Linux World Canada Show, April 24-26, 2006

[Colin McGregor]

--- "G. Matthew Rice" <matt-s/rLXaiAEBtBDgjK7y7TUQ at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Scott Elcomb <psema4-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> writes:
> > What about 10+ people burning off 5+ copies of
> their favorite distro
> > (and/or app collections).  Add them into the
> Ubuntu stock and there'd
> > be plenty to choose from.  (Or put into surprise
> bags... ;-)
> 
> Or build/get one of these:
> 
>         http://www.freedomtoaster.co.za/

I like the concept of the "Freedom Toaster", a Linux
machine set-up just to burn any of a number of
distributions while you wait. But there are potential
problems here that make me nervous:

- Time and space. Let us assume the show attracts
5,000 people of whom 10% will want CDs of say Fedora
Core 4 (which comes on 4 CDs). Further let us assume
it takes 3 minutes to burn a CD. So, we are talking
100 hours to burn those CDs. But the trade show will
be open for 13 hours. Ok, so we would need multiple,
well eight, machines, all in a 10' x 10' booth... 

- Power and CD costs. The Convention Centre power
charges boarder on the obscene, can we cost justify
what is involved in this. Further there is the cost of
the blank CDs.

- When things go wrong. If we base our approach around
the "Freedom Toaster", how much trouble will we be in
if a hard disk crashes and/or a CD Burner dies...

Unless my assumptions in the above are WAY off base
(and if you think my assumptions are way off base
PLEASE tell me why), the "Freedom Toaster" is not an
approach for mass at-the-show CD production.

Colin McGregor
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