[clue-admin] [Fwd: Re: [NCLUG] CLUE InstallFest, 12 Feb 2005]

[Gus S.Calabrese]

I can support what Dave has said.
The Installfest was a great success.
There were a great number of gurus to help.
thanks to all !!

Some people hung back until invited to join in the fun.
Unless there is a host ( Crawford does that nicely )
and I was doing it yesterday, people new to the fest
may hang back and wonder what the rules are.

Joanne brought food and until the food was opened
and spread out, everyone hung back and did not dive in.
( BTW, food had to be eaten two doors down at the student
  commons )  The muffins were the favorite.

Some people brought in install problems that were insanely
convoluted and involved computers from WWII.  I don't know
whether such people should be supported.

Newbie newbies (Nn) require special handling and they probably
don't care a whit ( as Dave said ) about the glories of Linux.
They want to word process, use a printer  and use Linux because
it is cheap and the evil BG does not control it.

One guy came in yesterday and chatted about Linux such that I suspected
I could not help ( since my knowledge of Linux internals is limited ).
Then I found out he did not know what USB ports were, or the difference
between a phone modem and ethernet.

 From this I concluded that Newbies require a special environment were 
they
can feel like they do not have to "be smart".  Also, newbies are not
going to be fun for someone discussing how to set up a VPN or recompile
a kernel.

I think Newbie classes can be segregated from advanced installations or
projects.  And perhaps the club should benefit from doing these classes.
Perhaps a small donation ( voluntary ) to fill the club treasury.

there are some Linux aficionados that would like to teach about
button pushing for e-mail , etc.  One gentleman said he would like
very much to teach about open office for Linux.

So my suggestions are :    ( and they are suggestions )
keep installfest and describe it as help installing Linux on working
machines that not more than 5 years old.  Bring machine that has
at least 64M of memory, CD drive, internet connection.

Set up classes for newbies in Basic Linux, e-mail, open office etc.

Look at endorsing a low cost computer that has a Linux distro optimized
for it.   Does anyone do this now ?  this endorsement can change as
better hardware comes along.

Gus



On Feb 12, 2005, at 9:27 PM, David Anselmi wrote:

Crawford Rainwater wrote:
> Folks:
> I received this last evening.  I plan on responding to her to clarify
> that InstallFests are meant for the novice/newbie to attend and try out
> Linux to some degree.  However, I do see her point as well since
> typically I have had myself and several Linux ETC members there to
> assist people out with a 1:4 ratio sometimes of savvy/guru:newwbie.

I know Liz from one of the CLUE installfests (years ago).  Here are my 
thoughts.

If I were to sit down with a raw beginner, where would I start?  I 
don't think you can take someone from "what's a command line?" to doing 
anything useful in a day.  And as much as some distros may be "ready 
for grandma", I can't say I'm very interested in explaining to someone 
which menu buttons to push to read their email.  I much prefer the "I'm 
learning this stuff and you can give me a boost" types.  I'm not much 
good helping your basic office user because I don't know how to make 
printing work, nor which admin widgets their distro uses to get things 
done.  And they don't really want to talk about new developments in 
routing protocols or how you might run a firewall at run-level 0.

Perhaps for her students, CSU could do a HOWTO that gets them the same 
system as they use in the lab.  That's probably what they want most 
anyway--something that works like what they know without having to know 
how it works.

Perhaps the people who set up the CSU lab can do their own installfest 
around that theme (during work hours if they aren't motivated enough to 
give back to Linux).  Or they could come with students to our 
installfest and help bridge the gap between what we do and what they 
want.  I'd be happy to help students follow the CSU lab HOWTO.

Perhaps CLUE or NCLUG can sit down with Liz and/or a few students and 
see how we can align our skills and their needs.  As a "troubleshooter" 
I'm probably not the best intro to installfest for these guys (I'd like 
to think I can change, but I'm hesitant to foist Debian on a 
newbie--maybe I shouldn't be).  But I know a few people who are only 
really interested in installs that work easily and they would be much 
better for this group.

Perhaps her students need some kind of instruction in this.  I've 
thought in the past about teaching an intro to Linux class (more than a 
day long)--maybe this is the audience for it.

Perhaps Liz should recommend (for extra credit?) reading a sysadmin 
book (Frisch, Nemeth, or something else like K&P's "The UNIX 
Programming Environment") before they come to the installfest.  I don't 
think any of us are interested in "drop off you computer and we'll set 
it up just so with complete instructions for you".  So if they make the 
effort to learn a little it will go a long way (give a man a fish... 
and all that).

To me "help a newbie get Linux installed" is problematic.  What then? 
Can they get anything useful done with it?  Can they keep it running 
(patches, install new software, fix config issues when they come up)? 
(Shoot, my minimalist, open community preferences probably don't fit 
very well with most newbies, much as I wish it were otherwise.)

I'll be interested to see what others say, and I'm really interested in 
continuing the discussion.

HTH,
Dave
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