[Nottingham] Running Ubuntu at Nottingham Uni

[ForkBombFluf]

On Tue, 22 May 2012, Louise Brown wrote:

> Hi,
>
> They're not overenthusiastic about it but they set up my machine with 
> Windows and Ubuntu.  What they say is that they don't support Linux 
> (maybe that explains the lack of response to my query).  I think if 
> you've a good reason they'll do it for you.  In my case I'm running a 
> cross-platform open source project so I have to know that the software 
> builds in Linux before I release it.

Hi Louise, (& Cat too!),

No, most won't be overenthusiastic, unfortunately, but that's because the 
majority are employed for their Windows proficiency, rather than 
familiarity with Linux. The journey into the less-known is a lot more 
effort when there's already a queue full of more familiar (read: easier to 
do) jobs to complete.

I checked this morning, and the official word is that Linux is indeed 
"unsupported" in the eyes of Information Services.  That is not to say you 
*can't* get support for it, though, just that there are no official SLA's 
in place for it, so it becomes very much hit and miss depending upon whose 
lap the job falls into, how much they know about it, and how much time 
they have to dedicate to it at that moment.

There is certainly no moratorium on running Linux at the University. 
Many people like yourself require it for multi-platform software 
development or to run applications which simply don't exist for Windows. 
There are certainly aspects of University research that just couldn't 
function without it, especially (and not surprisingly) in the science and 
engineering arenas!

There is talk of developing some sort of framework for "official" support 
of OS's other than Microsoft Windows within IS, but progress is somewhat 
slow and hindered by the emergence of some very diverse ideas about how it 
should all be managed, and who by.

Different departments have different needs, so the "one size fits all" 
concept often doesn't work out in reality quite the way management had 
envisioned it, nor quite in the way the vendors (in the case of externally 
purchased solutions, such as storage, printing, etc.) had promised them.

Cheers,

-Stef