic connectivity should usually just work, unless they use some weird connection tool (do those even exist any more). Whatever web based systems your school is using _might_ work. Whatever standard tools your teachers dictate you use will probably be one platform only (and if they laughed at the mention of Linux, you can guess what platform that will be).
And some general advice: don’t go too crazy trying to do _everything_ in Linux for the principle of it. If it’s easy, do it, if not, just get a windows VM up and running to do your work. Unless you enjoy that kinda stuff, the frustration of trying to get a teacher to accept the work you did in a tool he has never heard of on a platform he isn’t familiar with just isn’t worth it for the warm and fuzzy feeling.
Does your university/college provide support for Linux/BSD/etc users to connect to the on-campus wireless?
No, although many faculty run Linux or OpenBSD. I have been able to discuss several different methods with faculty to connect to the WPA-PSK network; general consensus is that wicd works better than NetworkManager, and OpenBSD works better than wpa-supplicant based distros.
How does IT support Linux users generally?
They don't. Officially recommended to run MacOS or Windows.
Have IT staff ever ridiculed you for asking questions about Linux?
Yes. They seem to be from the MS School of thought. You remember those people...everything must run MS and if it doesn't, it sucks. The guys who run Ultimate editions of everything even though they don't need it, and brag about having a beta version of Office. Well now they work in IT.
Yeah, I'm mean, seriously, at this point it's a GIVEN that some University students and faculty will be using other operating systems - Mac especially, and pretty much any University that has a Computer Science, Software Development, or IT program should have classes in which students are at least exposed to Unix/Linux and are taught how to do development and/or administration for Unix and Unix-like systems (as they are used a lot in Enterprise IT).
You shouldn't even have to ASK about Mac and Linux compatibility this late in the game - IT should KNOW that they need to provide compatibility with those OSes.
The good news is, that unless you are using some exotic extension to WiFi (like requiring some sort of Active Directory-based login before you can even get an IP address), Mac and Linux users WILL BE compatible with a WiFi network already, as it is an IEEE standard which both have supported for about 10 years.
Oxford's campus-wide wireless LAN project, OWL, operates like a hotspot scheme with open access points and a redirection to a login page for temporary credentials when you open a web browser. If you're a student or faculty member, you can instead use Cisco Anyconnect to access the university VPN and bypass the login screen.
Not only does the university support Anyconnect on Linux clients, it also provides guidance for setting up an entirely Free Software alternative for those who would rather not download the official software. It's really quite good.
Further details at http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/network/wireless/
I work at a major University in the US (rhymes with Schmarvard).
I lead a team of 6 that offers Linux training, OS installs, desktop support, and a Debian-based HPC/Web/Database/Tomcat/Wiki/RT environment. We used to get lots of requests to install Linux on laptops or desktops, though those have mostly slowed due to the fact it's easy to install. The desktops are almost all Ubuntu.
Most everything else we do is OS-agnostic since there's a lot of OS X on campus. I think the only thing that's really specific to a Windows environment is Exchange and the Outlook client. I just fire up a VirtualBox VM and run Windows 7 in it.