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Originally Posted by nukem
...Right now I am using my own IBM Thinkpad T40 running Gentoo Linux but as it is the school dosnt really like that being in the building, im not allowed to connect to the internet or even have the wireless on(and yes it does come on when I boot it up)...when he asked about an open source solution they said "all open source software have security volubilities and we would still need a site license"(I find this ironic because the latest versions of Novell which they are running use SUSE Linux) Obviously these people dont have a clue.
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Sorry, but I'm going to have to side with your IT department on this one. Put yourself in their shoes. As long as all the computers are identical and are heavily restricted, it makes their job easy. Are the laptops working out for the average student? I'm sure it has word processing and internet. With the exception of a few engineering programs, that's all I use for school. Unless you have some computer classes (programming and the such), you probably don't need anything other than word processing and internet.
As for their distain of open source software, I could see that response in two situations. First off, they might see you as lowly students and don't want to sit you down to debate their reasons for refusing to install software other than what's on there now. Second, it depends on the program. There are some open source programs that would require you to have a site license or even pay for it. As for these "vulerabilities", they could mean "holes that students could take advantage of to circumvent the security measures that are in place". I'm going to say that I don't disagree with that.
But why do they want such heavy restrictions on your computers? It could be all sorts of things. There is one that comes to mind right away though. Think of this headline: Pentagon hacked using school district laptop.
Personally, I think the best thing to do in your situation is to find a way for your team to get your own computers. There's got to be some company in your area that's getting ready to throw some away. That's how we got ours.