[clue-tech] Fall and penguins.

[David L. Anselmi]

Dave Maddox wrote:
> Here's my two cents, then. Both from my own perspective as one who 
> almost dual-booted his laptop but didn't, and from the perspective of a 
> somewhat tentative Linux adopter also with a Windows laptop.
> 
> Both of us fit what I've seen in previous messages - that CLUE can 
> provide the "activation energy" to get us over the hump. In my friend's 
> case, he would gladly install Linux dual-boot but is afraid he'll goof 
> and "mess up his hard drive." I told him that CLUE might have better 
> odds in that department, then, having had plenty of experience. I know, 
> backups still advised...

So if he's afraid of messing up his hard drive, what's his plan for 
fixing it?  Because even if he tries hard not to mess it up, it will 
happen.  "There are two kinds of people: those who've lost a hard drive 
and those who are going to."

I don't want to suggest we need to make people afraid, backup and 
recovery are too hard for a lot of people (sadly, some are 
professionals).  But installfest can help with that fear where dual-boot 
is concerned.  There are lots of options for even the most strict 
requirements.

> For myself, my poor hard drive is just too fragmented, when I tried to 
> install I got errors which traced to that being unbearable, at least for 
> Ubuntu. So my first step is backup and restore or something, which I 
> haven't gotten around to. I also thought about booting from an external 
> drive, but my laptop is not really into that sort of thing, it likes CDs 
> and network only. So, maybe there's some other option, or maybe a kick 
> in the butt would suffice. Either way, a little of that energy...

I'm always surprised that defragging is still necessary, and still 
painful.  So set aside the 20th to come work on it.  You can try 
defragging, reinstalling, second drive, live CD, whatever.  We can help.

But still, that's all the part of installfest we already do reasonably well.

> And yes, visibility. So many groups, so little time, somehow it's gotta 
> be visible. Even craigslist or something I guess.

I don't know that we can do much more than word of mouth.  So invite 
your "average user" friends.

Dave