[Menai-LUG] Hello

[Kevin Donnelly]

On Monday 03 February 2003 11:10 pm, huw@pioden.net wrote:
> Just thinking aloud so sory if I upset someone. Have I missed something
> 'cos 'Linux install' nights seem to be a bit old hat. I've just rebuilt my
> 'playing' box at home today with RH8 and it's a task so trivial a child of
> 9 could do it. In fact a child of nine DID do most of it as I went for a
> bath! Most new distros I've used have installation procedures which shame
> Microsoft's efforts. RH8 just installed itself - no driver disks, no fuss,
> no problems.

I think this is true (although I have yet to get Debian or variant thereof 
installed OK, so mileage varies).  I was actually putting more emphasis on 
the "demo" bit (LTSP and Samba), but at the inaugural meeting there were a 
couple of people who did ask specifically about installs.  Certainly, if the 
congregation extends outside those who have some IT awareness (and I think we 
need to aim at this), handheld installs, particularly on their own PCs, if 
they bring them along, might be reassuring.  Another point is that every PC 
really is different, and minor changes in the distro can actually be quite 
significant.  I have some SuSE installs that fail to reboot during install, 
because they changed the bootloader from LILO to GRUB, and there is a 
"well-known bug in GRUB" (according to one of the SuSE guys on the list) 
which means it detects memory wrongly on some PCs, and fails.  (I wonder why 
they switched bootloaders if that were so? ....)  Before this, I had never 
has a SuSE install that failed - now you have to go in during those installs 
and change the bootloader manually to LILO.  So you never can tell.  It's 
this sort of thing that would put off new users.

> Not trying to be negetive you understand - it just seems so easy these days
> !! How about 'compile from source' night - or 'samba configuration
> options'. That last one could be a whole weekend. ;-)

Well, this is a good example of how things vary from person to person.  
Compiling from source usually works OK in most cases for me, and I think I 
vanquished Samba after a terrible 8-hour battle a couple of years ago.  I've 
only recompiled the kernel a couple of times though, and I'm a bit at sea on 
that.  So perhaps compiling apps might be a good follow-on from the 
demo/install night, perhaps with more a more detailed Samba session too, 
which would again pick up from that (using LinNeighbourhood, for instance).  
Kernel compiles should be left for later, I think.

But this is all hypothetical until we get a location for the next meeting.  

Kevin