[sf-lug] Notes from the SF-LUG meeting of November 5, 2017

[Bobbie Sellers]

On 11/05/2017 07:27 PM, Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting Bobbie Sellers (bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com):
>
>> The failure of some of the disks to boot on John's notebook may be due
>> to DVD misalignment.
> It's often difficult to tell; it's not like you can slow things down and
> do diagnosis.  Arguably, this is one of the advantage of using, instead,
> USB flash drives (or netbooting) for installation media instead of
> optical disks.


     Some machines may have problems with the USB and Flash Drives.
>
> Bobbie, if you spend a lot of time offering people Linux distros, maybe
> you should consider configuring your machine as a kickstart server and
> bringing a small network switch and a few ethernet cables.  (If there's
> only one installation target machine, you can skip the switch and just
> use a single point-to-point ethernet cable.
>
> With a kickstart setup, people would be able to do network installation
> (which is fast) and also to download ISOs straight off your machine.  In
> consequence, you then wouldn't have to duplicate optical discs for
> attendees.  (They can do that for themselves at home if they need them,
> or just use a USB flash drive.)
>
> That way, you would _also_ not need to carry around pounds of optical
> disks.
>
> How to set up a kickstart server on Ubuntu:
> <https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PXEInstallServer>
         Thanks for your suggestion, Rick.  I will check out the URL 
when I have enough time
and energy to seriously consider the contents.  But I will point out 
that Ethernet switches and
cables are not free of mass.   Additionally some users will not care to 
connect to a machine
exposed to malware.  There is the matter of time to consider as well as 
making a disk
or even a bootable Flash Drive is time consuming.

     I am going to try to reduce the number of Optical disks I bring 
along in the future.

     Oh yes it looks like Fedora 27 will be out before the next meeting.

     I also will have System Rescue 5.1.2 which I have downloaded this 
evening.
     Anyone with interest in these should let me know if they are 
interested in a copy
or either a full or net-install of the Fedora.

     Thanks again for the suggestion Rick.

     Bobbie