[ubuntu-uk] On giving people Ubuntu to try.

[Phill Whiteside]

hiyas,

Crikey... a 250MB usb hard drive? Please let me have some more details as
the lowest we can get Lubuntu down to as a full install is 2.7GB on Hard
Disk - I am sure JM would love to have a look at it.

Regards,

Phill.

On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 9:51 PM, Martin Houston
<mhouston at deluxe-tech.co.uk>wrote:

>
> I have a couple of old Thinkpad T43s that a friend gave to me thinking that
> he had killed them with a faulty USB device.
>
> A bit of googling and a 'deep reset' restored them both to life much to my
> friends consternation.
>
> I offered them him back but was given permission to keep them :)
>
> Neither laptop had an internal hard disk so they were ideal experimenting
> grounds for working with various USB and net booting projects.
>
> Something I found that works really well is a 2.5" (i.e. bus powered) USB
> hard disk.
>
> Linux installed onto a 250MB one of these is really quite usable, much more
> so than a USB memory stick.
>
> This is a route that you can use to get your friends to try out Linux you
> lend to them, without having to go axeing that internal hard disk incumbent
> just yet.
>
> Things will get even more interesting when USB3 ports become common,
> especially once motherboards can boot from them! USB3 connected hard disks
> are faster even than eSATA and even cheap USB3 memory keys have performance
> on the par with old PATA hard disks (but the small extra advantage of zero
> seek time!).
>
> Bootable CDs & DVDs only go so far. Telling newbies that they need to be
> patient because of the very slow seek times is not easy. It does not create
> a very good impression.
>
> Peoples first impressions of Windows are not of having to install it from
> the media, so why should Linux have that disadvantage of first impression?
>
> One of the things we should be doing for others is 'Linux propagation' - if
> you have a friend who wants to try Linux ask if they have a spare USB hard
> disk (a smallish one would do!) or can risk the less than 50 quid it costs
> to buy one.
>
> We need to build some logical volume manager based system replication
> procedures. That 250MB hard disk Linux started life on a memory stick and
> using just lvm volume replication and expansion moved onto the USB disk and
> then onto the internal hard disk of another laptop.
>
> Having that complete bootable, golden copy of the OS is good insurance even
> if you do move to the convenience and speed of internal disk in the end.
>
> USB
>
> --
> *Deluxe Technology Ltd*
> /Linux Consultant/
> mhouston at deluxe-tech.co.uk <mailto:mhouston at deluxe-tech.co.uk>
> http://www.deluxe-tech.co.uk
> Mob: 07970 850961
>
> --
> ubuntu-uk at lists.ubuntu.com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
>



-- 
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/phillw
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