This is a bare outline of topics/ideas/points I would hope to cover if/when I find the time to write a proper InstallFest HOWTO. The InstallFest HOWTO would aim to give pointers for InstallFest organisers on how to run a _good_ InstallFest, getting maximum long-term impact for your time and energy and learning from other people's experiences. Introduction/big picture: What's the aim? Education/long term. Installation w/o education is automatic failure. Needs vs. wants -- ensure that you give the user what will help him in the long term, which probably differs from what he thinks he wants. Education of gurus, too. Expand community of knowledge, improve the process, let us concentrate on the more-interesting problems. Social/Linux-community aspect of InstallFests -- hanging out, chatting. Problem-solving/upgrading existing Linux boxes, in addition to installs. Making sure users know what to do next, including shutdown & startup. Machine setup should include establishing user accounts and PPP setup. Explain reason to keep use of root account to bare minimum: Explain "su -", group ownership, sudo, suid/sgid, general use of chown/chmod. Explain /etc/skel. Ensure that PPP is usable by non-root users. Why configuring for subsequent PPP/Internet access is a crucial goal. (Importance of Internet & network access for Linux to be worthwhile, and its necessity in order to participate in the wider Linux community.) User gets printed infosheet to help get him started: Point him to his own /usr/doc, LDP, Web search engines, recommended tutorial & reference books on Linux & system administration. How to do manual fsck, how to restore lilo, how to make backup of lilo, how to use mtools, how to mount/umount CD-ROMs, how to make a safety copy of /etc/* on floppy. How to use a Web browser to browse documentation & other local files. Linux <> Intel Linux: Supporting non-Intel platforms Advise user to acquire [re-]installation media. Advise user on how to set up printing (often relying on emulation of popular printer-control languages that is common in printers). Advise user on sound setup. Advise user on kernel recompile; walk him through creation of extra lilo.conf stanza to permit booting from old kernel in emergency. Advise on system-maintenance/upgrades, use of /usr/local & /opt, use of distribution's package-management tools. Explain *ix's single directory tree and mountpoints, as opposed to DOS/Windows's drive letters. Facilities: folding tables: lots of table space & chairs are a must power outlets w/adequate amp rating Map/directions, parking info, hardware-transport logistics (boxes, marked) Physical security: tags/labels or Sharpie markings, protected area for boxes and other goods brought by staff and other attendees. Access to nearby lunch, coffee/tea. Whiteboards Equipment: Name tags Broad-tipped markers Sharpies Equipment tags/labels Labeller Post-Its Scissors Stapler Scrap paper Lots of pens Flyers AC Power distribution - branch early & often Gaffer's tape (preferred) or duct tape 10Base-T hub(s), patch cables Transparent tape Spare ISA ethernet cards (10Base-T or combo) w/setup utility Spare PCI ethernet cards (10Base-T or combo) Spare PCMCIA ethernet cards w/setup utility Laplink parallel cable (for PLIP) MS-DOS 6.22 boot floppies w/FDISK.EXE, EDIT, FORMAT, SYS, SCANDISK If feeling really lucky, you could chance FreeDOS (http://www.freedos.org/) or Caldera DR-DOS (ftp://ftp.calderathin.com/pub/drdos/) Tom's Root/Boot floppies (http://www.toms.net/rb/) Bootpart (free)/Winimage (shareware): http://www.winimage.com/bootpart.htm, fips (http://www.igd.fhg.de/~aschaefe/fips/fips.html), PowerQuest Partition Magic (http://www.powerquest.com/partitionmagic/), Ranish Partition Manager (http://www.users.intercom.com/~ranish/part/), System Commander Deluxe (http://www.v-com.com/products/scd.html), Symantec Partition-It Extra Strength (http://www.symantec.com/sabu/qdeck/partition-it-ex/main.html), Partition Resizer (http://members.xoom.com/Zeleps/) SciTech Doctor for DOS/Win or Linux (http://www.scitechsoft.com/sdd_win.html) Spare blank floppies Spare ATAPI CD-ROM drive Posters/signs Spare mice (PS/2 and serial), keyboards (PS/2 and DIN), AC cables No spare monitors -- explain why X misconfiguration can be catastrophic. Easels for presentations. Waiver/disclaimer (see NTLUG example, below): hardware may fail during the InstallFest monitors can be damaged by incorrect X settings data may get lost from existing partitions: fips is fallible, human beings doubly so. owner acknowledges that he should have made a confirmed backup. owner acknowledges sole responsibility for security of his property Hardware problems: BIOS configuration: virus protection, IDE sector translation, ROM shadowing, "memory hole" for certain video cards, PnP OS, reserved IRQs/IO base addresses in either PCI/PNP or ISA pools Configuration utilities for ethernet, sound cards Verify that user's machine boots and operates at plug-in, before starting. Internal modems: COM3/4 problem, ISA PnP (isapnptools, setserial), winmodems Windows-dependent printers. Pre-InstallFest checklist (to be written): No virus in MBR. Scandisk. Defrag. (Watch for "unmoveable" files.) Backup. Bring DOS floppy configured to read CD-ROMs on this system. Equipment the user must bring: Monitor, mouse, keyboard, all cables including AC power cables, power strip, Linux CD if any, five floppies we can write to, all hardware documentation, any setup utilities for your hardware, system box. Chipsets: video, network, sound, PCMCIA. Why this is critical for laptops. Use of Win9x Device Manager to collect some of this info. Explain concept of chipset (chip-level identity) as opposed to make/model (board- or system-level identity). Give examples. Monitor's horizontal & vertical scanning frequency limits (key to safe X configuration). Locations of nearby stores where user can buy AC cords, floppies, power strips when he forgets those. E-mail coordination ~1 week before the InstallFest RAM: 8 MB min., 16 MB min. recommended for X Disk space: total vs. to be allocated to Linux. Recommend 1 GB+. CPU type: Forget about Intel 8088, Intel 286, Motorola 68LC040. Forget i386sx/i386 except for limited-role machines. Warn about performance bottlenecks on Intel 486SX, NexGen/AMD K5, similar chips with no floating-point unit. How many non-disabled serial ports are there, with and without internal modems? (This is to help diagnose any hardware-level modem problems.) How many parallel ports? When OSS sound driver or Accelerated X/MetroX is required. Post-installation vs. during-installation hardware support. Stress that one reconfigures after installation to expand hardware supported. (Add cameras, scanners, USB, things in newer kernels, some ISDN. Aladdin GhostScript. PCMCIA cards/chipsets requiring newer pcmcia-cs package.) Likely problem hardware: Non-SCSI, non-ATAPI CD-ROM drives Non-PS/2, non-serial mice Winmodems & similar Windows-dependent printers Most RAID controllers Promise "Ultra ATA"/"Ultra DMA"/"ATA33" series gigabit ethernet, MCA, Firewire, USB, and the cast of thousands... Amount of video memory for X-oriented systems -- recommend cards with 4 MB+, recommend avoiding new & fancy cards. 504MB dilemma for old 486es. (Pre-1994 BIOSes don't do sector translation.) Mouse protocol is sometimes counter-intuitive (e.g., Logitech mice using Microsoft rather than Logitech protocol). Distinguish mouse protocol from mouse _port_. ISP username, dial-in telephone number and authentication protocol (PAP, CHAP, etc.) Expect to spend at least 2 hours. Think up a root password to use later. "123456" will be used at InstallFest. How does the user plan to boot? (Especially an issue w/dual boot & existing partitions to work around): 1024 logical-cylinder problem on Intel Multiple lilo strategies (MBR, Linux superblock, floppy) Interacting with other boot managers: PowerQuest BootMagic (provided with Partition Magic 4.0+), Symantec Select-It (part of Partition-It Extra Strength) System Commander Deluxe, Advanced Boot Manager (part of Ranish Partition Manager), OS/2 Boot Manager (provided with OS/2 or earlier Partition Magic), Any number of free boot managers such as BootEasy and OS-BootSelect, WinNT OS Loader. Utility to manage/configure WinNT OS Loader: BootPart (http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/gvollant/bootpart.htm) Confusion between multiple partitions and MS-style multi-boot Consider overwriting MBR to eliminate boot-sector viruses before starting. Handholding during installation: hardware inspection rearranging DOS/Windows partitions, deciding on a boot strategy partitioning (make sure you mark bootable partitions as active) package selection boot configuration auto-start of services X configuration and optimisation Verify that all OSes still start at end of install process. Recompile kernel if required for hardware support. When to go slowly or cancel installation -- trouble signs: defective hardware, or damaged DOS/Win partitions, or user is nervous about risk to existing files or hardware, or too much of the hardware is unsupported or doubtful, or needed utilities or information for the system are not available at the InstallFest. InstallFest Administration: Greeter: performs triage on arriving attendees, functions as ringleader Staffing. Greeter should have list of everyone's specialties. X config only by qualified staffers. Cutoff time for new installations (2 hrs). Ombudsman/impresario: follow-through on details, keeper of the lists. Checks out lent hardware & records thereof, holds ID cards as surety. Welcome desk/Info display area: Freebies: Get CDs from SuSE, Caldera, Red Hat, TurboLinux, Macmillan Publishing Join GLUE @ SSC Information sheets to hand out IP address/netmask/gateway/DNS Sponsoring-group Web pages Information sheets on "what to do next". Non-freebies: Printouts of key documentation, e.g., LDP HOWTOs/mini-HOWTOs, "What is Linux" pieces, supported-hardware lists Must make sure non-freebies are prominently marked as such ("DO NOT TAKE!"), and kept physically separate from the freebies, or they will disappear. Install area Problem-solving/discussion/hanging-out area Presentation area: Demos, lectures, orientation Noise issues. Publicity: Cable TV community-events listings, free and other newspapers, computer clubs, c.o.l.a., flyer at local computer stores Flyer should give info about sponsoring group(s) including regular meeting times and Web pages. Make sure "installfest-team" volunteers get credited by name on Web pages. Combine efforts or coordinate events with other computer groups? Network/server setup (build and test, no later than day before show): Cabling 100% taped down, hubs in place 1 hour before start Cabling/network layout must be done by someone skilled Machine IP addressing must be overseen by someone skilled. No interruptions during initial network setup. Staff runs interference. Linux is a networked OS, dammit. Avoiding the "better Windows" syndrome. dhcpd for already-built machines (not generally usable for installation) Internet access? squid, ipmasq. Benefits of Internet access during the InstallFest (drivers, docs, search engines). DNS server on the local network, including reverse domain. Use 192.168.1.0/24 (netmask 255.255.255.0), "cabal.gov" domain. InstallFest server's Web pages: Mirror of sponsoring group's pages, & other local pages of interest. Version numbers of current popular distributions, brief description of each. One or more of the "What is Linux?" essays. XFree86 FAQ and cardlist.html. Mirror of Linux on Laptops page (of minimal use without the linked sites) LDP mirror Description of InstallFest network layout (IP #s, etc.) and facilities: Which volunteers are specialists in which topics. What distributions are available, ftp/NFS and CD. Mountpoints for ftp/NFS. Boot floppy images. What upgrades/errata are available. What extra software is available. "Afterwards, what do I do?" pages: references to good books, stores, user groups, Web-based information, mailing lists, newsgroups. Effective use of /usr/doc, Web search engines, etc. These should be conceptual overview only, as the user will already be in information overload. Video chipsets known to work with Video Framebuffer X server (requires VESA VBE-2.0 support at the hardware level). Note that these require special kernel support, using kernels 2.1.119 and above. Web links to browse ftp/NFS offerings (below). InstallFest server's ftp/NFS offerings: Errata/updates for popular distributions (Caldera, SuSE, Red Hat, Mandrake, Debian, Slackware, TurboLinux...) Have current XFree86 in tar.gz format, as fallback means of upgrading X. XBF (i740) servers (ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/XBF/ and mirrors) Suse XFCom (Voodoo Banshee, Voodoo Rush, SiS 530/620) servers (formerly XSuSE) (ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse_update/X/XFCom/), Daryll Strauss's 3Dfx Voodoo Banshee/Voodoo 3 patched 3Dfx server (http://glide.xxedgexx.com/3DfxRPMS_vb_glibc.html, glibc and libc5), ATI Rage Pro LT patched Mach64 server for LCD panels (http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~steveh/inspiron/) Extra recommended software: ssh 1.2.x, pgp 2.6.3a and/or gpg, lynx-ssl, fortify, zip-crypt/unzip-crypt, Aladdin GhostScript. Provide information on pgp-i, SSL, https, gpg's IDEA and RSA extensions, Network-installable distributions: Debian, SuSE, Red Hat, Slackware, Stampede Linux, Mandrake, Turbo Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD. Installation floppy images for above. Why to use server hard drive space rather than CD media (using NFS, ftp; or either over PLIP). Post-installfest meeting/dinner/discussion/spillover: [yet to be written] [From NTLUG, as a draft. To be replaced with something better.] Linux Installation Agreement Parties to the Agreement This Linux Installation Agreement hereby exists between the North Texas Linux Users Group or its duly authorized representatives, hereafter referred to as ``NTLUG,'' and the individual person identified by the signature below, hereafter referred to in this agreement as ``the recipient.'' Terms 1.The recipient freely requests, without coercion or duress from NTLUG, that the software operating system for computing devices known as ``Linux'' be installed upon the recipient's personal computing device, hereafter referred to as PCD. 2.The present agreement and its terms takes precedence over any verbal claims made by NTLUG; if any such claims are made and they conflict with this agreement, it is this agreement that shall be considered valid by NTLUG and by the recipient. 3.The recipient's PCD is herein defined as any computing device of whatever form factor, manufacture, condition, level or repair or fitness which the recipient shall present to NTLUG for installation, maintenance, optimization, or configuration of Linux. 4.NTLUG accepts no perdurable duty or obligation of maintenance, optimization, support, additional installation, or any other software-related or hardware-related administrative or management task or acts with regard to the recipient's PCD as a result of this agreement. 5.NTLUG makes no express or implied guarantee or warranty as to the merchantability or fitness of Linux for any purpose, task, or function on the recipient's PCD. 6.NTLUG makes no express or implied guarantee or warranty that NTLUG will successfully install, maintain, configure, optimize, or otherwise alter Linux on the recipient's PCD. 7.The recipient agrees to hold NTLUG blameless for any damage that may occur, directly or indirectly, to pre-existing software systems on the recipient's PCD as a result of NTLUG's installation, maintaining, configuring, or attempting of any of these activities, or any other activities that are reasonably necessary to install, maintain, configure, or optimize Linux on the recipient's PCD. Further the recipient agrees to hold NTLUG blameless for the loss of any data that may result from installing, maintaining, configuring, or optimizing Linux on the recipient's PCD. 8.The recipient agrees to hold NTLUG blameless for any damage that may occur, directly or indirectly, to the hardware components of the recipient's PCD as a result of NTLUG performing, or failing to perform, any of the functions, tasks, or actions attendant with installing, maintaining, configuring, or optimizing Linux or any of its associated software packages or programs. These actions include but are not limited to the installation of any hardware into the recipient's PCD; the movement of the PCD from one physical location to another; or any other action upon the recipient's PCD that is reasonably associated with successfully or unsuccessfully installing, maintaining, configuring, or optimizing Linux. 9.NTLUG reserves the right to use whatever information may be lawfully gained about the recipient's PCD as a result of this agreement. NTLUG agrees to use this information in a way that is consonant with its educational goals. For the purposes of this agreement, information about the recipient's PCD is limited to the manufacturer, model, and other pertinent technical details about the PCD. NTLUG shall not use, catalog, maintain, track, or otherwise preserve any information about the recipient's PCD related to the security of the recipient's PCD. In particular NTLUG will not use, catalog, maintain, track or otherwise preserve any system passwords or network addresses of the recipient's PCD. About this document ... North Texas Linux Users Group This document was generated using the LaTeX2HTML translator Version 96.1 (Feb 5, 1996) Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, Nikos Drakos, Computer Based Learning Unit, University of Leeds. The command line arguments were: latex2html -address kclark@ntlug.org lip_agreement.tex. The translation was initiated by Kendall G. Clark on Tue Jul 29 16:47:56 CDT 1997 kclark@ntlug.org Why this document (from an explanatory note to blw@baylisa.org): Usually: Users walk away with no means of Internet access, and no sound support. They have no idea what to do next, what information sources to consult, what books to study, how to recover from common problems, how to use floppies, how to use CD-ROMs, how to back up crucial files, how to set up printing, how to try out new kernels. They use the root account for everything. They don't get software-update packages, or useful, common add-ons. They have no idea how to maintain the system, or check its security. They have no idea how and who *ix is fundamentally different from DOS/Windows, think of it as a Windows-substitute, and are blind to its capabilities that Windows lacks completely. Volunteers get ripped off when they bring personal property to help make the event work (such as distribution CDs). The busiest of them get mobbed by questions from all directions, with no attempt to control the process, while other volunteers sit idle. Users fail to bring needed equipment (power strips, monitors, AC cords) and fail to bring needed information (e.g., monitor frequency limits) they could easily have secured before coming. AC and network cables get strewn everwhere to the point of being a hazard -- if anyone bothers to set up a network at all -- and power strips get daisy-chained eight levels deep because there's no power-distribution system. CDs and floppies are in short supply (in spite of network installations being inherently superior & faster and eliminating that problem entirely). Tools, expertise, and other resources (painstakingly provided) go unused, because nobody knows they are available, or what they're good for.