installfest distros

[Christopher Browne]

On 5/8/05, David J Patrick <davidjpatrick-rieW9WUcm8FFJ04o6PK0Fg at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Presuming that those bringing their box to an installfest are less
> experienced (else, why don't they just do it themselves ?) What distros
> should we be considering ? If follow-up support is part of the picture,
> should there even be an option ?

Just so.  You can NOT have the choices be wide open if there is to be
any hope of follow-up assistance.

I'm loathe to use the word "support" as that tends to be a sort of
entitlement that people pay for.  If they're getting assistance
gratis, it is NOT an entitlement, and wide-open choices are not an
option.

> ubuntu
>     My current desktop. After using Mandrake, for a couple of years, and
> the Knoppix HD install, ubuntu Hoary Hedgehog has a lot going for it;
>     pro; debian(ish), good hardware support, strong dev community, gnome
>     con; non-free (but important) elements switched off, by default
> (some say this is a pro), med/high hardware requirements
> 
> mepis (personally never tried it, but comes highly recommended)
>     pro; debian, ...
>     con; ...

This would beg the question of why not Debian proper...
 
> DamnSmallLinux (for hardware underachievers)
>     pro; very low hardware requirements, debian, excellent knoppix-based
> hw detection, security enhancements, hardware enhancements (USB
> bootable, user files options), growing one-click software repository, ...
>     con; neither gnome nor KDE (although no problems running the apps)
> 
> others ?

Of these, the only one I had heard of was Ubuntu.

I think the choices probably ought to be a bit more "mainstream," as
it's NOT all about having the Most Elite Distribution, but rather
about having a functioning system that is fairly widely understood.

I'd not be too inclined to go much further afield than:

a) Debian (remember, if there are "experts" around to help install it,
the claims of it being 'hard for newbies to install' become totally
irrelevant)

b) Fedora (there's stuff NOT to like about it, but it's still
certainly "mainstream")

c) Mandrake / Mandriva (I don't know that this is popular around
Toronto; I do know that it was WIDELY installed at the monthly NTLUG 
Linux Installation Project sessions...)

d) Perhaps Slackware

Anything more "out there" than that is going to suffer from the
post-install problem that it may be tough to find someone around that
knows the ins and outs of the distribution.  (Granted, people can
puzzle out differences.  Better not to need to...)

Think about it:  The point of the exercise is to get people past the
"learning cliff" of getting Linux installed.

If you then add back the "learning cliff" of the distribution being
one that they can't get help with, that is way less helpful than the
process ought to be.
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