[Nottingham] Installfest Proposal

[Robert Postill]

On Thu, 2003-04-10 at 17:18, .waffle wrote:
> You won't need a network card... If anyone has a wireless USB card, you'r=
e
> sorted. All that you need to do then is specify the appropriate driver to
> load on bootup. Debian, Gentoo and Redhat support it, and they're pretty
> much opposite ends of the market, so I presume all distros allow you to
> specify 3rd party drivers on install. In fact, we could even make a flopp=
y
> boot disk that auto sets up the network and starts a remote install... If
> the person doesn't have a bootable CD drive (I've seen quite a few CD-RW'=
s
> that do this). Ideas?
Right this is a definate possibility, what I'd like to see is a distro that=
 we=20
settle on (probably SuSE) and then those people who do bring along kit alre=
ady=20
have drivers pre-compiled and working.  That requires a bit of organisation=
 but
I'd like to get those people who would like to donate kit etc together
beforehand so there is a proper kit list and some spares in case
anything smokes.

This also brings up a point that if anyone has a car (preferably a large
one. 21" monitors bugger the suspension on Ford Ka's, just ask my
girlfriend :) and wouldn't mind playing taxi, that'd be cool.
> Even better idea... Funds for the club! Download a few of the latest
> distros, and have a cd burner on stand by to get copying the cd's. Charge=
 =A31
> a cd and you're sorted! I'm sure this won't be frowned upon... It's not a=
s
> though we're making profit that is going to be taken away from Linux
> users...
I don't want to pour cold water on entrepreneurial spirit but two things
come to mind:
1) We're getting the site and the advertising free.  Turning up and
making the place into the NLUG shop might not be politically expedient.=20
However perhaps if we made sure Green's Mill got some of any dosh we
made...well I'm not sure about that, brings the whole NLUG bank account
saga up again doesn't it?
2) Some poor sap has to burn copies of our distros.  Take as an example
say 50x7 SuSE 8.1 disks and 50x1 Knoppix/Debian discs that's 400 CDs!  I
don't like the thought of doing that one night or of having to pay for
those CDs.  If SuSE and/or Linux Emporium come on board then they should
be able to knock out a load with little effort.
I'm not saying we can't, I'm just concerned that there's enough to do
without us having got to that point.  Also it's our first installfest
(that I know of).  There's no reason why we can't on another occaision
but there are reasons why we would should be cautious the first time
around.
> Well, that seems sensible, but I'd like to see Debian support there too..=
. I
> do love Debian with a passion :)
Like all distros Debian has its place, if you feel the need to bang the Deb=
ian=20
drum come up with a demonstration of Debian's capabilities.  We will need s=
ome
eye-catching, professional-looking stuff on show for the look but don't
touch crowd.
> Anyway, any help you need, I'm more than willing to help out in any way -=
 I
> also have some gear that could be of use as well - such as a machine I us=
e
> as a file server that has SuSE 8.1 and Redhat 9 ISO's just lying on the h=
ard
> disk, in case anyone wants a network install... Plus a couple of hubs and=
 a
> switch. Oh, and one of these smart USB -> IDE things for Mass Storage
> support. Dead useful if anyone has USB 2 as it's 480Mbit (or 12Mbit at US=
B
> 1).
Cracking, your name's on the list.  Thanks for the offer. On that note
also it's fair to say if you're on the list but don't feel confident in
wrecking a complete strangers PC :) we will need plenty of people to
talk to people about using Linux and free software.  Particularly if the
event is a success we may need to take names and numbers of people
interested in a second session or people who would like to launch
projects with Linux, you just never know who might come to one of these
events.  So don't be shy just because you aren't a kernel hacker, we'd
be interested to hear from anyone no matter how newbie they feel they
are.
Robert.