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Re: [LUG] link with computer shop now beginners session

 

Hey,

> Mike (Stinga) and I had a splendid chat with Stephen Roddha at Penzance
> Computers in his icafe. He is happy to host an event on a Sunday in
> September

Awesome, I'd love to attend (fingers crossed for being in
cornwall/back being in decent nick)...

>
> He is happy with the publicity that would inevitably come out of the
> event, as we will undoubtedly get coverage in the local newspaper (the
> Cornishman, perhaps West Briton and Western Morning News) the local
> radio (Atlantic, BBC Cornwall and Pirate FM) and who knows, TV. He is
> even happy to contribute to costs and press his business partner, who is
> a graphics artist, into action.

Would be great to get some publicity like this - might open up
opportunities for future meets/introducing people to linux.
>

>We also think a follow-up/second session
> would be good a couple of weeks later.

The last bit of this I think is a very good idea, that way anybody who
does install and runs into trouble can get some help fairly soon.

> There would have to be a useful handout covering essentials such as
> backup, prune and defragment before repartitioning;
> resume of the steps involved in installing, updating etc;
> solving hardware issues with a best practice recommended before laying
> out on new hardware (like using a router; checking lists of supported
> hardware - NB the lists of printers supported in Ubuntu and Suse are
> impressive);

are they not for all distros? The support is mostly from CUPS I think,
which is standard...good news :D A hand out like this would be good
though, I guess it would quickly turn into an "Introduction to Linux",
which would be great to put on the web as I'm sure thousands of people
would find a piece like this very useful. I'd be happy to help with
this.

> making a rescue disc (or having a second live distro like Knoppix?);
> different distros available and some idea of the best first step (IMHO
> the best introduction is actually Ubuntu, with the proviso that once
> they feel confident, there are many other options to learn about);

I think, if you're taking suggestions, Fedora and OpenSuse are both
just as easy to use as Ubuntu; especially as both these examples have
a lot more gui system configs...There's also all the stuff like
PCLinuxOS, SimplyMepis etc but I have no experience with these.

> links to supported hardware;
> links to online tutorials;
> links to online support.

Also a cool idea :D This could all be fitted onto the disc I expect
with a few simple steps; I have experience with adding extras to live
cds and could help here too.
>
> There was a question about how reliable repartitioning for a dual boot
> would be, but having done this myself twice with different distros, and
> having used the gui of Gparted after an install, without problems, I
> maybe have misplaced confidence. What do you think is best for someone
> completely new, interested in the possibility of using GNU/Linux?

I've never had any problems with this, but like Rob said, backup and
other precautions are essential as you can never be certain!

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