[nzlug] University of Auckland - Installfest

[Simon Bridge]

You may recall the "University of Auckland calls" post awhile back.

Since the call came here, some folk *may* be interested in what happened
- even though this is an Auckland event.

The event turns out to be a "University of Auckland LUG" event run under
the aegis of ECE (Electronic and Computer Engineering).

ECE runs Ubuntu Edgy (as thin clients) dual booting with XP in the lab
workstations... so this is what they were primarily interested in
installing. However all distros were welcome, so I took my stash with
me :)

The installfest was on a Saturday, the campus was empty and most of the
buildings locked. It turned out to be tricky to get the the venue and
the event was not widely advertised. Four people were expected, and four
people turned up... all with laptops, all in the ECE course which
required linux.

Managed to install some form of linux to three of these - the fourth had
a problem involving a parralell CD drive and went away with the aim of
trying a virtualisation approach.

I think there was one installed Edgy, and one openSUSE. My luck, I
managed to draw one of the more puzzling installs... and asus laptop,
about a year old, with intel chipset (32 bit, single core, should be
OK).

Ubuntu would go into some sort of loop about two thirst to loading the
desktop no matter what I tried. Same with any live distro until I tried
DSL... which worked like a charm and so was able to see that the distros
seems to be choking on the network card. Thus worked out a strategy
which required a root: prompt, so Ubuntu was out (no alternative CD
available).

Discovered that fedora core 6 would install in text mode, attempting a
graphical install would lead to a black screen no matter what was tried.
Nobody could figure out what was wrong!

FC6 installed nicely, but startx delivered the same black screen! It was
then noticed that he laptop had the ability to redirect it's video
output to a vga port on the back! Switching this over produced the
desktop to a chorus of groans and forehead-slapping.

After that is was a matter of exploring the system... there were some
weird stuff about this:

acip=on resulted in a slowwww boot. thus was unable to get suspend and
hibernate working - user didn't know what these were so nothing lost
there.

the desktop would hang with the radeon and ATI driver (vesa worked).
User wasn't interested in 3D effects or games - again, nothing lost.
User liked the desktop and that all the packages required by the course
were installed out of the box.

the soundcard (intel somethingI'veneverheardof) would not configure -
alsamixer came up with the correct card (matched entry in lspci) but
only displayed a single channel: the microphone! i.e. according to alsa,
the card supports mic input with no playback at all. (If this rings a
bell for anyone let me know. But I'm not explicitly soliciting
assistance here.)

The course doesn't require sound either - user isn't an mp3 freak or
anything - just wants to work. Makes a change. Wanted to find a book on
FC6 - seemed keen on parting with the bucks for "The Fedora Core 6
Bible", which certainly sounds *keen* or at least "not put off".

This was one of the first installs to start and the last to finish, and
we all learned a thing or three on the way. All users left feeling
positive.

While this was technically a success - it was certainly challenging and
the feeling was that it could have been better. The LUG is already
looking forward to the next one.

I obtained the impression that the group is being run by folk with
little spare time for it. They could sure use some help... they are a
keen bunch who certainly deserve it: if anyone wants to politely offer
some, you will be welcome.

The web page is: http://www.ece.auckland.ac.nz/~ualug/ which should give
you an idea.

To be fair, the university will be a tough nut to crack. CompSci is
heavily java based and they just lurve their windows machines. The
forums are all full of how soon they can get vista and which version.
Talk about linux and FS/OSS there and folk have been known to actually
run away, though most smile absently and tune out.

Simon

BTW: here's a puzzle - the ubuntu thin clients won't automount anything.
I'm about to look into it, but anyone know, offhand, why not?