[Leaplist] Saturday, Nov.3,2007 Installfest summary

[patrick]

The Installfest on Saturday, November 3, 2007, was really a wonderful
event!

Visitors from Microsoft user clubs from Winter Garden, Lakeland,
Auburndale, Orlando, and  elsewhere, came, and experienced, then
installed, some of the GNU/Linux LiveCDroms, and took them home on their
computers and on CD.

Mepis 6.5 was a success on a PIII 450mhz machine with 256MB RAM, dual
booting with Windows2000, for Hunter.

Oohs and Ahs were made over the new entry, Fedora 8 based Vixta LiveCD.
It mimics exactly the Vista desktop, and they loved it!  This is one
more way to satisfy the Microsoft users who are curious about GNU/Linux,
but are shy about trying it!

Vixta has all the features desired by anyone who has been using
Microsoft on their computers, and who wants immunity from the pimply
faced post adolescent Dark Lords of the Evil Empire, who can totally
immobilize any Microsoft system at any instant, anywhere on the planet,
with no concern for the paying mark, er, customer, who has no recourse,
but to submit totally.

Remember the Labor Week WGA shutdown of millions of loyal Microsofties'
computers?   Tech Support, in India, on that Friday before the Labor Day
extended weekend, said they would let Redmond know on Tuesday, that your
computers were brain dead zombies.

I know three close friends who absolutely dumped Microsloth and went
GNU/Linux on Saturday, after frantic calls to moi.  Too early for
halloween, did come the great horror of zombiefication of all Microsloth
Computers who were in the trust of the inept but, still malevolent,
greedy corporate pimply faced Dark Lords of Redmond.

GNU/Linux is also totally immune from the million Microsoft
Virus/Worms/trojans/bots/malware/exploits/WGA plots/DRM scripts/
Storm Worm bot net/ and Microsoft's Corporate disdain for all customers,
er, PIRATES.

Cheryl brought her new Dell Inspiron 14" notebook.  She manages a
business, and is very computer savvy, but, Dell had stumped her with
their weird partitioning system.

We first attempted the Dell 2.2 Linux install disc ISO I had grabbed
from Dell's website.  Because her Dell was sold as a Vista machine, for
which she has dumped and reloaded with XP Pro, the hardware, the Modem,
the WLAN gear were not supported for the Linux drivers.  So, we went and
tried Mepis6.5, which ran everything, including the accessory
USB/bluetooth mouse!

The Dell system has a large drive, but Dell partitions it with the full
three primary partitions plus a small Extended one, and wastes over 20
Gb of space.  Yeah, Linux fixed that!

There is a small FAT32 Symantic DSR partition, with tools, followed by
the MS NTFS C:/ drive partition, then a Extended 2Gb FAT16 that has a
779MB  (ISO image?), and a third Primary partition of 3Gb FAT32 with the
WinPE 32 system.  Read more here:
http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/index.htm



We repartitioned in Mepis with the included GPartEd (Gnome Partition
Editor - available seperately as an ISO on the http://livecdlist.com )
wiping out the 3rd Extended, and 4th Primary, partitions, as Cheryl has
her factory restore CDrom of XP.

The 2GB Extended and Logical partitions, plus the 20GB that had been
unused, plus the 3GB Image became an Extended partition with 9.5Gb EXT3
Linux and a 400 Mb Linux Swap and an unused 16GB for future Linux
installs in the multi-boot system!  GRUB loaded and the system boots
well!  See SuperGRUB here: > http://supergrub.forjamari.linex.org/



Other visitors were assisted in running several LiveCDroms of Linux for
evaluation, and expressed their desire to see even more of the 315 Live
CDs, which, because many arrived after 3 PM, will have to wait for
future meetings.

I am always available throughout the week to provide tested Linux
LiveCDroms to any who contact me.  I am in Casselberry, Near Aloma on a
street three blocks back from Holler Chevrolet on Semoran Blvd.  I will
give directions and my phone and address in off list email.

Thanks to Vernon Singleton, we enjoyed a working lunch of Pizza.  The
"Meeting After the Meeting" was at Tijuana Flats, just around the
corner, where a good time was had by all, and many jokes and war stories
were shared!

I would name names, but, no good deed goes unpunished, and I want to
avoid placing any of my fellow GNU/Linux, Open Source advocate friends
into any embarassing situations... You know who you are, and that none
of these freedoms exist without your enthusiastic involvement!

Thanks go to PhilB, Fuzzy, John, Vernon, Fred, Enrique, Wilford Woodruff
Academy, and others, who know that I would name them, as soon as the
caffeine kicks in, but, that might be hours from now, and this posting
can't wait.  Comments always accepted.