[wlug_org] yet another installfest update (distro...)

[Wood Brent]

> 
> Bah. Novice installer - not novice distro ;-)
> 


Perfect summary Jamie!! 

I couldn't say it better. I'm a novice debian/knoppix installer, & the distro
is inappropriate for such!

Given we plan to inflict this on the unwary at the fest, the following might be
relevant:


the problems (apart from me) were:

   I'm supposed to run knoppix-installer, but only got kdx-hdinstall to work.  
 
   The partioning was enough to scare most novices I've dealt with away
   permanently.

   once I got that sorted:

   the CD icon on the desktop points at /mnt/cdrom
    /etc/fstab mounts /dev/scd0 at /cdrom

    as well as this minor problem, which, after all, wouldn't really bother
    anyone who knows how to turn a PC on

    no files could be read from /cdrom, as root or anyone else, irrespective of
      mounting manually, unmounting etc. eject -r worked fine, however.

    by creating the dir /mnt/cdrom2, 
    then mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom2 -t iso9660
    I could then read the CD to copy the presentation to the hard drive.
    I'm assuming there was something wrong with the /etc/fstab options, I don't

    know enough about them to know exactly what. But of course other novices 
    will be more conversant with this....

    I set the user up as NZ with US english & got what appeared to be european 
 
    chars on the xterm command line, so no "/", "~" or "-" characters which
made 
    command line stuff tricky. A console to work in as root fixed this though, 
    but not through any X based window.

I'm sure these minor hassles could be happily faced & solved by most novices,
but I prefer to stick with distros that don't give me these problems. (I had no
problems with Knoppix 3.2, but 3.3 has not been a positive experience)

Each to their own, Linux does provide choice above all!!  And knoppix IS
working, which is the main thing :-)

& pardon my sarcasm, but for some of those enthusiasts who really believe they
understand what a "novice" actually knows, a day in DSE seeing some first time
PC buyers in action might be educational.

I seriously suggest some of the Debian installers, who are going to be giving
away Knoppix 3.3 disks at the 'fest have a try with a clean Knoppix install &
make sure it is a simple operation for novices to do, or maybe produce a
handout to give instructions if they think it is appropriate?

(or try & explain to me in words of one sylababble or less, what I did wrong &
why it's all my fault :-)

Spotcha,

   Brent