Newcastle University network: using under Linux

After another update my WinXP on the Dell notebook started to load so ridiculously slow (~45 minutes) that I cannot sustain it any more. All of that bells and whistles, such as anti-virus, anti-spyware and so on do whatever they want and do not allow me to work.



It is funny but IT service seems to close all holes so you are unable to install Linux or FreeBSD on Dell's laptop that goes from the University. But we can use our own laptop - we only need to know Dell's MAC address.

Changing MAC address in Debian
That's pretty easy: just type as root

# ifconfig eth0 hw ether xx:xx:xx:xx:xx

or correct the /etc/network/interfaces file like:

auto eth1
iface eth1 inet dhcp
hwaddress ether 00:00:00:00:00:00

And now make /etc/init.d/networking restart
That's it!

Using your Browser to surf web
For that we should tell Firefox (or other browser that you prefer) to use University's proxy server that is proxy.newcastle.edu.au:8080

For that use in Firefox: menu Edit -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Automatic proxy configuration and then type there:

http://proxy.newcastle.edu.au/proxy.pac

For now on you can use your browser to surf web from Linux.

Printing from Linux to UNI's printers [TBD]