[SGVLUG] last nite's meeting - please help

[David Lawyer]

On Fri, May 12, 2006 at 11:34:22AM -0700, Matthew Gallizzi wrote:
> Matti,
> 
> Agreed. Last nights was one of the best I think as well. So, looks like we
> need some recruiters to recruit attendees. Looks like Todd was serious in
> saying that these people are going to be big :) Maybe an incentive to get
> new people could be linux distro giveaways? Oh, I know some people like the
> idea of an "install fest." Maybe we could have one of those every few months
> or something?

I once went to a Mandrake install fest and I couldn't install anything
since their software didn't support my old 486 PC.  I installed my
system from floppies years ago and updated via the Internet.  Debian
still has a floppy install and I plan to try it out right now and
install it in what is now the swap partition so as not to overwrite my
system.

So if I get it working, I could help people install that have old PCs
small HDs, and perhaps no CD drive.  Thus one can install Linux on old
PCs that are being given away, and use less watts than new PCs.
Doesn't install from CD give you a lot of programs that you don't
really need and not give one a choice of all the different packages
that exist?  Which ftp should I use?, which browser?, which window
manager?, which editor?, which word processor (if any), etc. etc.  The
large range of choices in Linux is both a strong asset and a strong
liability.  It can take a long time deciding just what software one
wants to try out, and a small HD can force one to choose before
copying it to the disk due to lack of space to install all
alternatives. 

Supposedly, I install a minimal system from floppies and then get the
rest of the software from the Internet.  I looked into this before and
Debian claimed it would work but it didn't seem to explain exactly how
to do it.  It was called "network install" but it didn't seem to have a
way to dial in to an ISP to connect to connect to the Internet.

			David Lawyer