[vox] Installfest?

[Bill Kendrick]

On Fri, Oct 07, 2016 at 01:44:53AM -0700, Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting Timothy D Thatcher (daniel.thatcher at gmail.com):
> 
> > > They heard that Linux runs on old hardware and they have nothing to
> > > lose bringing their old junky hardware with the hopes we might be
> > > able to spin up something interesting.
> > 
> > Errr, I always thought that was kind of the point of an installfest?
> 
> I believe you may have just volunteered to be the person at the
> installfest who handles all broken PCs.  ;->
> 
> Personally at the CABAL/BALUG installfests, I found I had to be very
> up-front about 'No, we're not a free-of-charge computer repair shop.'

Well, the main point of our Installfests have typically been
"bring your computer & install Linux on it, and if you need help,
others there can help you."


> Otherwise, you spend all your time doing that, _and_ you end up trying
> to limp back into operation the most dismal components that really ought
> to achieve their best and highest purpoee as landfill.
> 
> And these are _exactly_ the sorts of situation where such users don't
> value your time and trouble, because they're getting for free what
> they'd have to pay real money for at the local whitebox vendor.
> 
> > I've been thinking about installfests since they keep getting brought up,
> > too, and having one as a "physical media distribution fest" actually
> > doesn't sound like a terrible idea. Maybe prep some isos of a variety of
> > more- and lesser-known distributions, bring a machine with a CD/DVD burner
> > and fire them off made-to-order, and/or make a DVD with a variety of isos
> > that people can take home and burn off onto their own media.
> 
> I'd suggest going totally the other way.  Have an installfest server
> with a Web daemon, dhcpd, pxelinux (kickstart server), connected up to a
> local wifi network and ethernet.  Stock the server's Web pages with some
> informational pages, and offer download of distro ISOs _and_ also
> over-the-network installation or running of those same distros.  (When I
> say 'running', I mean like netbooting a live-CD distro via PXEboot.)
> 
> This way, the LUG can scale the installfest up to helping large numbers
> of people simultaneously, the LUG doesn't need to provide visitors with
> any supplies whatsoever (not even CDRs/DVD-Rs or flash drives), there's
> absolutely no contention over resources, _and_ everything runs at
> network speeds, _and_ you furnish a prime real-world demonstration of
> what Linux can do.
> 
> For extra points, make the installfest server a ludicrously small one,
> like maybe an Intel NUC.

Neat idea.  Any takers? :)

-- 
-bill!
Sent from my computer