[plug] Installfest

[Matt Kemner]

On Wed, 23 Aug 2000, Darrell Horrocks wrote:

> The installation was not really friendly, and if it has become MORE friendly
> then I would hate to have seen it previously!!!!  However I think that this
> is an unfortunate by-product of having VERY easy to use install and replace
> functions (the much talked about APT-Get and DSELECT).

But you didn't have to use dselect, you could have chosen to set your
machine up as a 'server' or 'workstation' and had the packages preselected
if you wanted to.

> It may be worth asking for a quick poll on what the experts on this list
> would install for the various types of machines, like servers (web/database
> etc.), desktop (office based, games based) as I don't think that there is a
> clear overall winner across all these categories.

Uh oh, here comes another distro-religious flamewar...

Any version of Linux can be used for any purpose - it is still Linux
after all. I personally use Debian everywhere, while others would use
RedHat everywhere, and others again would use Mandrake everywhere.
 
> I think that rating a distribution based on the ease of install does take
> the focus away from what the distribution is aimed at doing.  At least you
> know that if you install Linux once, you wont have to do it again

And if you turn up at the installfest, you will have help with the install
anyway, so the most important consideration is ease of use.
Red Hat & derivatives are probably easier to configure for a newbie, but
then Debian is easier to upgrade, and add packages to.
 
> I think that the comparison of installs will probably be informally done at
> the LinuxFest anyway!

That will definitely happen

The main thing I fear is that when a newbie turns up, and they want Linux,
and they don't know what flavour they want, they will either get pot luck
depending on whom is available at the time, or end up waiting for 2 or
more people to fight over what distro to install for them...

 - Matt