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Re: Installation Party Summary
Marc A. Volovic wrote:
>
> On Sun, 27 Oct 1996, Harvey J. Stein wrote:
>
> Harvey, as is so boringly usual, your comments are well thought out and
> to the point.
Indeed.
>
> However,
>
> > 1. The Washington Linux Users Group asks people to defrag & repartition
> > *before* arriving. Maybe that would help...
>
> I would NOT trust a newbie, no matter his afiliation, to defrag and,
> worse, repartition the disk.
Well, we should at least make people aware of the need for such a
preperation (e.g. the kid I installed the second Debian for indeed
partitioned his disk beforehand).
>
> > 2. I'd suggest settling on *one* distribution, and bringing as many
> > copies as possible on as many media formats as possible. You should
>
> Agreed and a good point.
Of course, but then there is a never-ending discussion of which Dist.
to settle on. Also once we decide which dist. we should get the "gurus"
familiar with this dist. by going over the entire procedure together
(yes, it will be boring, but it will make the gurus much more usefull
at the party itself by avoiding the "single cpu bottleneck sindrom").
>
> > 3. Aren't network installs are more trouble than their worth?
> > Cracking open multiple machines, plugging in cards, dealing with IRQ
> > &/or DMA conflicts, getting enough linux up and running to continue
> > with a network install, etc... I'd think it'd take an absolute
> > minimum of 10 minutes to get a machine on the net, which gives a rate
> > of 6/hr, which means 3 hours of hardware hassles just to get 30
> > newbies on the net, let alone the network config hassles. I think
> > it'd be *much* more efficient to just skip the server concept and make
> > sure there's one copy of linux per machine.
>
> Agreed, assuming that the machines to be instaled _HAVE_ a cdrom.
> Otherwise, it's still "crack open the machine, install {cdrom,disk} and
> install" - possibly taking MORE time than installing a network card.
>
> I am still in favour of at least ONE network-capable install server.
I haven't followed the troubles that you went through with the NFS
server, but I tend to agree with Harvey here.
Installing a CD-ROM or a hard-disk with a copy of a CD sounds much
more trivial to me than configuring a network card and installing
a network-capable base-linux.
>
> > 5. I often find that the biggest hassle with installing linux is
> > finding out the details of peoples' hardware. So, lets have a form
> > for people to fill out before coming. It should ask for *all* the
> > details of their system (what cards, what brands, what configurations,
> > what monitor (max hsync, max vsync, max dot clock), IRQs, dma usage,
> > hard disk (chs, partition table, brand, ...) ...). If they come with
> > enough info, it'll make the installations more foolproof, less risky,
> > and make installing X easier (and safer).
>
> In a phone call with roji, I suggested preparing a checklist for each
> machine to be installed. This idea should be integrated into the
> checklist concept.
Maybe people should be required to provide such a checklist beforehand
(i.e. enforce the requirement to get in touch with us and not just walk
into the room).
Another option - for people who don't know how to get this info (and
there were such people there) we might nominate an "interogator" who'll
help them fill the checklist. Make this "interogator" the first station
for all the newbies (so even the filled checklists are confirmed to be
usefull).
Cheers,
Amos
--Amos Shapira | "Of course Australia was marked for
| glory, for its people had been chosen
amos@dsi.co.il | by the finest judges in England."
| -- Anonymous
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