We had 6 boxes:
* AMD K6-2/350 128M 2G+6G 36X ViRGE-4M SB16(Vibra)
- Red Hat 6.0, WindowMaker + Gnome, Lots of Apps.
* Cyrix 200 32M 2G 16X Diamond Stealth-2M
- OpenLinux 2.2, KDE, Default KDE Apps
* Cyrix 233 Laptop 64M 4G 24X C&T-4M
- Slackware 4.0||6.0; Blackbox || KDE 2.0b; Various
* 486/100 24M 3G 4X TGUI9680-1M
- SuSE 6.2; FVWM2, Varous Apps
* 2 of 486/66, Less than 500M Harddrives, No X
- Slackware, Koules
Apps that interested people:
StarOffice, Applix, GIMP, Corel Word Perfect, XMMS, XBoing
Standard Demo Went:
"It can do everything that Windows can. (Click, Click)
It can also do this other neat stuff that Windows can't do:
Virtual Desktops, Virtual Consoles,
Fully themable window managers, etc...
It comes by default with a ton more apps, most of them free.
It costs little or nothing (People were impressed with
being able to get a SuSE box for $30)
I haven't managed to crash it hard yet, and I do stuff like
running 30 apps at once"
Difficult Questions: (And our answers)
Q: I heard it takes less diskspace than Windows, is this true?
A: Well, the full install of most distros is actualy bigger than
Windows, but you get all kinds of Apps with Linux, a Windows
install gives you the base O/S, Minesweeper, and Solitare.
The base Linux system can even fit on a single floppy.
Q: How hard is it to install?
A: It depends on the distro, everything from Caldera which is
ultra easy, to Debian and SuSE which are a fight at best.
Q: I have Windows, and I can't get my computer to print. How do
I print under Windows?
A: Uhh, I'm not sure. Could you excuse me for a moment, I've,
uhh, gotta go to the restrom. (Luckily she was gone when I
got out of the bathroom)
Q: What's the best distro? (Alt. What's your favorite distro?)
A: Slackware, but you wouldn't like it. I suggest Mandrake,
RedHat, SuSE, or Caldera OpenLinux - Debian's good too if you
like a stable, well tested system and don't mind older
software versions.
Q: Can't I download it free off the 'net?
A: Yup, It'll take about a week though. Don't pick up the phone
or something, you'll have to start over. The easier way is to
buy a box at CompUSA, or get a CD online from LSL for $3.
We did manage to get through the demo with only 2 people who really
knew how to use Linux, but it was a little hard when we had like 15
people waiting.
A raffle proved to be impossible to do, so we just straight out sold
the things we weren't handing out for the standard retail price. This
payed for the space. (A raffle would have been hard because verry few
of the people who showed up were technically competent enough to know
what to do with a full version of SuSE for example, and also getting
the prize to the winner would have been difficult at best)
We didn't manage to hand out even half of the SuSE CDs, but they'll get
handed out at LUG meetings or whatever no problem.
We couldn't quite figure out what the Applix SHELF CDs were good for,
but a lot of the people who came in took a copy, so...
All in all it was a successful demo. Cape Ann Linux Users' Group now
consists of 3 active members, as opposed to the two members when I woke
up this morning. (We actually had 6 people helping out at the demo, but
four of them had minimal Linux experiance so could basically just make
sure that people didn't walk out with random things, etc...)
-Nat Tuck (CALUG)
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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