[wlug_org] RE: Installfest report

[Liam OKeeffe]

Always a pleasure Brett. :-)

Also - I have just made the draw for the Philiips 190P 19" LCD monitor,
and the lucky winner was Ian Beardslee.  Well done Ian!  A fine effort,
considering that after opening the box there were in fact a number of
people who had dropped multiple cards!

Enjoy the monitor Ian.

See you all again next year,

Regards

LIAM 

-----Original Message-----
From: Brent Wood [mailto:pcreso at pcreso.com] 
Sent: Sunday, 25 September 2005 9:09 a.m.
To: wellylug at lists.wellylug.org.nz; wlug_org at lists.wellylug.org.nz; Liam
OKeeffe
Subject: Installfest report


I figure I should scribble summat out, so some scribble follows :-)

Total of 48 installs/fixes/tidies as far as I can work out. The SUSE 9.2
Pro kits from Novell were easily the most popular, with 19 systems. We
also had 3x Mandriva/Mandrake, 5x SUSE 9.3, and 9 Ubuntu/Kubuntu. Even
one Fedora system, for a Fedora fan, although it wasn't on the list of
supported distros. We wanna help as many as possible after all :-) The
rest were fixes & help with existing installs rather than new installs.
Pretty much on a par with last year, but, (I think due to Novell's SUSE
Pro kits looking soo good) a swing to SUSE as the preferred distro to
install.

We also gave away about 45 DSE Open Office CD's, and about 20 (I'm not
how many turned up from various sources) OpenCD's, as well as LiveCD
disks.

Generally there seemed to be less hardware issues than last year, though
they didn't disappear entirely. 3 external modems were sold to avoid
winmodem hassles, Chris put a lot of effort into getting an HP
multifunction scanner/printer to work with Ubuntu, eventually winning by
TKO in the 49th round.

One slightly under spec Dell laptop was set up with Kubuntu. Everything
seemed to work except the DLink wireless LAN card. Jethro's came to the
fore & that too will hopefully be sorted. (No mains adapter & the
batteries lasting just long enough to complete the initial install was
just one of those little joys of such events!)

With the extra space Silicon had arranged over last year we were much
less crowded, even with the same number of installs going on, people
could wander more easily and see what was being done.

The presentations seemed to go very well (again), special thanks to Carl
(who's great presentations always raise the target for the rest of us!)
as well as Jethro & Michael. I had some technical problems, sigh, as did
some others, but we all got there eventually.

A first for this year was setting up some systems with each of the
distros running as demo's, so people could see & try them before
choosing which distro.
We had Mandriva, SUSE 9.2 and Ubuntu systems for people to try, and
there was someone using at least one every time I checked. Thanks to all
the Luggites who wandered through this area to help & answer questions.
This will be a must have at future events.

Special thanks to Jethro, for his CD burning support (and help in other
areas).
Just as well his CDRW drive has water cooled bearings. Also Peter for
those ever so useful labels. It makes things so much easier for people
when they can easily sort out the helpers from the helpees. And Kris,
for his early work getting the flyers done and out there. I heard
mentioned it was his flyer stuck up by someone in a workplace tea room
that got them interested in attending, and I'm sure that applied to more
than just one!

Thanks also to the rest of you who turned up and helped on the day,
stuck fliers up around the place, and generally contributed how you
could. It's all much appreciated.

By my count there were 14 Wellylug members who showed up. Even if only
for Silicon's food and prize :-)  (sorry if I've missed some of you) 


And last but by no means least, the sponsors.

Having taken enough books from Dymocks shelves to cover two trestle
tables, you could barely see a gap on their shelves. A great range of OS
related computer books on display, though sales were down on previous
years, interest was still high.

DSE passed out flyers and helped advertise, asd also provided 100 of
their Open Office CD's to give away. We appreciate their support for the
fest, and also for Linux in NZ generally. 

Novell's SUSE Pro sets proved very popular. Getting these sets with such
comprehensive printed user and admin guides, as well as the software on
CD & DVD was great. I felt they helped us raise the profile of OS &
Linux, showing the professional as well as the community side of the OS
movement.

And, again, special thanks to Silicon & Liam. A great venue, wonderful
support and sponsorship, from lending a laptop to run a promo on, to
donating the 19"
screen as a prize (drawn tomorrow), providing a great spread for the
Luggites there (not that I really need it!), and the behind the scenes
time & effort involved to clear out their assembly areas so we can use
them just for a day.
Fantastic support for the Installfest & Wellylug. Greatly appreciated!


So thanks to all involved, our third 'fest at Silicon. Hopefully the
tradition will continue next year, but it's not something I really want
to think about right now :-)



Thanks everyone,

   great job, done well!


          Brent

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