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The Mac Beat
BSU Standardizes on Apple Hardware for Dual-Boot Initiative
12/11/2007
Allen, who said that he had never so much as laid hands on a Mac prior to joining on at Bemidji State, told us that there have been no significant problems reported since the initiative was launched.
For the ease of users and to enable triple-booting with Linux, the university is using rEFIt, an open-source solution for EFI-based machines, which include Intel-based Macs. The utility provides a pre-boot menu, allowing users to select an OS at startup time without having to hold down a key to call up a list of options, as is the case when using Boot Camp alone.
The Green Effect
There's one final advantage to Bemidji's approach, Allen said, and that's in the area of ecology.
"There's the green effect as well. We're being able to reduce the number of machines, so there a cause and effect for the environment ... as we don't have to have that many environmental issues with all of these machines."
In total, Allen said, the university will be able to cut the number of machines on campus just about in half while at the same time making more machines available to students consistently.
Expanding the Initiative
Beyond the laboratory settings on campus, the university is also in the process now of piloting a faculty laptop program. Taking a similar approach to the lab initiative, Allen said the university has passed out 23 MacBook Pro laptops to faculty members, representing a cross section of faculty across multiple departments, most of whom primarily use Windows.
"We wanted to hit the heavy Windows users," Allen said. "They're the ones who have to come to us and tell us if it's not going to work. They're the ones we're trying to convince that this is going to work."
The split among Bemidji State faculty is presently about 60/40 in favor of Windows. And, as with desktops and workstations, there are tech support issues involved.
"So being able to reduce and eliminate," Allen said, "and consolidate on one hardware platform is an essential thing for our technicians and a significant savings in time and effort."
It's too early to say whether that program will be rolled out fully. Faculty members have received the laptops and will provide feedback following the winter break. Purchasing decisions will be made over the following spring break.
"If it were just up to me," Allen said, "I'd say we'd be able to do it now. But we're including everyone. We really want to see [whether it's] going to work. For me, in the labs, it works fine. We can put all dual-boot machines in the labs, and there will not be a problem. The faculty, on the other hand, that's going to be a harder sell."
There have been no major guffaws for the faculty members to date. There was one case where a faculty member required a dial-up modem, so Allen had to find a USB-based modem that would work under Windows on the Apple hardware. The first solution tried was Apple's USB modem; but that, at the time, wouldn't work properly. So a third-party solution was found, and now things are working as expected. "Now he's happy, and he can use his dialup on both platforms, and everything's fine," Allen said.
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