[wplug-announce] WPLUG "InstallFest" - Saturday, Feb 27 - Brookline Library

[DK]

Hello Folks,

The Western PA Linux Users Group is hosting an "InstallFest" on
Saturday, Feb 27 starting at 10:30am at the Brookline Library.  The
event will conclude at 3:30p SHARP!

There was some chat recently amongst the Board members that the term
"InstallFest" has become dated, even obsolete.  The original idea
behind an InstallFest was for people to gather to assist with the
cumbersome, lengthy task of shoehorning a distribution onto hardware
which may or may not be supported.  For the most part, those days are
gone.

I recently purchased a refurbished HP workstation for use at work.
The specs on this machine made it ideal for the type of work I do.
After installing WinXP (yes, yes, I know) I found that the machine was
horribly slow.  My old P4 machine had better performance.  Searching
the Internet, I found that this particular HP was designed to work
with WinXP 64-bit, but the on-board SATA controller does not support
64-bit due to some Intel driver EOL tosh.  Well, color me confused.
So, I installed Ubuntu 9.10 64-bit.  It just worked, and very well I
might add.  My only disappointments are that I need to use NVidia's
proprietary driver to get he most out of the graphics card, and I am
stuck using Evolution for the time being.  So now my primary work PC
is now a Linux box.  (Shh, please don't tell my IT manager)

The point of my ramblings is that Linux is easy to setup, making an
"InstallFest" more of "TweakFest" or "TuneFest".  I find that most
people whom attend are looking for assistance with the usage of his or
her Linux system, and to find ways to make it even cooler.  So, I
propose that we rechristen the term in the spirit of progress and
evolution of FOSS.  I will be taking suggestions at the meeting on
Saturday, but also feel free to post yours to the General List
wplug at wplug.org.

See the following for meeting and location details:

http://wplug.org/wiki/Meeting-20100227
http://wplug.org/wiki/Brookline_Library

Hope to see you there,
Dave

--
David Kraus
http://www.wplug.org