[clue-tech] The InstallFest was busy and I learned a lot

[David L. Anselmi]

We had about 25 people all together.  I didn't notice who was helping or 
being helped so I think we had a good mix.

There was a cheap HP netbook destined for 3rd world medical usage. 
Seemed like it worked well with the stock Ubuntu (I think).  Interesting 
that people assume wireless in a device like that and then were 
surprised to find a wired port (hidden behind a rubber plug).

*buntu 9.04 had "just works" support for a $10 wireless USB adapter.  No 
ndiswrapper magic required.

The MythTV help was all conversational.  Mike came down from Boulder and 
it seems he really knows a lot so hopefully it was productive even 
without hardware.

I think the other laptop that needed to use an external monitor got 
fixed but I didn't see what was done.  I didn't work on mine.  Turns out 
that xrandr can turn it on and off (tried it today) but the Fn-F7 
Thinkpad key doesn't do anything.  Hal seems to recognize that I have 
extra thinkpad keys but I don't see an xorg driver for them. 
hotkeys-setup seems to be the debian way to use them but I'm skeptical 
that it's well integrated with apps so far.

I was impressed that the 2.4 kernel in RHEL3 handled David's new laptop 
so well.  Some recompiling was needed but ethernet maybe only needed the 
right driver selected.  Serial was fun to check out (thankfully we had 
another machine with a serial port).

We've had a couple of non-technical people come and get helped.  They 
seem to take to *buntu pretty well.  There are some people out there who 
don't need much more than a browser and office to be happy and Linux 
makes that really cheap.

You all probably missed Rachel Alexandra win the Preakness.  Take a 
look, Mine That Bird made it worth watching.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTJUTJJCmR0

Dave