[NTLUG:Discuss] Linux Lab

[terry]

On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 10:45 AM, Mike Owens <mikeowens at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 9:31 AM, Kenneth Loafman <kenneth at loafman.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Let me know if any of this could be useful.  Are you doing this as a
> > charity?  Tax writeoff maybe?
>
> Yes, this is all volunteer work. I am not selling anything. The router
> and KVM would certainly be handy. How old are the laptops? The basic
> criteria for laptops/PCs is that they need to be able to run a vanilla
> Ubuntu install. If they can manage that, then they're good. It
> apparently doesn't take all that much. I set up a lady's laptop last
> week which was an older model with 512Mb RAM and it seemed to work
> just fine, even with Compiz. I would just install these and offer them
> to whoever in the class needs them.
>
> A good way to wipe the drives and test Ubuntu capability would be to
> just drop in an Intrepid CD. If it makes it to the desktop, you're
> good. Then just open a console and use do:
>
> dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sda (or /dev/hda depending on your drive)


>
> before you go to bed. By morning, your data should be toast. I'm sure
> there is probably a better way, but that's what I've done before.
>
> Thanks for your support.
>
> -- Mike
>
> _______________________________________________
> http://www.ntlug.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>

I understand that

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdX

seven times is the industry standard.

Is dd  if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/hdx  similar or ...?
    (when run all night)
-- 
<><