Hi!
As one or the other knows, there was a LinuxTag in Salzburg/Austria at
the Fachhochschule
(
http://www.fh-salzburg.ac.at/News_Detail.82.0.html?&no_cache=1&L=...).
As you can read in the above mentioned URL, SuSE and Ubuntu where there
as well as myself (speaking for Fedora instead of DavidHackl who was
busy with business).
However. My experience/notes.
It was my first (bigger) speach. I was quite enthusiastic, but also
quite nervous, as you can guess. :-) I only received positive feedback
yet, that's fine.
OpenSuSE Xen Workshop
=====================
They where in trouble. FH installed OpenSuSE 10.3 on the day before.
Every time you booted the machine with Xen kernel and X came up, the
machine crashed (blank/black screen) nothing except holding the power
key to power it off worked. I was asked if I may help. As a clear
statement I answered yes and tried to debug the problem. OK, in the
first moment I was quite amused, that it doesn't work - but thinking as
a technician, I though if it would happen to me with Fedora, I would
also be happy if someone tries to help me. At one moment I thought it
has something to do with the vga option they pass along and the vgabios
patching they do, but actually this wasn't the reason and I gave up
without a real solution. At this time, a Fedora-Xen-LiveCD would have
helped. :-P
User question: YaST is free, cannot Fedora also use it?
======================================================
Clear answer: Yes, we could. I believe it's FOSS, as it has GPL license,
but it would be hard to accomplish this mission, as SuSE does
configuration in a total different style. AFAIK.
However, the question showed me: Users want a single point of entry for
their configuration (tasks). Like 'Control panel' under Windows it
seems. They want to configure their resolution, theme, desktop
background, etc. And even Xen they want to see inside there it seems -
SuSE has Xen in YaST.
Fedora Beryl Workshop
=====================
Not too many people joined it, as it was the first Workshop at this day,
but the people who where there actually enjoyed it. The beryl settings
manager is better now. But it's overloaded. A simple GUI as we have it
with beryl-settings-simple, would be the best entry point for the users
I believe! For people with more experience, we still have an advanced
button there, isn't it? :-)
Ubuntu/SuSE/Fedora
==================
We had a clear statement; A linux user is a good user, which
distribution he begins with or uses doesn't mind in the first line. We
where nice to each other and didn't flame-war; That wouldn't make be a
good picture for none of us.
Dress code
==========
I'm not sure if I will wear a suite next time. I actually felt a bit
overdressed (you'll see on the pictures - I'll send a link as soon as I
have one). On the other hand, I think I stated, that we are not geeky,
freaky staff, making geeky, freaky stuff. :-)
Users
=====
I actually had the feeling that many SuSE users joined. SuSE is
definitely the desktop distribution of choice in Austria. I'm not sure
why... A buyable package with a book - documentation. No need to
download ISOs. See next paragraph as well.
What users think about Fedora/SuSE/Ubuntu
=========================================
I already told JoergSimon. I'm quite sure I was able to find out what
people think about the 3 distributions.
- SuSE is for desktop/laptop
They have good tools like KNetworkManager. And it actually seems to
work fine for most home-/laptop-users.
- Ubuntu is for starting with Linux
Easy to install, easy to use, not the big decision, which of the x
mail clients to use - there's only one...
- Fedora is for professionals and servers
That's the picture about us. OK, it's not a bad picture, but it would
be better if it would be Fedora is for experienced users. (point!).
Fedora on the Desktop. If we want this, we need to get an idea of
what users prefer, how they work. I have 100 % clear idea of that. I'm a
technician; I don't use OpenOffice regular, I don't need to switch
between networks every day or even every few hours. I don't know if
there are big bugs in Gnome/KDE. I use XFCE. :-)
Presentations Group/Team
========================
Already talked with JoergSimon also about this. I had the Chitlesh
presentation with me. I removed a few section, updated a few others and
translated it to German - where possible (Release early, release often:
You cannot really translate it to German).
Joerg told me, that there already is a Wiki for this and if I have time
to come to LT Berlin, I will bring this up at Fedora Ambassadors day; If
not Joerg will do this for me.
For short: The idea. A new group "Fedora Presentations Team". A team,
that works together with Documentation, Artwork and Translation;
Creating short presentations with nice artwork translated to different
languages. For Ambassadors it would be easier then to put together a
bigger presentation - if needed. It would be also easier hold a speech
about whatever people are interested (not the full-blown presentations).
If you're fast, open another presentation, ... many options here....
Behind the idea; Presentations team, would make sure, that presentations
are kept up 2 date and translated. The team would be mostly made of
Ambassadors I guess, but under a new hood, with separate m/l-list and so
on. Ambassadors without interest in this part would be overwhelmed with
another bulk of mails.
Got it? :-)
/me should have written this in English at the first time. Not first
tellin' Joerg and now to the list. Silly /me. :-)
A hope you enjoy(ed) the report.
--
Oliver Falk
UNIX/Linux Systems Administrator
Mail: oliver(a)linux-kernel.at
Phone: +43 (664) 838 59 25