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Linux Insatallion Party Today



Hi,

First, I want to thank all the people who donated their time and/or hardware 
and/or cd's - without that - none of this would happen.

Before I get into details, I can sum things up as a big success. Almost every 
one of those who came got eventually his linux installed. Things worked 
pretty smoothly, and although it could have been somewhat better, I don't 
think there was anything reallly important we missed. 

Now to the details, and the things we need to learn from it. 

Stas and moshe first got there arround 15:30 (I was there a bit earlier, 
expecting people would come perhaps a bit earlier), and brought with them 
stas's PC (Box+Screen+Keyb), and moshe's screen and keyb. A few minutes later 
already arrived our first "customer". In less than an hour after - came a lot 
of people - at once, all bringing their boxes or boxes only - no 
screen/keyboard - and we were kind of short of screens. this was perhaps the 
biggest problem until arround 6pm. Lucky us, choo saw the sitaution at 
arround 4pm, and went to bring his screen from home, which made us have 3 
screens - still not enough. 

later on, came a few people with screens and keyboards of their own, so we 
used them for other computers as well... and things got better. At this stage 
- what we lacked mostly - was simply - CD'S. both hardware and redhat itself! 
Hardware - we had only one portable CD which stas brought, but nothing more, 
and people without CD's had to wait a lot. As for software - people were 
waiting for a RedHat 4.0 CD to finish an installation and move to their 
computers. This was perhaps the biggest easily fixable flaw. 
One more thing about CD's - it would be a good idea next time to get a bulk 
of redhat 4's and sell them - a lot of people asked for that. 

We also had a few people who brought only their HD's - and we installed most 
of them the linux on it through stas's computer. It went kind of smooth. 

Main problem, as always, was with people who have OnDrek disk manager. we can 
NOT install on HD's with OTDM, (though someone actually DID install it - it 
didn't work ;-P). We need to make that clear on the page. Another thing - I 
think we need to make a better page next time, clarifying exactly what people 
need to brign with them, and what will work and what won't. We installed (or 
tried installing - I donno how it ended) a linux on a 486dx with 80MB HD. I 
think we should put some minimum requirments next time :). Someone (forgot 
who - don't kill me :) offered ot build a CGI for ppl to fill all the data 
from HOME... so they will know what they need - before coming, and for US to 
know what we will and will not have. 

btw, the partition magic moshe brought is quite amazing and easy to use. I 
liked it. To sum everything up - I think all the people who came, even the 
ones with HD only, (except for the ones with OTDM), got their linux installed 
- however, not many people came, I am afraid if more people came, thigns 
might have crashed. 

So, my points briefly:

1. More Hardware! Screens/Keyboards/CD's mainly
2. More CD's for our usage, and more BOOT DISKETTES! we were running after 
boot diskettes. that also includes DOS+fdisk+sys+partition magic on them
3. Improovment to web page
4. More time (I left arround 21:40, and some people stayed even after that).
5. Sell CD's
6. well - if the "hoster" of the party doens't mind - collecting donations 
for the next computax should be a good idea. 

and after all this critizem - it was still a EXCELLENT project, and we had 
excellent results, and we should do more of these things. :)

Thanks all the ppl who came, thanks stas for arranging it, thanks stas and 
moshe and choo for the hardware.... 

And be prepared for all the newbies flood again... ;-P



=============================================================================
Ofer Maor,                                                   IRC Nick: Slarti
ofer@hadar.co.il         http://www.hadar.co.il/ofer/              050-873068
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
  Student, Computer Science, Technion | UNIX Tutuoring, Support and
  Majoring In: Software Engineering,  |                 System Administration
               Networks, OS's         | HADAR Computer Systems     04-8213495
  EMail: s3866563@t2.technion.ac.il   | http://www.hadar.co.il/


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