SVLUG Installfests

If we change the venue, or any other details about where and when the installfest will be, it will be mentioned here, and posted to the SVLUG announce list.

The Regular Time

Third Saturdays, every single month.
11 am 'til 4 pm
For the next few months, that will be:

• Apr. 21, 2007
• May. 19, 2007
• Jun. 16, 2007
• Jul. 21, 2007

The Regular Place

Google, Inc.
1565 Charleston, Building 46
Room 135 ("Avarua" room)
Mountain View
(directions)

General Procedures
What to do
What not to do
Some issues we attack

Note there are also Linux installfests hosted twice monthly by CABAL at Rick & Deirdre's house in Menlo Park, as well as ones conducted occasionally by LUGOD (Davis), SlugLUG (Santa Cruz), NBLUG (Sebastopol), and EBLUG (Fremont).

General Procedures

• The event itself is usually unformatted — no pre-set schedule of activities. When you arrive, check with the installfest personnel on where to set up your system. We try to keep people with new installations together, and people with troubleshooting issues together. Then, go to work. Our gurus will be there to help. Feel free to ask any question.
• There is no fixed schedule of activities, though occasionally we will have an expert come give a mini-seminar on his or her area of expertise.
• Due to the finite size of the work area, we ask that you be prepared to share tables with other installers.

What To Do

• Bring your machine, including monitor and anything else it needs to work.
• Bring a power strip. If we have a shortage of outlets, people who bring power strips get priority at the wall outlets.
• Whether you are doing a new Linux install or just an upgrade, make a backup of your current system before you come. If something goes wrong, we want to be sure that you lose nothing critical.
• If you are installing a new version of Linux, bring your installation CD and documentation. (Some Intel-based installation CDs may be there for you to use, but don't depend absolutely on it.)
• We will have a 100baseT local-area network hooked up among our machines, so bring your NICs!
• If you have one, bring an Ethernet hub. Since attendance is somewhat unpredictable, it doesn't hurt to have several extras. (Be sure to ask before connecting it: We want a topology where one hub is just for other hubs to connect to, and ideally only one-hub-deep connections from there. Some distant parts of the room may need an extra hub for that area.)
• Some regular participants have found it handy to make a box of stuff they regularly bring to the installfests.

What Not To Do

• Don't count on others to have spare monitors, power cables, keyboards, mice, non-Intel Linux distributions, etc... although if you intended to bring them and forgot, ask around before driving back home to get them.
• Our hours of operation are 11am to 4pm. Don't arrive at 3:00 and expect to get much accomplished before we have to shut down for the day.

Some Issues we attack

(Thanks to Alvin for this text — even though some of what follows is a bit outdated, by now.)

Hardware (In)Compatibility

• which hardware does NOT work

Linux Installation

• boot disk, root disk, CD-ROM boots, NFS boots
• fdisk, format, fips, MBR, FAT, partitions
• loadlin, lilo
• DOS: config.sys, autoexec.bat

System Issues

• kernel compilation, libraries, file system
• csh, bash
• Perl, gcc, tk/tcl, expect
• X11 Setup, screensavers
• printer, keyboard

Network Issues

• DNS and Virtual Domains
• PPP, Slip Dialup scripts to your ISP
• NFS, Win95, WinNT, Sun

Major Application Issues

• Sendmail, Smail
• Majordomo, ListServ
• nntp
• Apache, CGI scripts
• Multimedia sound, video

Security Issues

• DES, PGP, trusted hosts
• Walk-in Attacks
• E-mail Attacks
• FTP Attacks
• Web Attacks
• Misc. Attacks

Misc Issues

• Daily, Weekly, Monthly Backup & Cleanup scripts
• Disk Backup, NFS backup, Tape Backup, UPS