Ask Slashdot: Linux Support In Universities? 432
An anonymous reader writes "I study Computer Science at a university in Melbourne, Australia. I recently went to a 'Directions of IT' seminar run by our central IT department, where students were invited to discuss issues with the senior management of IT. During discussion about proposed changes to our campus-wide wireless network, I asked if the new system would support Macs, Linux and other Operating Systems. Several of the managers laughed at this question, and one exclaimed 'Linux!' as if it was the punchline to a joke. The head of IT at least treated my question seriously, but I didn't get a concrete answer. So, I would like to ask Slashdot: Does your university/college provide support for Linux/BSD/etc users to connect to the on-campus wireless? How does IT support Linux users generally? Have IT staff ever ridiculed you for asking questions about Linux?"
Re:This is 2011 (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, I'm mean, seriously, at this point it's a GIVEN that some University students and faculty will be using other operating systems - Mac especially, and pretty much any University that has a Computer Science, Software Development, or IT program should have classes in which students are at least exposed to Unix/Linux and are taught how to do development and/or administration for Unix and Unix-like systems (as they are used a lot in Enterprise IT).
You shouldn't even have to ASK about Mac and Linux compatibility this late in the game - IT should KNOW that they need to provide compatibility with those OSes.
The good news is, that unless you are using some exotic extension to WiFi (like requiring some sort of Active Directory-based login before you can even get an IP address), Mac and Linux users WILL BE compatible with a WiFi network already, as it is an IEEE standard which both have supported for about 10 years.
Re:get out while you can (Score:3, Informative)
I've struggled with this over the years - the IT department at a lot of Universities is completely separate from any college or program. They'll get the bright idea of doing something not supported on Linux (they'll usually try to support Mac as it has greater representation among the general population), then the CS departments and students, maybe the IT academic department (that is, the department which TEACHES IT as opposed to the University-wide department which MANAGES IT), and maybe some of the scientists (Physicists, Chemists, etc) who use Linux have to complain that IT broke compatibility, and *hopefully* it gets fixed.
In an ideal world, IT would consult users about PROPOSED changes, incorporate feedback about such problems, and find solutions, beforehand. Yeah, right.
Yes (Score:5, Informative)
I work at a major University in the US (rhymes with Schmarvard).
I lead a team of 6 that offers Linux training, OS installs, desktop support, and a Debian-based HPC/Web/Database/Tomcat/Wiki/RT environment. We used to get lots of requests to install Linux on laptops or desktops, though those have mostly slowed due to the fact it's easy to install. The desktops are almost all Ubuntu.
Most everything else we do is OS-agnostic since there's a lot of OS X on campus. I think the only thing that's really specific to a Windows environment is Exchange and the Outlook client. I just fire up a VirtualBox VM and run Windows 7 in it.
Re:Shouldn't that be platform neutral? (Score:4, Informative)
You can run the network fully open; but then everybody's packets are in the clear(unless encrypted by whatever protocol/program they are using). You can run WEP/WPA-PSK; but that pretty much sucks for anything larger than a home network(half your users won't know the shared key, the other half will make it public knowledge in about two seconds). WPA-enterprise, with radius, works well enough architecturally; but configuration is kind of a pain in the ass for university-type situations where most devices aren't configured by the IT overlords.
So, you get situations where the APs are run fully open; but the only thing visible is a VPN appliance of some flavor(usually rhymes with "nabisco"). Campus IT will provide a pre-rolled custom installer for windows, and sometimes OSX, that installs the (unbelievably sucky) Cisco VPN client, pre-populated with everything but your username and password, and away you go. Linux users can go whistle as far as IT is concerned; but there is usually a campus-specific FAQ written up by some benevolent CS grad student at the institution telling you what your vpnc config file needs to look like, and IT doesn't care if you do manage to connect by those unofficial means.
Some schools, thankfully ones that I've never dealt with, demand some sort of(usually windows-specific) "client health monitoring" or "clean access" software be installed. That is a bigger issue. If you are lucky, they only demand it of windows clients and look the other way at macs, xboxes, and other miscellanious stuff, and you can get away with just connecting a linux box. If unlucky, "other" is treated as a pariah category...