[NYLoCo] InstallFest - Maybe try Feisty first?

[Brian]

On Mon, 08 Oct 2007 19:20:07 -0400
Steven Day <steven.day at gmail.com> wrote:

> Well instead of pecking and hunting for the data to backup, perhaps
> you can backup everything that isn't the windows system folder and
> program files (and the pagefile.sys) and you should get about a
> couple of gigs of stuff, some important, a lot not. That can later be
> restored under a fresh install and stuff can be moved over or the
> folder structure kept for legacy purposes. Most of the stuff will
> usually be under c:\documents and settings\...
> 
> Another thing one may do is possibly set up a dual boot and use the
> migration manager and later discard the partition or keep it for
> legacy purposes.
> 
> On 10/8/07, Sandra Greer <aratinga77 at verizon.net> wrote:
> >
> > I have a virginal still-in-wrapper 120GB Western Digital IDE we
> > could use. I was going to put my next Ubuntu on it, but I'll get it
> > back, right? People seem to have about 10GB of valuable crap such
> > as baby pictures and downloaded music. Not to mention homework, but
> > that doesn't take much space. Finding it is quite  challenging.
> > Most of my "customers" have pen drives for the latest homework and
> > stuff. Some of them have writable CDs.
> >
> > Sandy
> > On Oct 8, 2007, at 4:26 PM, Zach Stern wrote:
> >
> > True, also we may need a massive amount of space to perform backups
> > with on-site. As nice as it sounds to ask people to back up before
> > coming . . . most people don't even know how to do that. They may
> > not realize its as simple as burning their files to a CD or copying
> > them to an external hard drive. They may also not have those things
> > (CDs, Burners, or an External Hard Drive).
> >
> > I've got a 4-drive external enclosure we can use, but its currently
> > full. I can take the drives out, and we can pop four IDE drives of
> > any size into it and viola, massive USB 2.0 backup.
> >
> > On 10/8/07, Karlie Robinson <karlie at webpath.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > Sandra Greer wrote:
> > > > Actually, David Quist has a good point. What we can do is maybe
> > > > do some house calls first, trying Gutsy and then reverting to
> > > > Feisty if that doesn't work, and making good notes on the
> > > > reasons and configurations found in the wild. We would then
> > > > have a knowledge base for hardware drivers. The InstallFest
> > > > could take place with people coming in with a list of
> > > > peripherals, and we could go with a conservative approach. We
> > > > also want to recruit junior geeks to be the local experts where
> > > > they live.
> > > >
> > > > The most important thing is for people to show up with all their
> > > > important stuff (pictures, homework) backed up to something. We
> > > > want them to like us afterward!
> > > >
> > > > Sandra

I wish you guys the best of luck with your install fest and hope we can
organize something like that for the Rochester region.I'm going to play
devil's advocate for a minute though.Having the ability to do backups
for people on site is a nice touch but it would also be a pretty taxing
experience for those doing the backups.Not to mention it's a risky
proposition that might get you in trouble.

I'd suggest that you forewarn people to backup their own data just in
case murphy's law rears it's ugly head.If people are okay with possibly
losing data then you should probably have them sign something to that
effect beforehand.No good deed goes unpunished.

Having said that though if you do offer data backup you should probably
use a central machine preferably with a raid array to make backups for
multiple machines to cut down on time spent on the task.Setting up a
machine that runs a partimage server and using sysrescuecd comes to mind
as a means to save all the data to dvd sized image files for each
computer.It boots from a livecd and given some time and effort you
could probably customize the livecd to backup everything without human
interaction.Have the people that plan on getting backups done
defragment their machines beforehand to make it go faster as well.

That way less resources are spent on backing up which is something we
should all do anyway (yeh right) and more time can be spent teaching
people about the value of Ubuntu/Linux.Please don't take this the wrong
way.I'm all for showing people a better way to computing through linux.

Brian

P.S.
If anyone downstate has any ideas about helping us get this project:
http://main.newyork-ubuntu.com/Main/RochesterRefurbish
off the ground we would love to hear them.We've got a Proliant server
we're currently playing around with testing an LTSP setup and we can
possibly get some older Sun Enterprise 450 machines but no room to
store them yet.Any offers of help/advice are welcome. ;-)