Installfest

Stiffler · 2002-09-09T18:13:08-05:00 (Monday)

If you go to the Gentoo forums, there are some post where ppl have made a bootable floppy to install Gentoo. I could probally make one myself if I had the time. All I need to do is extract the boot information and use WinImage to make a boot floppy. Then when booted with the floppy you set up Gentoo normally, but when you get to the part about extracting the tar.bz image, you use wget and DL it. After that, you can extract it.

As for as other distros, you need to see what their polocy is about distributing burned copies of their software. The _Only_ two reasons I mentioned SuSE is that I know they have a free distro they send to you, which is prettier and more professional looking than a burnned cd, and it is easy to use. If Mandrake and Red Hat have freebe versions that they send you with their logos and stuff on it, then by all means, use them as a choice.

Jon

Peter Motyka · 2002-09-09T21:53:26-05:00 (Monday)

Well, this saturday is out because it is simply too late to try to arrange this event so soon. How does the 21st sound? I could get started on allocating tables and power equipment. Also, if we could start assembling a list of other supplies that might be needed. How does the attrium sound? I think the nice open space would be a change of scenery from the labs.

Peter

William Grim · 2002-09-09T22:37:54-05:00 (Monday)

I'm open on the 21st; I think that would be a great time to do it.

William Grim · 2002-09-09T22:44:37-05:00 (Monday)

By the way, does anyone here want to see a FreeBSD installation? I just thought I'd ask, b/c I don't want to try to display something if no one has an interest.

If no one has an interest, then it'd be better if I just help display Linux installations; otherwise, I'm open to putting up FreeBSD for people.

Ryan Lintker · 2002-09-09T23:01:08-05:00 (Monday)

Open on the 21st? But there is a carnival on the 21st! Well, it is looking like CAOS won't be there anyway. Maybe we could have the install fest at the carnival. We could show off our linux boxes to the sorority girls. Then by studying their reactions, maybe we could better understand why there are so few CAOS girls.....

William Grim · 2002-09-09T23:27:28-05:00 (Monday)

Oh man! I didn't have it marked on my newly made schedule about the Carnival yet; sorry about that, I really am.

Well, if the carnival interferes, I can do it another day.

Perhaps a carnival installfest would be good? However, we would have to have a set way of how we demonstrate installations; it would be less personal. I was hoping the installfest could be hands on and interactive; I thought that was the point of it at least.

But man! Missing out on sorority girls? This puts me in an awkward position.

Women? Computers? Women? Women? Computers? Women?!

Ryan Lintker · 2002-09-10T00:14:53-05:00 (Tuesday)

I was just giving you a hard time about being more excited about Linux than fundraising. The proposed installfest has been getting a much larger response than volunteers for fundraising and club promotion. That's a natural response. Maybe we need to find a way to put fun back in fundraising.

Victor Cardona · 2002-09-10T03:02:17-05:00 (Tuesday)

Count me in.

Victor

Victor Cardona · 2002-09-10T03:07:34-05:00 (Tuesday)

Perhaps we could combine the installfest with pizza or doughnut selling at the carnival :-) People could come for the installation and then be hooked on then food.

Victor

Victor Cardona · 2002-09-10T03:14:53-05:00 (Tuesday)

I wasn't critisizing your choice to emphasize SuSE. We can get Red Hat CDs but we would need to ask people to register with Red Hat so that we could continue to get them in the future. Registration is free, and painless, but we would need to feel comfortable with asking people to register.

I also understand about the unprofessional look of CDRs. I point out that this is Linux we are talking about, and passing out CDRs wouldn't be entirely out of character :-)

Anyway, we could always hand out the SuSE CDs, but have fliers or something with information about the different distributions.

Victor

Stiffler · 2002-09-10T09:09:53-05:00 (Tuesday)

How come all the topics about computers end up talking about women and the lack there of? We really need girlfriends, y'all!

Yeah! I think we should compile a list of all the well-known, good distros. Have a blurb on all of them, and the website to the maker's homepage. We need to hand out at _least_ a copy of one distr, because ppl might not want to DL it or are on 56k lines. The paper will look more professional than burned CDs. Most of these ppl will be new to Linux, and will be like, "A burned CD!?!hat kind School hands out pirated software at a publised event?" Of course, it's not pirated, but will they be used to free software? So point being, if we want to distribute Red Hat CDs, we contact Red Hat, and find out if the have a free version with their pretty little logo on it. Same with Mandrake.

Jon

Victor Cardona · 2002-09-10T09:22:21-05:00 (Tuesday)

Agreed. I wouldn't mind putting the information sheet together. I also don't mind contacting Red Hat. I just want to make sure that we are cool with asking people to register with Red Hat. If we aren't, then we should stick with SuSE.

Victor

Victor Cardona · 2002-09-10T09:27:23-05:00 (Tuesday)

The other thing we could do is perhaps shell out the money for a distribution sampler pack from Cheap Bytes or Linuxcentral. Then we would have nice looking CDs for several distributions. If anyone wanted a copy, we could burn them one, and give it to them along with a paper copy of the GPL.

This gets areound the problem of having homemade CDRs and it would introduce people to the world of free software.

Victor

Stiffler · 2002-09-10T11:10:48-05:00 (Tuesday)

Oh yeah, I forgot about the Sampler. Thanks for reminding me. How much is it, and do we have enough funds to buy a lot of copies? I have no problem haveing ppl register with Red Hat. We just need to reafirm the fact to them that it is free.

Jon

Victor Cardona · 2002-09-11T00:03:54-05:00 (Wednesday)

CheapBytes has the cheapest and most up to date combo for $17.95. That includes Red Hat 7.2, Mandrake 8.1, Slackware 8.0 and Storm Linux 2000.

I don't think we could afford CDs for everyone unless we burned copies ourselves. The cool thing is that all of these CDs can be copied. We don't have to worry about licenses in this case, because we can assume that CheapBytes already did all the leg work for that.

Victor