i've finally managed to get up on time to go to an installation part
that's held in the inhuman hours of friday morning... went there, and
came back home with 'mixed emotions'. to the plus side, there were quite
many installers (12? more?), many screens, keyboards, electric cords, and
even some 'opened up' PC for hard-disk only installs was scraped from
somewhere. the party (litteraly... see below) lasted until the folks
wanting to take out the last tables pulled out the cord (Again, litteraly)
at 15:30, an hour and a half after the formal end hour. The mineral water
supplied to the installers were indeed right in place and right on time.
During the party, small booths of PF1, Sivan and Mutag computers, thought
i didn't pay enough attention to the activities that occured there (i did
catch at a glance some 'linux demonstration lecture' that was carried out
near the boothes).
and now, to the down side. please accept this as a constructive criticism
about things to consider for the next party.
1. at least initially, there was a complete administrative mess down at
the installation tables - it was impossible to see who to refer to,
who is an installer, who is just part of the cround, who came to get an
install done, and who are the people from the various companies around.
i'd think that it'll be a good idea to have for the next time someone
to work as a 'sadran' (i.e. direct people to free install locations,
if there is a queue forming up, handle it somehow, etc.).
2. Media verification.
various CDs were defective (few weren't bootable, one appeared to
cause a problem during install, while installing the 'rpm' package and
then dying off, unable to continue the installation), few boot
floppies were defective, etc. i'm not sure if it's possible or not,
but it might be a good idea to somehow verify the media before the
party (e.g. make a raw comparision of the floppies, using a
combination of 'dd' and 'cksum' to checksum the floppy, as well as the
image installed on the floppy), etc.
3. Hang the D.J (well, it's not his fault..)
i don't have anything against music, and it's actually nice to have it,
as long as it's in the background. but bringing in a D.J with a full
set of equipment (equalizers, amplifiers, etc. etc.) is a script for
semi-disaster - it was almost impossible to hear people talking around,
and people ept complaining about this (at least those that i've heard).
perhaps next time just settle for some background music, that will
indeed make it nicer, and yet allow people to talk?
4. this one seems to be a starting phenomena of the way linux is being
promoted - some people expect it to be "very easy to intall, require no
reading of documentation, etc. this appears to stem from the way linux
is being lately exposed in the media. i'd suggest that we all try to be
a little more carefull in the way we advocate the usage of linux. the
mantra should be "It's fun _because_ you need to learn about your
system", rathern then "it was once hard to install, but now it's easier
then win*".
in any case, see you at the next 'party',
guy
