Meeting-20070210

The first InstallFest of 2007 will be held on February 10th, 2007 from 10am to 3pm at Carnegie Mellon University, 3305 Newell-Simon Hall. An installfest is an interactive event where you bring your computer to either show off some neat aspect of Linux, or seek help about getting Linux running on your hardware.

Note: The Pittsburgh Coding Dojo will be holding an event called Iteration Zero concurrent with the installfest. Follow the link for details.

I'd like help with

If you're going to be installing a particular piece of software and would like help with it, put your name on this list.

• Scott Kiesling:I've got this old small notebook I got on ebay for $150 I've been playing around with. I'd like to put a minimal distro on it and see what I can get it to do. It has a cdrom but does not boot from it. It is a Toshiba Portege 3025CT (mine has 96 Mb). Here are the specs, more or less. It has an external CD player but I have not been able to get it to boot off of it. I had been incrementally getting to the point where I can boot, but hadn't quite made it. I've tried a few small distros like Puppy and Featherweight, as well as some disk-based distros (there's an external floppy too), but now that I have just Googled this site I may go with that. I will try to bring the relevant files on a CD. My last attempt had been variations on this method, which got started booting (using Puppy if I remember correctly) but then got stuck. I hope I can get some help, if not, it will be fun to try. I'll probably have to leave around noon, or bring my kids in.
  • I'm not sure how much it may help, another option might be to set up the disk as a boot disk on another computer. I've got a little USB enclosure for 2.5 inch hard disks that works quite well that we could use to initialize the disk and pre-load it with installer software. -- Patrick Wagstrom
    • I'd be happy to try it if you think it will work! -- Scott Kiesling

• There's a project that maybe a couple people could help. It involves reworking an event signup website using some html, mysql, php (or perl or other language that can speak to mysql or postgres), and emailing out a copy of the information once someone signs up. I'm not stellar at website stuff, but if anyone is willing to help with it, it would be appreciated, and could help make someone very happy who is helping out wplug in a behind the scenes way. Ted

• I'm going to come in and check this installfest out. I've got a Dell Dimension 2400 that I can't install Ubuntu on. It freezes up on the first boot after installation. - Larry Daberko

I can help with

If you can help out with a particular piece of software that you think other people may be installing, put your name on this list.

• MythTV - Patrick Wagstrom
• FreeBSD/PHP/Apache/PostgreSQL - Bill Moran
• Mandriva - Vance Kochenderfer

• Installfest Services - Brian A. Seklecki

I'm going to show off

If you've got a particular setup, peripheral, or application that you're planning on showing off at the installfest, put your name on this list.

• Nintendo Wii Remotes controlling Linux applications - Patrick Wagstrom

Meeting Staff

If you would like to volunteer to assist with this meeting, please add your name to one or more of the categories below.

• Host: Bill Moran
• Co-Host: Ted Rodgers
• Pizza: Patrick Wagstrom
• Donuts: David Kraus
• Setup: David Kraus, Patrick Wagstrom, Ted Rodgers
• Clean Up: David Kraus, Vance Kochenderfer