A bright idea...

[Chris Jones]

> At my university, the winboxen can boot from usb, but they are
> configured to boot ONLY from disk. The BIOS is also password
> protected, and the case is locked. What is a poor Fedora junkie to do?
>
> I unplugged one of the machines, then wormed a plastic stick (actually
> a stepped-on mechanical pencil) into the case, and actually managed to
> pop out the motherboard's button battery! Ten minutes later, there was
> no more password on the BIOS...

Whilst I praise your ingenuity, this is exactly the sort of undergrad behavior 
which probably explains why your system was locked down in the first place ;)

My university is equally as paranoid when it comes to students - The computing 
systems *completely* reinstall themselves (i.e. complete disk clean and then 
mirror from a central server) every night... Best way to clean out the filth 
left behind by your average undergrad ;)

At least though they do ofter students dual boot options - winXP or SUSE... 
You can argue against their choice of suse, but at least its a linux 
alternative...

Chris