Installfest wrap-up report

[Paul Wayper]

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Hi everyone,

Well, I would call the Installfest a qualified success.  We had about six
people turn up to get help with sorting out their Linux installs, and one guy
turned up to get Ubuntu installed on his new machine.  There were about nine
helpers at various times throughout the day, so we were able to swap in and
out and help the visitors as time and experience permitted.  But even some of
the helpers were getting help with other things in Linux, so overall I think
having this kind of meet-up - where we can get hands-on help with some of the
more intractable problems we bump our heads against - is something everyone wants.

I'd like to thank everyone who came along, especially Bob for donating the
facilities and copious quantities of cable, Jason for providing a switch
exactly where it was needed, and Matt, Chris, and Rainer who stayed for the
entire time.  I also really appreciate seeing everyone else - Alex, Gordon,
Paul, Nathan, and the many other people who names I don't know or don't
remember (my fault).  I think the people who did visit got a very good
impression that Linux enthusiasts are knowledgeable, friendly, helpful and fun.

I'd also like to thank Lana Brindley for doing so much to publicise Software
Freedom Day and the Installfest (at short notice).  The one guy who turned up
to get a new install of Ubuntu (and sat patiently as the net installer
repartitioned 180GB of his drive) read about it from the RiotACT website where
Lana posted an excellent promotional write-up of the event.  (Unfortunately
I'm still wrestling with trying to get registered with RiotACT so I was unable
to help there.)  Thanks, Lana!

I'd also like to thank my partner Kate and niece Megan for their excellent
work keeping us supplied with food and drink of all descriptions.  The
barbecue was also very popular and (in my opinion) really contributed to it
being more than just a bunch of geeks stuck in a room playing with computers.
~ Many people complemented us on the signs and the well laid out refreshments
so thank you to them.

When we do another Installfest, I think the fundamental thing we need to work
on is publicity.  I should have delegated this task much earlier.  We needed
newspaper and radio articles, flyers in public places and notices in community
papers, and a much larger reach-out in general.  We can easily cope with more
people :-)

The other idea that occurred to me is to have some play machines at the front
with some open-source games or demo software that people can play on (and
learn about other cool stuff in FOSS) while installers repartition their
drives and download files and so forth.

Other than that, our facilities were excellent, our team was knowledgeable and
there wasn't anything that we couldn't fix.  So that was really great!

Thanks once again,

Paul
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[Steve McInerney]

Thanks for a great write up Paul!

on 28/09/08 15:46 Paul Wayper said the following:
> The other idea that occurred to me is to have some play machines at the
> front
> with some open-source games or demo software that people can play on (and
> learn about other cool stuff in FOSS) while installers repartition their
> drives and download files and so forth.

That's a *really* good idea!

Like it or not, "Gee Whiz" flashy stuff looks cool and people go ooh-ah over
it. :-)
I wonder how easy/hard it would be to set up like a couple of show-piece games
running a loop/demo; Some generic desktops going through their paces; The Wow
Cube spinning and so on.
Perhaps even simple stuff like basic OOo tasks?


An excellent idea!


Cheers!
- Steve
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[Robert Edwards-3]

Let me just say that Paul and Kate have set the bar _very_ high for
the level of organisation for future events. Get this: they provided
three waste bins: one for compost, one for recyclables and one for
general waste, each clearly labelled with what could and could not
be put in each, and they took the bins away with them!...!

This morning, I did a cursory look around and although not amazed,
was impressed to see that all the many bright orange signs (to fit
in with Software Freedom Day), even on the other side of the building,
had been removed - outstanding effort!

Someone mentioned that they provided gluten-free nibblies, but I
should add (even though I don't go for it myself) that they also
provided vegetarian (or is that vegan?...) options for the BBQ!

About the only thing that didn't seem to go right was Pauls choice
of using CentOS for the router/server/transparent proxy - took quite
a bit of prodding to get working - was that SELinux doing it's thing
or is CentOS really that hard to reconfigure?

Well done Paul and Kate (and Megan) for your organisational skills
and hard work putting it all together.

Cheers,

Bob Edwards.

Paul Wayper wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> Well, I would call the Installfest a qualified success.  We had about six
> people turn up to get help with sorting out their Linux installs, and
> one guy
> turned up to get Ubuntu installed on his new machine.  There were about
> nine
> helpers at various times throughout the day, so we were able to swap in and
> out and help the visitors as time and experience permitted.  But even
> some of
> the helpers were getting help with other things in Linux, so overall I
> think
> having this kind of meet-up - where we can get hands-on help with some
> of the
> more intractable problems we bump our heads against - is something
> everyone wants.
>
> I'd like to thank everyone who came along, especially Bob for donating the
> facilities and copious quantities of cable, Jason for providing a switch
> exactly where it was needed, and Matt, Chris, and Rainer who stayed for the
> entire time.  I also really appreciate seeing everyone else - Alex, Gordon,
> Paul, Nathan, and the many other people who names I don't know or don't
> remember (my fault).  I think the people who did visit got a very good
> impression that Linux enthusiasts are knowledgeable, friendly, helpful
> and fun.
>
> I'd also like to thank Lana Brindley for doing so much to publicise
> Software
> Freedom Day and the Installfest (at short notice).  The one guy who
> turned up
> to get a new install of Ubuntu (and sat patiently as the net installer
> repartitioned 180GB of his drive) read about it from the RiotACT website
> where
> Lana posted an excellent promotional write-up of the event.  (Unfortunately
> I'm still wrestling with trying to get registered with RiotACT so I was
> unable
> to help there.)  Thanks, Lana!
>
> I'd also like to thank my partner Kate and niece Megan for their excellent
> work keeping us supplied with food and drink of all descriptions.  The
> barbecue was also very popular and (in my opinion) really contributed to it
> being more than just a bunch of geeks stuck in a room playing with
> computers.
> ~ Many people complemented us on the signs and the well laid out
> refreshments
> so thank you to them.
>
> When we do another Installfest, I think the fundamental thing we need to
> work
> on is publicity.  I should have delegated this task much earlier.  We
> needed
> newspaper and radio articles, flyers in public places and notices in
> community
> papers, and a much larger reach-out in general.  We can easily cope with
> more
> people :-)
>
> The other idea that occurred to me is to have some play machines at the
> front
> with some open-source games or demo software that people can play on (and
> learn about other cool stuff in FOSS) while installers repartition their
> drives and download files and so forth.
>
> Other than that, our facilities were excellent, our team was
> knowledgeable and
> there wasn't anything that we couldn't fix.  So that was really great!
>
> Thanks once again,
>
> Paul
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> Comment: Using GnuPG with Fedora - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
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> 8wEAoJcegQb9NoE4OEkoZ2SCAxPUgO+t
> =ZpyN
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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[mtrax]

 From the receiving side of the help, thanks to all, I was basically bringing along a
friend to needed a kick start on his MythTV box, which we got most of what we wanted to
fix done.

On a side note we had some difficulties still with the IR device which is a Shuttle PN31
like this  ( http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?product_id=12432)

After messing around with irrecord I came to the conclusion this wasn't an ir device but a
  "keyboard" device must like a wireless keyboard. (I think) .. whats the difference
between an IR device and a wireless keyboard?

So another question, if I have a device how do I capture what key is pressed, I tried the
following command

hexdump -C /dev/input/event3

but couldn't make much sense of the output, and only now I should have compared it with a
dump of a "real" keyboard.
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[Brett Worth-2]

2008/9/29 Paul <mylists@...>:

> So another question, if I have a device how do I capture what key is
> pressed, I tried the following command

I'd use xev if you're in X.

Brett
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[Lana Brindley]

Hi all,

2008/9/28 Paul Wayper <paulway@...>

<snip>

> I'd also like to thank Lana Brindley for doing so much to publicise
> Software
> Freedom Day and the Installfest (at short notice).  The one guy who turned
> up
> to get a new install of Ubuntu (and sat patiently as the net installer
> repartitioned 180GB of his drive) read about it from the RiotACT website
> where
> Lana posted an excellent promotional write-up of the event.  (Unfortunately
> I'm still wrestling with trying to get registered with RiotACT so I was
> unable
> to help there.)  Thanks, Lana!
>

<snip>

You are very welcome! I only wish we'd had more time to get the word out.
Nevertheless, RiotACT was great for a little discussion on the topic, and
hopefully we've inspired some people to consider F/LOSS (or realise it
exists) even if they didn't get along to the events. I hope to be writing a
little follow up to the articles tonight, so if anyone has pictures or
stories they'd like to share, either send them to me direct ASAP, or jump
onto RiotACT and add it into the comments.


>
> Other than that, our facilities were excellent, our team was knowledgeable
> and
> there wasn't anything that we couldn't fix.  So that was really great!
>


I am absolutely stoked that the event was as much of a success as has been
reported! Paul, you and your team of volunteers deserve a big round of
applause for your organisational efforts! I'm just sorry that *both* my
weekends exploded and I didn't make it in :( I promise to be better
organised next year!

If anyone thinks that we should distribute a write-up of the event to a
particular list or group, then just let me know. Once I've done a wrap-up
for RiotACT, I will probably send it off the LinuxChix/AussieChix crew, so
if there's any others I'd be more than happy to spread the word.

Again - if anyone has any pictures, please send them to me today :)

Cheers,
Lana





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Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build
bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce
bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.
-- Rick Cook

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[mtrax]

On 29/09/2008 1:12 PM, Brett Worth wrote:
> 2008/9/29 Paul <mylists@...>:
>
>> So another question, if I have a device how do I capture what key is
>> pressed, I tried the following command
>
> I'd use xev if you're in X.
>
> Brett
>

ok with this relevation I found someone had done this before ie I found the licrd
configuration for this USB device

http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page=ShuttlePN31Remote

thanks
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[Ian-144]

Hey Paul,

<snip>
> So another question, if I have a device how do I capture what key is
> pressed, I tried the following command
>
> hexdump -C /dev/input/event3
>
> but couldn't make much sense of the output, and only now I should have
> compared it with a dump of a "real" keyboard.


Use evtest for this (ooh, another one for Command of the Hour) - it
decodes those binary chants into human understandable output. In
debian based distros it can be found in the dvb-utils package.

Cheers,
-Ian


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[Ian-144]

<snip>
> I'd use xev if you're in X.

The problem with xev is that it by it's very nature can only see
events that X recognises. I have a little zoom knob on my keyboard
that X completely ignores, but I can see it with evtest (mind you,
this is an improvement over last time I did that test where X ignored
almost all the extra keys).

Cheers,
-Ian


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develop polkadots, and hell will freeze over so solid the brimstone
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[Adam Thomas-5]

On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 06:49:53PM +1000, Ian wrote:

> Hey Paul,
>
> <snip>
> > So another question, if I have a device how do I capture what key is
> > pressed, I tried the following command
> >
> > hexdump -C /dev/input/event3
> >
> > but couldn't make much sense of the output, and only now I should have
> > compared it with a dump of a "real" keyboard.
>
>
> Use evtest for this (ooh, another one for Command of the Hour) - it
> decodes those binary chants into human understandable output. In
> debian based distros it can be found in the dvb-utils package.

For those on Debian Lenny (or Lenny derived distros) the evtest tool
has been moved to the 'joystick' package and dvb-utils is a dummy
package for dvb-apps. joystick conflicts with dvb-utils but if you
have dvb-apps installed removing the dvb-utils package does nothing.

>
> Cheers,
> -Ian
>
>
> --
> http://darkstarshout.blogspot.com/
> --
> On the day *I* go to work for Microsoft, faint oinking sounds will be
> heard from far overhead, the moon will not merely turn blue but
> develop polkadots, and hell will freeze over so solid the brimstone
> will go superconductive.
>      -- Erik Raymond, 2005
> --
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> See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
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