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Linux Software

Comdex Update: Linux a smash hit 37

Posted by CmdrTaco from the ain't-that-spiffy dept.
Alan writes "The Linux booth was an absolute smash at the Comdex in Vancouver today. This was it's first day, but the booth stayed packed from when the doors opened to about an hour before they closed. And when I say packed, I mean PACKED. People were overflowing into the aisles to talk to the volunteers that were there. We quickly ran out of the Caldera CDs and Linux Journals that were donated. Even people who weren't part of the booth but used linux were stopping to talk to people about it and help to show them all about linux. We were literally the most busy booth there. There was even a tv crew from BCTV (www.tvforbc.com, no story though) who came out and put us on the news! In short, Linux was the toast of the show :)"
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Comdex Update: Linux a smash hit More

Comdex Update: Linux a smash hit

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  • My mistake... when I posted the story to Rob I forgot that the CDs were not SuSE, but in fact Caldara. Sorry if I didn't give credit where credit was due.

    Who gave what aside, Linux is Linux, and Linux was a hit :)
  • Red Hat tried to do an X-based install with RedHat 3.0.3. It didn't really work that well, from what I saw of it. Just stick with character-based installs, much easier to ensure compatibility with.
  • I did my very first ever Linux install (as complete Linux newbie and with very little general Unix experience) off a Slackware 3.0 CD. The only problem I had was that I didn't have room for all the stuff I wanted to install (only had a 120M disk). Other than that, I got the machine up and running without a hitch, and I haven't looked back since.

    With some minor level of basic computer knowledge, any Linux install I've ever been through is easier and far less time consuming than an Win95 install. And, truth be told, I prefer the UI of the Slackware install scripts to the Red Hat ones.
  • Posted by DaHack:

    Caldera and SuSE are major proponents of Linux in the BC Linux organizations, as such we have to show them as well as RedHat, although I agree that RedHat is easier to install for beginners.

    Besides, we may have some people attend the show that are familiar with Unix in general, who could probably succesfully install Caldera or SuSE.
  • Yep, me too.

    I started with Slackware... God, that was a bitch to install and continued to be an eternal PITA. I tried RedHat on another machine and never looked back. Even for experienced users, RH is nice. (Until you get into the roll-your-own custom distro stuff for REALLY specific applications.)

    BTW, I disagree on the Win95/WinNT thing. WinNT is MUCH easier to install than '95. But RedHat blows NT away hands-down.

    Win95 install - Many hours. (Reboot, reboot, reboot)

    NT install - 1-2 hours.

    RHL - .5 hours or less (Depending on CD-ROM speed.)
  • We were expecting to have Redhat and SuSE CDs as well as the Caldera ones, but these did not arrive in time for Comdex. So, we went with what we had.
    We even talked to a CD-duplicating place a couple of booths down, but no luck.

    -Mike (VanLUG member)

  • I suppose. Try SuSE. I am sure you will find it very intuitive and *very* easy to install and setup. It has some nifty features like "sax" the SuSE X configurator. SuSE should be definitly one of newbies premier choice.
    CU
    Tobias
  • I was in Vancouver, and I popped in to check out the Comdex.

    Man, that Linux booth was packed. It was hard even getting near it. It was definitely the booth that generated the highest excitement level.

    Too bad you guys didn't have the floor space of, say, Microsoft. :-)

    Cheers,

    - Jim
  • The sucky part is only that Debian CD's don't include some very useful packages due to licensing. Like a browser that supports WWW proxies a la Netscape. I kinda got locked on my system after my network worked but I could only access the web through Netscape. So i had to download Netscape onto the linux box through a windows machine.

    FYI: lynx can use proxies, as well as wget; dpkg and dselect is really good, put apt-get, or dselect with apt method is the best package management system ever.
    Szo
  • My first Linux Installation was SuSE 4.1 and I managed that without too much trouble. I don't have PnP hardware, though, so i can't comment on this. Also I must admit that I felt a bit uneasy, when I installed RH 5.2 for a friend and it started to detect the hardware by itself(went flawless, though)
    2 weeks ago I installed SuSE 6.0 and it was a breeze. IIRC there even is an option to let the setup-program do the partitioning, but that's just as useless as the RH version if you happen to have another OS on you drives, which is very probable if we're talking about Linux newbies.
  • did i miss something? Thought current release was still 1.0...
  • I went from slackware to redhat to caldera to redhat to debian. I love debian. For all you windows users out there. The hard part about installation is knowing what all your hardware is, and how the nomenclature translates to linux. When you install RedHat, the install finds out and tells you. Then, you can move to debian or some other distro if you wish. RedHat is just fine, I think it will definitely be the big contender among commercial linux distros. But as far as pure fun in experimenting with different linux apps, debian has given me the most pleasure. Debian will remain what is largely considered the most technically pristine distribution. I can think of many ways to implement debian in the corporate or SOHO settings. If your not sick of installation (a linux skill in itself) try debian and other distros, the beauty of linux is the sheer number of flavors. Linux will overtake MS not by one distro dominating (although certainly some distro will emerge with the most notoriety a la RedHat),
    but linux distros overall will dominate because they can be customized for anyone's special needs. There could be Grandma Linux that boots with very few daemons, has a very easy GUI that starts automatically, has some imaging software for her fancy new sewing machine that accepts bitmaps for patterns, a fast browser, etc. What is even more beautiful, is the small company that distributes Grandma Linux could then support it in a much more personal manner. Possibly even customize some apps for her. Or better yet, customize her homepage so that she has quick access to stuff she cares about, yahoo, her mutual funds, email lists of her kids and grandkids, etc. Some equally as beautiful is that for her monthly charge of $20 or whatever the service provider could offer a sub $1000, or $500 pc.

    What I'm trying to say, is that linux does not have to be user un-friendly. Most people use general purpose distros, these necessarily include users of MIT level technical ability and people like me (a law student who only discovered linux 8 months ago). Linux offers the freedom to customize a distro based on a larger distro, to tweak it for a very specific purpose (i.e., the opposite pole of a beowulf implementation). We all tend to focus on which distro is better than which, when we should focus on how to make every conceivable distro for every purpose and start businesses to support them. Linux will be hurt by a one company domination model. It will flourish where many distros are based on open standards. There will always be shortcomings with any model, but I think the one I have envisioned is superior. Any comments?
  • I don't understand why RedHat insists on defaulting to the Win95 wanna-be desktop. You're right; the AfterStep that ships with it is _much_ better looking than the default. Although we should give them credit for making it easy enough to switch...
  • hmm... i wonder why this was not a suprise for me :)




    Øyvind
  • what happens when Linux is mainstream?
  • Last year I went, and had no big problem getting in. I was 16, and my friend, 17, was around 5 feet tall, and he got in as well. We had several free passes, and my dad (president of some company) registered us onsite, he said that 'the without us the company couldn't run. Little lies don't matter :) This year I did the samething with another friend, and they asked no questions. The other friend's dad got a free pass (the actual card) in the mail, and he had no problem. I'd suggest not to come dressed as a 12-year-old geek. I didn't see anyone else who looked less than 20, though. I think one of the reasons for the age limit is that 3 or 4 years ago, 90% of the high school population in the Vancouver to Chilliwack Area went, so they had to stop it somehow. This year's show was a lot smaller than last years, only 90% of the upper floor was filled, wheras last year both floor were packed. I wonder what it will be like next year (size of Comdex/size of Linux-related booths?? Wim.
  • What brought this up? You see "Linux" and the knee jerk reaction is "trash Caldera and SuSE"?

    Erik Ratcliffe
    Caldera Systems, Inc.

  • Relax. (Score:1)

    by rat ( 76966 )
    You have your opinion. I think you're wrong.

    Sorry, nothing personal.




  • I was there yesterday.. and it truly was amazing. It was the last boot we saw because it was in the corner, and yet it was the most exciting and popular booth there! I was impressed that Victoria and Vancouver have such a well organized LUG. I am now planning to join the VLUG in Victoria.

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