On Wed, Aug 27, 2003 at 01:22:23AM +0300, Oron Peled wrote: [snip] > I'm not sure how many installees would actually perform what you > ask from them (we can encourage them by telling how much time it would > save *them*, and maybe give priority to those who come with the required > "pre-installed" machine). However, we should have also an "orthodox" install > option for the other (maybe most?) people who would simply bring their > machines as-is.
Of course - during the instaparty itself I will do anything to get any resonable machine installed. We are talking only about the preperation. > > The regular install option may still be accelerated IMO by pipelining: > - The defrag and prep stage may be done after short explanation > without the attendance of the installer. It still takes time and space. In our case, we had a room with 10-15 install positions, and installed 30-40 machine each time. I never left a party less than 3 hours after it started. If I can lower that to 2 hours, I would. And contrary to the legends, most people do not control their Windows machines any better than Linux (and I am not talking about "the man from the street", but about CS students). Many do not know what a partition is, what a boot loader is, many ask if Linux runs inside Windows as another Window. > - Network installs may accelerate the "boring" install phase. > Last time there was temporary shortage of CD's (during install). > Also, on many machines the CD install is slower than network install. Also here (e.g. the our wrong assupmtion that less CD2 copies are needed than CD1, got people waiting for it). We are not really prepared for net installs, though. But it _is_ a very interesting possibility (IMO, only after my current one). > - If some install decisions are fixed (e.g: packages = everything, > install languages, etc.) than a "partial" kickstart may be prepared. > Anaconda ask only the missing steps, shortening further the useless > dialog. This actually doesn't take so much time. What takes time is the hard questions - partitioning, X config (unless completely autodetected), etc. > > > Well, here I have to differ. I do not want to install Linux for him. > > All I want is to let him try it, and do his homework. > > I do not think there is something magical about *the installation*, > > The magical thing about *this* installation is that a bunch of experts > in Linux, devote their precious time to help newbies! So I think that > this calls for (some) commitment from the installees. > > Getting Knoppix/Kinneret for a trial like you mentioned is OK. They can > get it from us or download+burn it themselves. No real waste of our time, > and no commitment involved. We have here a public Linux machine with a CDR that when you login to it you get a menu of pre-copied images to burn. Works very well for some months now. It has, among other things, RH9 and Knoppix. I seriously think about requiring each installee to burn his own CDs beforehand. I can also suggest to you (Technion) to have something like that. > > However, having someone help you install+config your machine requires > (IMO) that you are willing to invest an equivalent effort. While installing > a boot loader to the MBR is bad idea in dual-boot machines, other forms > of "acts" may be good sign of such a commitment from the installee: > 1. Are they willing to prepare their machine as you asked in your > install method? > 2. Are they willing to defrag their NTFS at home before the party? > 3. Can they allocate a partition on their hard-drive? Or buy an extra drive? Fact of life: no. You can see the instructions we wrote for the last time at <http://www.cs.tau.ac.il/system/instaparty> - I think they're reasonable. Almost noone defragged. Some people had an empty partition, which is even better, some came with NTFS only, and we decided in the middle to use a demo of PartitionMagic to cut it - very annoying. I see that newer distros have NTFS resizers inside, which is very important. > > To summarize, let's try both methods -- maybe they are good for different > audiences? BTW: Nobody responded about net-install. Do we have the resources? > (switches, end-points, a server)? If you will, I would love to hear the results. -- Didi > > -- > Oron Peled Voice/Fax: +972-4-8228492 > [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.actcom.co.il/~oron > > Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments. > See http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
