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The First-Ever Installfest in Egypt
"The atmosphere was just unbelievable; people who had had linux installed realised the LUGgers were overwhelmed and stayed on helping other people with installs, we couldn't burn CDs fast enough, several thousand educational pamphlets were not enough by a wide margin. We were expecting maybe 150 or 200 people throughout the day, but we had already reached that number by 9:45 a.m. (15 minutes before opening!). To the best of our knowledge, the most successful LUG-driven event in the middle-east, certainly the biggest, and one hell of a day that we'll all remember. Note that we are now looking at the possibility of another Installfest during summer at the Bibliotecha Alexandrina and would welcome any extra resources. (A big thanks to MadFarmAnimalz' family who served the volunteers sandwiches carefully wrapped in copies of the GPL preamble and the deCSS code)"
Computers are great and all for what we use them for, but for them to be able to bring people together in a _social_ setting is pretty damn cool. Sorta throws itself in the face of the usual antisocial computer geek stereotype.
The very best part of installfests is that isntead of just complaining about Microsoft, people actually get out and do something to help provide better options.
reeddavid.com
Hmm - it seems to be available over the regular internet as well.
It would be nice if more ISPs (non-university) supported Internet2. I suspect that the profit margins are insufficient to justify it at this point in time though.
Out of curiosity, does anyone know of any good content, which happens to be Internet2-Specific (not found on the regular 'Net)?
The penguins on the T-shirt in the last photo look especially neat... kudos to the designer!
Are you fucking retarded? Internet2 is a network for academic research projects, not for you to leech l33t warez.
Indeed, quite a few distros now support this, including my own beloved Slackware and I believe Gentoo too. Although it might be interesting to walk into the local computer superstore and ask if they'll donate some discs. Couldn't hurt.
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
Yeah, but the Linux Counter is pretty useless - I know a ton of people who use Linux and haven't registered, mostly either because they don't know about it or can't be bothered filling out their details simply to be counted.
Usually the difficulty is in forecasting the number of CDs required.
You can burn 2000 CDs ahead of time, but what if only 200 people turn up? Then you are left with 1800 useless discs (after 2 or 3 months, nobody wants to have them as they are outdated).
On the local computer show, the usergroup usually has Linux CDs to hand out to members and to sell to the general public for something like 1 Euro.
They just have them printed at a CD factory, no messing with burning. And cheaper as well.
But how many to order, that is the big question.
Starting a distro flame war is not my intention here, I am just speaking from experience. But: ..... but you wouldn't, would you?} When the users get home and plug into the real Internet, their ISP's {truthful} nameserver gives them the address of the distribution's real main ftp site, so they can pull all the extra packages they want.
..... Debian wouldn't really be my first choice for a n00b event. I suppose it's a balancing act really -- too much advance preparation is in vain if nobody turns up on the day, not enough and people get frustrated {and the Open Source movement can get cast in a bad light; ha ha, look, those smelly lentil-sucking communist hippies didn't think ahead did they?}.
..... I mean, arrange for these to be sponsored by a local computer store.
Debian allows you to boot from CD, do a minimal installation {just enough to get the network up}, then eject the CD and finish the rest of the installation from the Internet. And it has no way of knowing whether the ftp.country.debian.org it's connected to is the real one, or just some LAN address that a bullshitting name server gave them which happens to contain a full mirror, but runs at full 100Mb/s rather than ADSL rate. {Unless you have > 200 clients connected to that server
I'm sure the same technique could be applied to other distributions, though
Perhaps someone will make an InstallFest kit, with a full mirror of a distro {Mandrake would be my favourite for this application -- n00b-friendly, good hardware detection, easy graphical setup, not sure though how it handles installation from network}, a DHCP server and a hacked BIND {to manage the aforementioned DNS spoofing}, and an ISO image of a minimal network install / recovery CD {itself in the form of an installable package, but with a depends: cdrecord and a recommends: k3b, just for ompleteness}. This net-install CD would hardly need any packages, so it could be quick to burn. You'd still need stackloads of blank media if you were giving them out rather than taking them back to use for the next person {and I'd think psychologically it's better that visitors do get a CD that they can take away with them}, but you might blag
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
The rest of the world (outside of America) loves America, but loves to hate us at the same time.
You could break that statement down more to fit within your own ideals, but from my experience, that about sums it up.
Nobody likes the king of the hill. It's the same reason people don't like Microsoft, and the same reason no one liked NSYNC. Sure, you can justify your dislike (and people do everyday), but in the end most of it comes down to jealousy imo. There are of course warranted criticisms concerning the aformentioned subjects, but I am mostly referring to the general unfounded animosity people feel.
Feel free to disagree.
Okay firstly on the US, most people like the ideas that the US espouses, but hate the fact that the US keeps ignoring those ideas.
With regards to MS, those of us who are just teenage pimply hax0r dud35, trying to stick it to M$, actually have issues with the way the software is written, the illegal and near illegal conduct and the borg like assimilation. We who have to support the crap also have issues with major holes being left unplugged for months, even years, the html email hole being a big glaring example.
As for NSync, as far as I am concerned they are a safe plastic dish for the teeny boppers, those of us who like real music, performed by real musicians prefer to listen to music from the heart, rather than the committee.
Are you fucking retarded? Internet2 is a network for academic research projects, not for you to leech l33t warez.
Are you fucking retarded? DARPA is a network for academic/military research, not for you to surf pr0n or whatever it is you anonymous cowards do with your time.
Like what I said? You might like my music