[Nottingham] Running Ubuntu at Nottingham Uni

[David Aldred]

I had agreement to switch to dual-boot from my IT rep a few months ago -
mainly on the grounds that the machine in question was struggling to run
what i needed in Windows properly, let alone handle a Linux VM as well.  I
didn't actually do that as the machine died right on cue, and the new one
has significantly more power.

Of course, reasonable conditions applied.

As far as I know the instructions are actually there - but the Linuces
aren't.  They would have been written for Ubuntu 8.04 or thereabouts.

As I say, I reckon community support is the *right* way here: then someone
would not only care enough but also have a
machine running something which allowed him/her to experience what worked
and so reliably update all the instructions as Linux/iOS/BBOS/Android
changes....

David Aldred


On 24 May 2012 18:18, Cat Clarkson <envengcat at googlemail.com> wrote:

> Taking a step back from support, itd be quite nice for IT to let us have
> linux installed on our PCs, but locking bios makes that impossible
> (right?).. That definitely bothered me more than knowing id be unsupported.
>
> I also seem to remember a couple of years ago when netbooks got big there
> being ubuntu guides to connect to uon-secure etc? Do these no longer exist?
> On May 24, 2012 5:58 PM, "David Aldred" <davidaldred at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> On 24 May 2012 17:24, Barry Drake <ubuntu-advertising at gmx.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On 24/05/12 17:11, David Aldred wrote:
>>>
>>>> It's really not as easy as that, in the real world.
>>>> Yes, they are all University students and staff.  No, that doesn't mean
>>>> they necessarily have much of a clue about
>>>>
>>>
>>> Actually , I do live in  the real world.  Anyone with half a brain at
>>> nottingham.ac support should have realised that pointing students
>>> towards the Ubuntu https://answers.launchpad.net/**ubuntu<https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu>will get them their answer with no knowledge or expertise require on their
>>> part.  Pride says much!.
>>>
>>
>> Ok, so I went there and typed in 'How do I connect to University email'.
>>  No answers.  Then I tried "set a proxy server', and didn't get the right
>> answer in the first four hits (or not for my version of Ubuntu).   Those
>> are likely to be the biggest questions when all the new students arrive in
>> September.   (So yes, they will be covered in welcome guides, but we know
>> that well under half of students read much of the welcome guide before
>> connecting up a computer).
>>
>> Launchpad is great if you have loads of patience and a fair bit of
>> technical know-how already.   That's not the helpdesk marketplace.
>>
>>
>>> And, if there are a lot of question like this, there are hundreds of
>>> folk like me who would run a seminar for free.
>>
>>
>> Seminars are great, but they don't answer the question now.   And by the
>> time they've got to the seminar, they've presumably sorted out enough of
>> their problems to have been able to connect, find details of useful
>> seminars, and get email confirmation that they are registered for them - so
>> help desk have already done their work.
>>
>> David
>>
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>
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