[Nottingham] LAN Party, Install-fest, Linux fun: Sun 12/11/06

[Martin]

Martin wrote:
> Folks,
> 
> As specially requested, we are very happy to host a
> 
> LAN Party, Install-fest, Linux fun-fest, and a generally fun afternoon
[---]
> There's likely to be a mix of hackings, LAN game playing, installs,
> debugs, bits 'n' pieces exchanges, and even some beer!
[---]

Certainly, a good fun day was had. More troubleshooting and hacking than
demos but there were a few games sessions (on the one Windows box).


All started at about high noon and I had no idea that Beeston was
paralysed at that time by a procession. So, I was there in the
procession of cars for a while...

Meanwhile, Michael had already got various bits set up and was waiting
for the internet connection and server/firewall. First was to add a
second ethernet card to my backup server, rejig the networking settings,
reset the D-Link WiFi box and connect to ineedbroadband and whoosh...

And... the whoosh was more like a Keyston Cops sliding around and
falling down episode (as in Charlie Chaplin for the youngsters). The
D-Link box suffers very random operation for the "factory defaults"
reset switch and my very old scavenged ethernet card added to the server
gave dubious results. A second Belkin WiFi firewall/router box didn't
support acting as a client. Swapping in a more recent ethernet card
helped to then find the D-Link box problem. Martin G came to the rescue
with a USB WiFi dongle with aerial that just simply worked.

Next was to share the connection with the internal LAN and... OK, so the
Mandriva point 'n' click GUI setup knows nothing of connecting to the
internet via WiFi! Also, I'd not installed any software for dhcpd or
firewalling/masquerading and Mandriva didn't know to use the WiFi
internet link and the install disk was somewhere...

Mandriva did the automagic with the USB detection and setup.

Martin G then came to the rescue with a deft:

ifconfig wlan0 up ineedbroadband

An iptables and route quickly set up the connection sharing and all were
surfing the web! I then loaded up shorewall which then worked just as
well as the Martin G iptables hack. :-)


Meanwhile, James and Michael were making an impressive mess of machines
and cables and ethernet switch in the middle of the room.


And then: to start attempts to load up whatever to show off the brand
new nVidia graphics card in a machine I'd just put together:

Graphics:	256MB MSI NX7300GT
Motherboard:	ASUS M2V, VIA K8T890, S AM2, PCI-E (x16)

The 64-bit versions of Mandriva and Kubuntu were very flaky on it and
the video drivers worked only if "startx" was used from a command line.
The 32-bit versions ran better but still had display problems. The
system was thoroughly checked with Memtest86+, HDD test, and a James
diagnostics industrial test disk and survived fine...

By midnight, the most stable found for it was Kororaa! However, even the
nVidia drivers install script seemed to have various problems...

Midnight loomed and so forced a very quick pack up and clearout and home
through the damp and dark.


Meanwhile...

Martin G and Michael were helping debug a mongrel international spare
parts PC with what appears to be a partially faulty motherboard.
Although the broken IDE2 port wasn't resurrected, at least all the
software was updated and a few tricks demonstrated.

Kororaa was shown off to great effect. When first tried, my reaction was
an instant giggle of unexpectedness for the smooth fun desktop effects.
At least it looks good at first glance.

The fileserver certainly got exercised. I was reminded how we as expert
geeks take GUI/utility restrictions for granted whilst those
restrictions can be bewildering and a show-stopper to first-timers. For
example: why doesn't drag 'n' drop work for a full directory tree with
ftp with that GUI. Oh, you've got to use a different program...

Curiously, Nautilus didn't work with my setup of proFTP!

And ok, I'll add samba & NFS to the server for next time. Any others?


The day was certainly fun, and well worth the hassle of shifting all the
kit. Good venue also.

For myself, the best part of the day's events was in seeing what others
do with their machines and how. There were some good hints and tips
exchanged, even for just seeing how to troubleshoot or for setting up or
for just desktop layout.

One interesting note: For playing with various unfamiliar distros, often
the quickest fix was to open up a terminal and just hack the underlaying
Linux commands... GUIs work well if you can correctly guess what they
are doing! (They're also very confusing when updated and they then do
some unexpected new hidden trick...)


And as for the last "Awareness Day", we had no hoards of interested new
faces... Are we /that/ scary?


There were Michael E, Lilly, Ruby, Martin G, James, A N Other +2, and
myself. (Sorry, forgot those three new names.)

Special mention to James for his gravity defying load on pushbike and
custom bike mods!!! Also to Lilly and Ruby for lots of giggles!

Hope Martin G didn't get into trouble for not doing the Sunday
demolition house work...


When next?

Cheers all,
Martin

-- 
----------------
Martin Lomas
martin at ml1.co.uk
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