[Discuss] UVic's new portal now available to students, unless they use Firefox

[stephen hawkes]

Paul Nienaber wrote:
> stephen hawkes wrote:
>> Slightly off topic, but what is with UVIc and explicitly NOT 
>> supporting linux. I went to the computer store because I needed a 
>> wireless card and asked if they knew what chipset it ran (they 
>> didn't). Of course they ask why the hell I would need to know, and I 
>> said, "Various reasons, but running linux is the primary one."
>>
>> The response: "We don't support linux."
>>
>> I nearly went off.  I don't care, I don't need support, that's why I 
>> am checking what chipset that card is (the particular card could have 
>> 1 of two chipsets).
> Yeah.  Simple thoughts for simple people.  This almost reminds me of 
> people randomly freaking about anything their small minds can 
> associate with terrorism the second you mention such things...
>>
>> Any of the helpdesks are the same if I complain about connectivity, 
>> email or anything else.. when in all reality the issues I was having 
>> have nothing to do with what OS I run.
> I just quote standards.  "Your SMTP server is not speaking SMTP.  
> Please fix it."  Then they can't blither about what OS is allowing me 
> to determine this.
If they know what that means. Ever tried talking to the lower level shaw 
techs? One insisted my grandfather's cable modem was connecting fine, 
however I couldn't ping anything in their network let alone anything 
outside of it, I was getting a 90% packet loss. He said, "Shaw litespeed 
isn't as fast as highspeed."  Ah, yeah I know that but I should be able 
to connect to say, your email servers w/o timing out. Then he insisted 
it was user side, as no one else had complained in the neighborhood. 
Everyone in the neighborhood is >65 and most don't have an Internet 
connection, I wonder why there are no other complaints... sorry more 
ranting.
>>
>>
>> On a possitive note there were some rumors of uvic starting a linux 
>> repo or mirror (I don't want to say what prof said that since it was 
>> second hand to me, but my friend said he was quite excited about the 
>> "possibility" or something along those lines).  That would be the 
>> right step in UViv (or CSC at least) having an "official" distro that 
>> would be supported on campus.
> IMNSHO supporting one distro is about as good as supporting none at 
> all.  Except then they can pretend they're doing something useful, 
> while they're still not.  Boo ${OFFICIAL_DISTRO}!!!
>
> ~p
Good point. However it would be a step in the correct direction. I am 
definitely not going to switch which distro I run so I can run UVic's 
official distro (if that were to happen anyhow, huge if there). Having 
an official linux distro would mean that sites would have to run with 
something other than IE. I don't think I would need OS specific support 
from a help desk anyhow, but it gives an option to students that want to 
run an up-to-date OS that is free. It would also mean that I wouldn't 
get ignored because of the OS I run when my problems are not OS related.