Re: Older Equiptment

[Roman Suzi <rnd@sampo.karelia.ru>]

On Sat, 12 Dec 1998, Bill Tihen wrote:

>>It's not just an argument, it's reality.  Do more, with less :) Who do you
>
>(most of these computers only have 4 MB RAM). The math department wants the
>windows version of Derive (is there a Linux equivalent -- I must admit I
>don't know what derive does -- I have just installed it -- not used it.  I
>am relatively busy).  They have several DOS programs that I figure I can
>run off a Linux server.  What is the security like though on a DOS
>partition?  My guess is that it is non-existent.  (Yikes!  Anybody done
>this?)   

Derive is a program which does symbolic math. That is,  student
can solve his calculus exercises by it,  without  any  thinking
effort!

I think, Derive must be avoided in math  education,  or  people
will not be able to do simple maths like taking  derivative  of
x^3. It is the same  with  electronic  calculators  in  primary
school.

*

Derive will work great under dosemu, i think. One can even  use
dosemu with a file -- dos-disk-image -  so,  dos  under  Linux
could be secured.

I.e. no DOS partition needed. Graphics and many other things work
under dosemu. For example, I run the game Descent-II under it.
(But I have DOS partition. Read dosemu docs how to do it
without one)

So, one can share dos image file thru network, but it will  be
a read-only. There is a need for other place for changing parts
(it will be like C: and D: under DOS -- C: read only and D: for
documents ans other changing content)

I am not deep into dosemu, but I  think  each  student  can  be
forced to use his own "dos-disk-image-file" and some  read-only
file with application from the server.

Of course, client computer must run Linux, because it will  use
dosemu to run programs.

To convince your collegues, try this  with  two  interconnected
Linux machines first: try to make dos-disk-bootable-images  and
images with applications  inside  and  images  with  user  data
inside.

So, you will have
C: for DOS (will FreeDOS do it with Derive?) - readonly
D: for whatever application                  - readonly
E: for user own data                         - writable


Dosemu comes with FreeDOS, AFAIK.


By the way, its another plus for linux:

it can be used to help running familiar DOS apps in more secure
way or run them at all: 16 bit emulation in Win95 is  something
ridiculous: I have an app which correctly runs under dosemu and
cant run under Win95 !!!

So, we can count DOS apps  as  not  excluded  when  we  install
Linux! Even without dual-boot!

This is important, by the way: there are some nice  (and  free)
edu progies for DOS people don't want to part with!



Sincerely yours,
Roman A. Suzi

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