Primal Scream! at Robert Pogson

AAAGGGHHHHHH!!! I let that other OS do it to me again. Yesterday I was giving my second lecture for my computer science course. I was using an XP machine on a cart as a terminal via RDP to my GNU/Linux terminal server.

I started up Impressive with a PDF slide show and some images to finish it off. I had set Impressive to show my progress bar for 20 minutes side to side. I had just got into it when a pop-up from the underlying OS intervened. It warned me that it would re-re-reboot in 14 minutes. “Cancel” was greyed out. I minimized my terminal window and it was still greyed-out. I didn’t want to interrupt my flow so I checked the time and decided I could finish in the time left. I dragged the pop-up to the side while roundly cursing that other OS.

You guessed it. I was on the last few slides when it pulled the plug. The only machine in the lab still running that other OS had bit me. It is on my hit list.

If that is not bad enough. I went around configuring machines to print to the photocopier which recently got a network interface and I found one deeply infected. No malware scanner… I set up one and found a mess. Not a huge number but at least one that could not be removed. Another scanner found even more, a different set. I have no confidence that it is fixable and I cannot contact the teacher to identify any files that need backup. After 15 hours of scanning with various scanners, everyone now says it is virus-free. I doubt it.

On the other hand, the 500 gB drives and monitors arrived but are in limbo while the bean-counters count beans.

My Mission

My observations and opinions about IT are based on 40 years of use in science and technology and lately, in education. I like IT that is fast, cost-effective and reliable. I do not care whether my solution is the same as yours. I like to think for myself.

My first use of GNU/Linux in 2001 was so remarkably better than what I had been using, I feel it is important work to share GNU/Linux with the world. I have been blessed by working in schools where students and school systems have benefited by good, modular software easily installed in most systems.

I have shown GNU/Linux to thousands of students and hundreds of teachers over the years and will continue in some way doing that until I die in spite of the opposition.