A Work in Progress: Dual-Boot Classroom

Today, we have put the finishing touches on our first dual-boot computer lab. However, this indeed is a work in progress.

Our dual-boot classroom is located in the Olin Technology Center’s teaching computer lab. The lab consists of 9 Mac Mini’s that are running both Mac OSX Tiger and Windows XP. When you sit down at the computer, you are presented with two options: Mac OS X or Windows XP. All you need to do is click your desired operating system and voila! You will be taken to the login screen for either the Windows or OSX.

This teaching classroom was originally designed in summer of 2002 for a quiet, teaching space that could accommodate both Macs and PCs. With those older machines, we needed to have 2 computers (1 Mac, 1 PC) for each station, in a different room in order to reduce noise and heat. Although there were many advantages, there were drawbacks with that setup. If a computer froze or you needed to insert a CD/DVD or use a USB drive, you would be unable to since the computers were behind locked doors. Also, to have 18 computers turned on, all day, with older technology, was an energy waste.

Future plans include upgrading both operating systems to OSX Leopard and Windows Vista. There may even be a triple-option in the future adding a flavor of linux to the mix.

Stop by and give it a test drive. We would love to hear your feedback.