[GRASS-user] grass live CD for education

[Glynn Clements]

wouter.buytaert at scarlet.be wrote:

> I am giving GRASS (and open source GIS) workshops every now and then. The 
> next one is in a few weeks. The problem is, I have only windows machines 
> available, and I have had bad experiences with badly installed CYGWIN and 
> GRASS versions in the past. (I have to leave it to the sysadmins).
> 
> I have proposed to use linux liveCD's but I am not allowed to use them due 
> to security reasons (access to the HD and network).
> 
> Theoretically it does not seem to be too difficult to disable those 
> functions on a liveCD.

Certainly, you could create a LiveCD which lacks support for hard
disks and network adapters (although you are going to be rather
limited in the amount of data you can handle if your filesystem has to
fit into RAM).

However, the issue may not be whether the LiveCD is actually safe, but
whether the admins *know* that it is safe, and are willing to make the
necessary changes to accomodate this (I would assume that the machines
are configured not to boot from removable media).

-- 
Glynn Clements <glynn at gclements.plus.com>