Baslinux mailing list

[James Miller <jamtat AT mailsnare.net>]

On Mon, 4 Jul 2005, sindi keesan wrote:

> A friend  will be starting college and was told in order
> to
> access the school internet connection he needs Windows or Macintosh.
>
> I don't believe this.  Our local university insists that people run a
> Windows CD to connect but I know you can access with any TCP/IP type
> dialer.
>
> If he put in an ethernet card and insmodded it, what else would it be
> necessary to know (IP number?) and do to obtain a connection using BL3?

What this usually means is that they will not _support_ any other OS. 
Students who call the school IT dept. with problems can't get any help 
unless they're running Win or Mac. That said, I'll just bet the network is 
set up like about any other wired network and runs a dhcp server that will 
hand out an address to any dhcp client that can make a physical 
connection--regardless of what OS that client runs on. I know my own U 
network is set up like this. So, if he has support for his NIC (in the 
form of the module you mention) and can run a dhcp client, he should be 
able to get on the network using Linux with no problems so long as he has 
access to one of the U.'s ethernet jacks..

Around this University, it's become clear to me that M$ is making 
education into an arm of its marketing department. Here they even tell you 
which version of Windows you need to be running. And if you don't run one 
new enough, you simply can't do certain things (like get on the wireless 
network they run or use campus-wide printing)--at least not without a bit 
of hacking. Talk about a racket . . .

James