Knoppix and Deepfreeze

[stevedperkins]

You misunderstand my motives. I'm trying to teach Computer Science to my students. That's a little hard to do on a system where everything is locked-down so tight that you can't even compile anything. Further, linux is much more programmer friendly than the evil os....

Well, my response was really directed at the person who started this thread. However, if you are a teacher who's not able to do your job... it would seem that the first approach I would take would be exhausting all options for GETTING the tools I need to do my job, before trying to circumvent security on my own and possibly creating worse problems for myself. Since you say you were able to get them to give you half of each machine's partitions to do with as you please, it seems that approach worked!

Boy, am I glad I work in the private sector!

[Cefalu of Italy]

You misunderstand my motives for calling deepfreeze evil. I am in a webmastering class. Yet all of the computers are locked down with deepfreeze. Do you know how frustrating it is to have to save something to your computer and then reboot to find it not there? A webmastering class should have a tad bit more than 800 mb to store work safely on (i.e. backups, files, pictures, etc.). But all i wanna do is be able to access that space thru knoppix, b/c knoppix is easier. I am offended that you think all kids do on computers at school is dl porn and hack into others servers. For shame! And by the way, don't take a crack at people's jobs either ... i'm 17 yrs old and i have two jobs and working on buying my third computer. So don't try to take someone out if you don't know what your talking about (or what they're talking about) to begin with. ~Kevin

[|darc|]

Kevin and I were both told to do the school's web site. I have 50mb of thawspace on my pc, which is less than enough for a good browser (MozillaFirebird), WinRAR so I can download/unarchive tools, a good FTP client (I use FlashFXP), an HTML editor other than notepad (not dreamweaver/front page etc, just something that provides easier real HTML coding), and space for the site + images. Knoppix makes that way easier.

[hernan]

Not trying to be a smart-aleck, but what exactly is so "evil" about this application? You mentioned in your own post (although I could have guessed even if you hadn't said anything) that these are your SCHOOL's machines you are talking about. The school's... as in, NOT YOURS... presumably provided for classwork-related activities (internet, word processing, etc).

It sounds like the system admins wish to avoid the headaches and potentially severe legal liability of people using their machines for porn, file-sharing, lauching of DOS and other attacks... not to mention picking up viruses and otherwise breaking things because people don't know what their doing and/or don't care (since it's not their machine, it's not THEIR problem). Good for them, that seems like responsible system management.

If you want a box to play with as you see fit, BUY ONE. These days a perfectly serviceable box runs only a few hundred bucks... a few weeks of working part-time job would get you there (especially right now during the holiday season, when part-time jobs literally grow on Christmas trees). I can't believe that so many people on these boards give the time of day to script-kiddies looking to use Knoppix as a tool for bypassing security and misusing property that isn't theirs.

(Before I start, if I sound offensive, I'm not, so dont take this in a bad way)
First of all, I'm in my 4th computer. So I don't really need a new one to play with. My systems are more than enough to play with M$ win, linux, and everything...I even have an old P1 90 mhz comp for chatting on Aim (nAim) and browsing the internet (links). Oh, one thing, I'm only 16 years old!
Second of all, my point is not to break the school's computers, nor hack into others from them. My whole point of getting rid of deepfreeze is...well, let me give u a scenario:
Say I have to print out an assignment I typed out in my PDA (btw, my PDA runs linux ). I copy it to a compactflash, and then put it in a compactflash reader.
Then I go to one of the win98 pcs and insert the compacflash reader in the USB port. It doesnt detect it automatically, well, simply because it's...uhm...Windows.
So I go to the website, download w98 drivers, and install them. At the end of the install wizard, i get a YOU MUST RESTART TO CONTINUE!
If I restart, I will lose the drivers, and the setup.exe file i downloaded, so I'll just go back to where I started from. Now tell me, how am I gonna print out that assignment if I can't get the drivers properly installed???
That really pisses me off, that's why I really hate Deepfreeze.
And because if I'm working on something, and my pc freeze up, and I have to restart it, all those backup files M$ Word makes, or any other program, will be gone.
See where I'm heading?

So thats' why I hate DF.

'Java Nice day.

Hernan

[hernan]

or I would not teach AP CompSci anymore. ...

Enjoy,

Mr. Garcia...I'm taking an AP CompSci class right now. Do you have any tips for the AP exam? I just don't understand my teacher very well..

[A. Jorge Garcia]

Make sure you get copies of the JMBS Student and Teacher Manuals as well as the Acorn book for APCS from apcentral.collegeboard.com.

Also, get your hands on Fran Trees review book for the AP that follows Computing Concepts with Java Essentials (CCJ) by Cay Horstmann from Wiley.

Last, but not least get the Barrons APCS Review book by Roslyn Teukolsky. These are all great references you should read thru very carefully. Then you should try all the practice exercises in these books!

Maybe you should also try the online labbook from www.horstmann.com for CCJ.

My students do well with these materials!

Good Luck,