[TriLUG] Penguins in the desert

[Brian McCullough]

On Wed, Oct 12, 2005 at 09:16:20AM -0400, Barry Gaskins wrote:
> bells and whistles. Look at low resource distros like DSL (Damn Small
> Linux). If you cannot determine what the specs are on the machines before
> you leave then burn a dozen different CDs of a whole range of distro's that
> have different system requirements. Otherwise you will get there with the
> distro that you prefer only to find out that the old machines they have will
> not even boot up the install CD.

And to be even more paranoid, I would also look at the possibility of
not being able to boot from CDROM and take along one or more sets of
Floppy + CDROM for the worst case.  When John mentioned low-end Pentiums
yesterday, I wondered about 386 and 486 vintage machines, just as one of
us mentioned today.

I agree with the turnkey approach, even if the users _do_ have some
Linux knowledge, most of the time all that they need is a light-weight
desktop publishing machine ( fancy typewriter ).  John may not be in
favour of IceWM, but it _is_ lightweight and easy to configure for a few
applications and utilities.


I am almost ready to volunteer to help out at this end, and even
possibly, there!


Brian



> - Barry Gaskins
> 
> On 10/11/05, Lee Fickenscher <elfick at mac.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Oct 11, 2005, at 9:16 PM, Aaron Joyner wrote:
> >
> > > There have been lots of good suggestions in this thread, but don't
> > > neglect to consider sand, dust, and dirt, and their devastating
> > > effects on computer hardware. Particularly in a true desert
> > > scenario, where you have people walking in and out from the sandy
> > > ground (if not sand storms actually blowing sand into where the
> > > computers are housed), this is going to result in a much higher
> > > maintenance schedule. You'll want to train a couple, or at best
> > > maybe a half dozen people, on how to properly disassemble and clean
> > > a computer. If they just know to blow the sand out from the inside
> > > of the case and how to lubricate and replace cooling fans, you'll
> > > be a *lot* better off in the long run.
> >
> > How about a semi-sealed diskless system using a non-conductive liquid
> > coolant?
> > Something like:
> >
> > http://techreport.com/etc/2001q4/comdex/koolance2.jpg
> >
> > Have it boot from flash and use a USB flash drive for removable
> > storage. :)
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