Why shd I b allowed to install Linux?

HI Guys,
I am a student of Mayo College Ajmer.
We hv lots of comp with one of the best IT infrastructure!
The whole of over campus has 300+ comp but jst the servers running Linux!
As I am one of the biggest Linux fan, i want Linux to b installed...

For this I need to take ther permission from IT admin
I m required to present few reasons so tht Lionux gets installed in one of the systems in our lab.
Wht wll b its use for me?
Why I want it to b installed....
Whether ity wll b benefitial or jst aquire a place in lab?
Well i m a Csc srudent currently studying C++ in class 11th..

M

These reasons can be mentioned *www.thinkdigit.com/forum/showthread.php?t=36760.

^^^
most of the reasons are for business organisation, u can make urs like u want to install it for learning purpose, but i am doubtful that u will get permission

Here are some reasons that you can suggest for installing Linux:

* High reliability, stability, security of the O.S

* Best platform to learn languages like C/C++, JAVA with IDEs like Eclipse, NetBeans,
JDeveloper, Anjuta etc.,

* Linux is the future. So it's very important to learn Linux.

* Lots of applications are available. From Office suite, MP3 players, VCD/DVD Players,
Audio editors, Video editors etc.,

* Since it's based on UNIX, it will help us learn more about the UNIX!!

1. Lower Total Cost of Ownership
Independent TCO surveys support Linux as the most cost effective operating system available
on the market today. Lower TCO improves the bottom line.
2. Premier Security
Linux provides industry-leading security to both desktops and servers with the fewest high-level
security issues of any OS.
3. Highest Reliability
Linux provides renowned reliability to increase up time and improve worker productivity.
4. Avoiding Vendor Lock In
Linux prevents vendor lock in and promotes competition to lower software costs.
5. Ease of Migration
Linux allows migration paths suitable for each type of organization, whether migrating to mixed
OS systems or moving an entire network of servers and desktops to Linux.
6. World Class Support
A wide variety of large and small technology companies such as IBM, HP, and Novell provide
Linux support to every size of business.
7. Rapid Employee Training and Certification
The Linux desktop and applications appear remarkably similar to current standard desktops so
employee down time due to retraining is minimal.
8. Inexpensive Standard Desktop Software
Standard desktop applications such as word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation
software are available for free or at reasonable prices on Linux.
9. Improved Custom Applications
Numerous software development firms provide reliable and secure custom application
development for business and organization systems.
10. Superior Network and Systems Management
Linux provides robust network and systems management capabilities to improve administration
capabilities

M

Most of them apply to colleges and universities too. Who wouldn't want to reduce their cost of ownership. Why wouldn't the college want better security? In fact that's the reason why servers run on linux. The fact that servers run on linux, proves college authorities are not averse to linux. IMO, it seems they feel it will be difficult to maintain linux on desktop without help of professionals. If you can convince them that somebody will be able to maintain and avoid misuse of the linux machine, I believe your college will accept having a linux machine for students.

+absence of BSODS, antiviruses, antispywares, 3rd party firewalls! And various hinderances that come on windows that can obstruct ur study! Tell em u dont wanna waste time in system maintainence like in windows!

You have already got some great help but considering the kind of institution you are part of, you should also consider contacting some "Linux User Groups" (LUGs). I have searched around and looks like Rajasthan is one of those rare states that don't have a LUG. In this case you should contact India LUG
*www.linux-india.org/

Talk to the admins/members of LUG on IRC or join their mailing list. Ask them if they can organise a presentation in your school for your IT department so as to convince them to install Linux. Who knows, you might see all 300 computers switching to Linux

M

That'd be great, if all clients can move to linux too. Convincing shouldn't be a big effort IMO, if you can prove that it's maintaince is possible and easy and it will work fine enough without giving problems.
Eddie's advice is good, try to contact FOSS enthusiasts in and around your area, they will be sure to help out with this.

well ppl here in forum itself have lot of misconceptions, what u guys think of creating a thread in general section(b'cos ppl 50% dont come to this section) where we can clear many doubts of the members???

Jst now I want only one P.C to b installed with Linux...
And ya I cant blabber in front off hime speaking,Sir"Linux is robust,secure stable etc" .He is IT admin and is well proficient with Linux!!
I want reasons tht how it is useful for me(A class 11th boy studying C++)?
How wll it b helpful fr the students in general..
I need to convince him tht there r certain tasks fr which i need Linux regularly and the OS wont lie in the hard drive uselessly.

HELP PLS!!

Well I don't know what reasons you should give, BUT, prepare yourself for questions like, What about good technical support?, who will teach it to other students?, who will solve the problems (if any)?

From my experience in my college. I am telling you this that there are not many people who have knowledge of linux and if a student has more knowledge than an admin, then the ego problem comes there. I am saying to think of these before going to your sir. I have experienced things like these.

Be careful, if you show that you have more knowldge than admin, then he might get angry. I am saying me 'might'. Think of this, everybody is not like this but few people are. It's better to think of all this first.

Ok I got u!
Then tell him u wanna learn Unix commands! That's best reason I can think of! Otherwise as u say...he'll keep on saying "That u can do this on windows too"! or u can say u wanna do "UnIX Programming", learn "SHELL SCRIPTING"! What else ?

Tell him anything u can do on Unix and not on windows!

As far as a teaching institution is concerned, their main concern will be to teach students, what they will need in their future. Since LInux is here to stay AND IS going to be a major contender for windows, the students need to learn it. That could be one reason.

(I am not too good at communication, you could phrase this differently)

M

Also, you can state the presence of gcc a very good c/c++ compiler available on linux, since you'll are learning c++. You can say, you want to learn c++ programming in linux environment and that you can handle it yourself. Also, you can tell him that you want to learn about shell scripting, as mediator said. Also, state that since linux will be relatively unknown for most students, it's highly unlikely that they will mess around with settings and all, thus reducing the maintainance headache of the admin.
You can also tell them that you want to pursue development Open Source projects in future, where knowledge of unix like systems is essential and linux is best way to start, according to you.

@Nitish, By now you have all the pros & cons for using Linux. Also @Mehul has
summed up things very nicely. That's all you need for convincing the IT admins
to install Linux in the lab. Make sure someone is good enough in your College to teach
you all Linux!!!

hope the it admin guy there- is not a crack

coz as u said he knows whaat linux is offering and again sticking to M$

think he is afraid his job vill be gone when there was no virus,no spam etc to "administrate"!

well u can counter attack him as asking for reasons why u should'nt be allowed to install linux

Ever tried arguing with as sysadmin gary? Ever read the BOFH series??

<grin> Don't even try that.

M

Or maybe he should

Finally I gathered my courage and asked him...
He said,"Well lets see if I can get a dual boot on one of the P.C....I need to talk to Mr.Babu(the man who manages network and install everything is on leave!)."

I wll soon remind and ask him again.

Update:
Its all of no use!!!!!!!!
My It admin says tht he is ready to install Linux but tht p.c wont b on network!
it wont b having net access!!!!!!!!!!!
The Reason given is tht it wll decrease the security!
So wht wll I do without net!
I would need to manually down dependencies! Wll b stuck again as down is banned so I wll hv to ask Admin evry time I want to install a soft!!!!!

NO one cares fr Linux & u,especially whn u r a youngster enthusiast fr Linux
huh.............

M

nitish_mythology said:
Update:
Its all of no use!!!!!!!!
My It admin says tht he is ready to install Linux but tht p.c wont b on network!
it wont b having net access!!!!!!!!!!!
The Reason given is tht it wll decrease the security!
So wht wll I do without net!
I would need to manually down dependencies! Wll b stuck again as down is banned so I wll hv to ask Admin evry time I want to install a soft!!!!!

NO one cares fr Linux & u,especially whn u r a youngster enthusiast fr Linux
huh.............

How will installing linux decrease security? Unless of course the admin has no idea of administering a Linux machine. If you can ask him to provide a reason. It will be quite fun to see his answer.
If you can get him to install debian or some debian based distro you can try out pypt-offline, about which I PM'ed you. Here's a link to pypt-offline for those interested *pypt-offline.sourceforge.net/ . I haven't tried it but if someone can try it and give some feedback about how it is, it will be great.

Try telling that idiotic Fascist admin the merits of Free software.
Heres what i did in my college.
Approach the HOD and the principal of your college and try to convince them, you have to talk mostly in humble words with a bit of salt mixed here and there, also u have to back that up with ur exam scores.

Tell them how its secure, how UNIX environment is the best for learning and doing programming.
Tell them the merits of how it helps for code reuse. Tell him to read, "The Art of UNIX Programming".
Try convincing your class mates first though, and when u all collectively appeal, theres absolutely nothing they can do (a better idea to do this is to show of AIGLX) .

see this:

*www.whylinuxisbetter.net/

u will get enough reasons.

nitish_mythology, are you a member of the 'Cray Club'?

you don't need to install linux to use it!
Yup thats right!. puppy linux will save the whole ext3 file-system on a single 512mb file on a fat32 or ntfs partition! So even without having to install the OS it will still save all your settings(on that 512 mb file)!!

Its a live cd so just boot with it and start using!
download size 70-80mb
__________

How will installing linux decrease security?

Guess: by giving free access to dump sam files of any windows on the network . Windows file-permissions suck hard afaik

I would need to manually down dependencies!

dependencies dependencies, ufffff . why isn't there a solution for this??
Anyways in puppy you can download windows style double-click to install dotpups(look on the puppy forums)

M

chesss said:
dependencies dependencies, ufffff . why isn't there a solution for this??

Well there is kind of, for debian based distros. Check pypt-offline that I have mentioned earlier. I haven't tested it but if it works it will be really good.

Nitish i guess let him go ahead with installing Linux without access to network. Atleast there are man pages to read so you can do some learning. And tell him, don't install Red Hat 9, those stupid sys admins seem to be very fond of Red Hat 9 for God knows what. I can send you Debian CD's if needed. It's a set of 14 CD's. It's got some softwares that are quite outdated but still it will be great to learn and you will have lots of software available directly from the CD's.

Slowly you can get the head of the college convinced by showing around how linux is or giving him the reason or even by showing a few websites and this thread too.

Well there is kind of, for debian based distros. Check pypt-offline that I have mentioned earlier. I haven't tested it but if it works it will be really good.

er there is already a solution for this for ubuntu..
1. aptitude --download-only opera
2. Move all downloaded stuff to a cd (which can be used as a repo) *help.ubuntu.com/community/AptMoveHowto/simple?highlight=(aptmove)

Simple!

possible future dependency solution: *www.linux-watch.com/news/NS4586903228.html

M

chesss said:
er there is already a solution for this for ubuntu..
1. aptitude --download-only opera
2. Move all downloaded stuff to a cd (which can be used as a repo) *help.ubuntu.com/community/AptMoveHowto/simple?highlight=(aptmove)

It still needs a debian system. Pypt-offline works from a linux/windows/mac system connected to the net.

best thing is to persuate him for network access but i don't think he can block orkut and other things there

M

gary4gar said:
best thing is to persuate him for network access but i don't think he can block orkut and other things there

Why not? I don't think it is a server machine, it should be a client machine. And in institutions sites are blocked at some server so none of the clients will be able to open the sites no matter the OS.

Hmm.......
Lots of discussion!

aryayush said:
nitish_mythology, are you a member of the 'Cray Club'?

Well till 10th u r said to b a membewr of crayclub! I hv Csc in 11th so I m as good as a crayclub member!!
R u a mayoite?

Well,He has agreed to install fc6(I bought the dvd frm home)

chesss said:
Guess: by giving free access to dump sam files of any windows on the network . Windows file-permissions suck hard afaik

Tht could b a reason!
In Mayo Admins r pretty concerned abt Security!

Ps:: Dont flame my admin coz he is const monitoring all the activities of all studnets!!! It might b poss tht he is watching this thread toooo..

Update:
Admin says tht u can install Linux till the time u r in 11th and I hv my final exams the next month! Frm March 1str I wll b in 12th. He wants me to then conc on C++.
SO iIwont b using it much this month and it wll get removed when I m in 12th!!

^^U have the time. Use it efficiently and show him what Linux is all about!

nitish_mythology said:
Well till 10th u r said to b a membewr of crayclub! I hv Csc in 11th so I m as good as a crayclub member!!
R u a mayoite?

No, but my brother is the president of the 'Cray Club'. He is in the tenth standard. He told me there is an iMac in the Cray Club. I just wanted to make sure. He told me it did not have an iSight camera, which sounds unbelieveable because AFAIK, there never was an iMac sans iSight.

Ya I know him...........HIs name is Ankush as far as I remember!
We do hv an imac in our LAB WITHOUT AN iSIGHT camera.

Yes, he is Ankush Arya.

It is very surprising though, that Apple ever made the present iMacs without built in iSight cameras. Anyway, thanks for the info and back to the topic at hand.

You could always run Ubuntu of course, even if you cannot install it.

Well tdy I booted into a lab p.c using my ubuntu's live cd........
I then conf the network and tried some tweaking!( It was a bit diff with teachers roaming all around in lab)
I could surf the servers and actually see the file name(could nt open the folders as it asked fr pass)! Was pretty impressed....

Me noob in networking so lets se if I can learn some more aspects abt it!

Ps:Where r u tech_your_future? I m w8ing fr ur response!

M

Which folders were asking for password? On local machine or some machine on the network?
Live CD will be very limiting but nonetheless, it 's good to start with.
As to myself, I hardly know anything about networking since I just have a single PC here.
Can you access the net? Then you can check out the guides at TLDP, they will help you get started. There's a network administrator's guide there. It will be helpful to learn networking. Also, check your library, they should have some good books on linux.

for most livecds to access a share already mounted(even as root) it mostly will be mounted as readonly.so umount the device and mount it manually for full access as sudo or root.

The files fr which I was asked pass were on the server........
I felt really happy after seeing file names on server!
There folders like Principal,Bursar.,Mayo Management,Mayo Firewall!

wow................if I could access it

I tried to conf ethernet! Giving the DNS server, ip address etc but was unsuccessful!
Wll again try again tmrrow! Hope tht it wrks!

M

Forget about accessing those files. If you try such tricks you might end up not getting a Linux system at all. As it is odds are against installing a linux system, why do you want to give admin a reason not to install linux.
Any idea what type of connection is it? And are you sure the IP address and all you have given is correct? Maybe they use DHCP and not static IP.

There is an icon on the taskbar which shows Lan con......
I did all tht on the basis of info we get after clicking over it!!

Like this time in my house(not lab) and I m getting this

Physical Address: 00-0B-2B-0C-75-19
IP Address: 192.168.5.75
Subnet Mask: 255.255.0.0
Default Gateway: 192.168.1.1
DHCP Server: 192.168.2.1
Lease Obtained: 1/19/2007 2:04:50 PM
Lease Expires: 1/21/2007 2:04:50 PM
DNS Servers: 192.168.2.12, 192.168.2.1, 192.168.2.7
WINS Server:

M

I am not so sure but this sounds like it's using DHCP, it's not a static IP. Why else would there be line like Lease Obtained and Lease Expires. I have never seen such a thing with my connection, which has static IP.

I dont thnk BSNL provides static ips in home plan!!!!!!!!!!
R u sure tht u hv a static ip?

M

I have a hathway connection. There's no BSNL in Mumbai. And MTNL has no ul plans here.

oh! May b then u hv a static ip!
R there any sites where I can learn abt networking?

Come online on yahoo I m using netvibes fr chatting!

M

I surely have static IP. I don't know about sites, but as I said before, check your library for books.

The fact that you were able to view those folders, proves that you were connected to your school network properly. No issues regarding that. As far as asking password for those particular folders is concerned...the reason is that they ARE password protected. You need to login as the user who is allowed to access those folders or give password for it. SAMBA (which is the most probable software mounting those folders for you) will not allow you to access them without password.

Ya,Eddy u r right!
I even thnk thiS!
But I could access the network in static ip mode and even in DHCP mode!
Whats the reason behind this?

Our network has a proxy server squid running? I thnk I even need to conf the proxy settings!
We r allowed to access net from 2:00 to 6:00 during the week(except Sundays), I was trying to connect to net during my skool time!!
Is it poss tht server was rejecting my req and I f I try to conn to net during the time when its allowed, I wll b successful?

Need to experiment about a lot of thngs..

DHCP servers allow clients to request for a static IP if it does not conflict with any other IP. You need to enter the proxy server in firefox preferences.

Oh! So u ned to conf proxies in firefox too.....
Well there is an option of conf proxies in Administration or a similar cateogary in ubuntu!

nitish_mythology said:
Oh! So u ned to conf proxies in firefox too.....
Well there is an option of conf proxies in Administration or a similar cateogary in ubuntu!

check in windows if IE runs in proxy then copy values from there

We hv gt accounts with limited priveleges, so I cant access the Internet options button!

Do you have any idea of the IP address of the system that runs the SQUID server? If you do, then just run a nmap scan on that server which will give you the port at which SQUID listens. Then you can use the server and port settings in Firefox as your proxy settings.

I thnk it is 192.168.3.254
As soon as we start Ie a dialog box appears asking for our user name and pass for authentication!

M

I'd advice you not to mess around this way. IF you're caught, then you might not even get linux installed on one system.

nitish_mythology said:
I thnk it is 192.168.3.254
As soon as we start Ie a dialog box appears asking for our user name and pass for authentication!

Most probable port on which Squid listens is 80 or 8080. If you don't want to risk running a nmap scan (and yes it IS RISKY) you can try both of them in your proxy settings. If your proxy settings are correct then Firefox will ask for your username and password as well.

tech_your_future said:
I'd advice you not to mess around this way. IF you're caught, then you might not even get linux installed on one system.

Dont worry tech_your_future.......
I m being careful at each and every step!
By the way, till the time I dont misuse it its got 2 b ok!

@edde
Why is nmap scan risky?

How can we configure so that firefox can use "autodetect proxy settings for this network?"

@nitish:
U can try nmap scan with "-sS" option => "nmap -sS target_IP", since it is safe!

Nmap scan with full tcp connections are risky since network admin can know who was trying to fiddle around!

If I still need to work under The Mayo College Proxy server than its of no use!
Actually i wanted a way by which I could surf the net freely..........

Update:
I asked my comp teacher about it..(He is nt like the admins, he never cares!

)
He told me that the network is static ip based fr us but for the outer Internet its DHCP to prevent attcks on network!!

So whts this??

nothing special. The internet connection your college has is given by an isp who gives dynamic addresses. Getting a static ip for the internet is costlier.

M

Then you can use the static IP given to the computer to connect to the main server. I don't think you can connect to Internet directly. Someone with more knowledge in networking should be able to solve this out.

still try various books in ur library, butter for admin for it

which one will u choose?

I wont ask him.........
It seems tht the Admin hates me coz I m the only one who const fires him up with questions. I regularly bypass the network and try to access im sites!
I m the one who started the use of proxies(though most of them are banned now)

I m the one who is const bugging him fr installing linux,he thinks its useless!
I dont thnk tht there are any chances of Linux getting installed in my Lab.

They want me just coz they know I can get them good results in 12th.
The Admin rarely allows students to touch imac! (Ya our lab has one which is used mostly fr video editing )
Never allows us to use pcs fr loading songs on to our ipods!

Isnt this enough????

M

Contact higher authorities yaar. Show them them this thread and the links given here.

tech_your_future said:
Contact higher authorities yaar. Show them them this thread and the links given here.

This will be the Last thng I will do,I hv mildly criticized my Admin and spoken of several things I did secretly!!!
I have nO plans of getting suspended

M

Well rather explain that you did this cos you wanted to try something better but your admin wouldn't let you do and you didn't have any other way.