On Tue, May 25, 2004 at 07:52:22AM -0400, rab wrote: > > I've heard about large hard drives or memory sticks that can be plugged > into the USB port. Is it possible to configure a new(er) Gateway desktop > to boot from a drive connected to the USB port? I've taken a new > position and have found that the IT department here has more Nazis than > the IT department at my previous position .... If this is a new position go with the flow! Demand that they support you and earn their keep. It is possible to construct a boot CDROM/floppy that will finish booting from a USB disk. This can keep you from touching their disk and grub(ing) about. > and I'm leery about adding > Linux to a partition on my harddrive. (I think they would notice GRUB. I > was "scolded" for adding Mozilla and OpenOffice to my computer. They > want to add ALL software. Of course, all they know is Windows. If they noticed this amount of tinkering then for goodness sake do not try and be sneaky. It could cost you your job. cygwin on a CDROM will be your friend. > Apparently we exist to serve the IT department not the other way > around.) I'm not that familiar with Gateways and of course there are no > manuals or Windows XP disks for the current system. I am getting a new > Gateway in a week or so. Any insights would be greatly appreciated. > (BTW, they want us to shutdown our computersevery night. What a world.) Shutting WindowZ computers down each night makes sense. They need the ZZZZzzzzzssssss. I suspect that most of their patch, audit and virus management stuff triggers at boot time. Also the electric power bill for the computer + Air conditioning is a very real cost. Flat panel displays are near or at the electric power break even point. The reality is that IT departments are getting chartered with more and more legal, conflicting and often opaque to users and manager obligations. They then turn these obligations into power base building blocks. It is not uncommon to have a computer company with a larger internal IT support group than there is support for paying customers. ;-( The structure of these internal support groups often hides this fact from executives. Eventually they will catch on that THEIR customers are getting short changed and IT departments will change. If we do OUR job here the change will be to a Linux/GNU open-source world. I know that I can support hundreds yea thousands of Unix machines from my keyboard on a network. The equivalent support for WindowZ requires lots of walking around by a dozen+ people OR fascist user policies and expensive third party packages and consultants. Most management has opted for fascist user policies and expensive third party packages because users demand WindowZ tools. -- T o m M i t c h e l l /dev/null the ultimate in secure storage.
