[Computerbank] standardised installs

[Kylie Davies]

Hi Guys, (and yet again - another long post from me!) 

You all should be accustomed to this soon. :)

> The next meeting is on 13 th November starting at 6.30 EDST ( does that
> make sense to you? ) and we will be phone conferencing so that no one
> misses out.

Actually - we only have provision to phone conference with two people at
any one time. 

In view of this - we are going to have to utilise IRC as well. Remember
the server is irc.linux.org.au port 6666 and the channel is called
#computerbank 

We guarantee that there will be someone providing accurate running text
commentary for this meeting, and all committee members will be listened
to. (Provided they have put the items they would like raised on the
agenda) 

If anyone has any ideas about "Standing Rules" for IRC meetings of
Computerbank Autsralia Inc or knows where to find other relevant web
info along the lines of http://www.gpnj.org/pol_irc.htm (good starting
point!) please talk about it here.

IRC HINTS

For those people new to the whole IRC deal: It's easy - find an
"internet relay chat" program - for linux - there's things like bitchx
and xchat (computerbank vic people would have this). For Windows users
there's Mirc and probably others as well. 

Once you've got your program installed and working (or once you find it
on your system) - try to find the part of the application that will
allow you to add a new irc server or that will allow you to connect to
an irc server. From here you should be able to read the clues and type
in any required details. :) 

Once you are connected to an irc server (in this case, irc.linux.org.au
- or you could try any of the open projects networks), you can type
commands into the status window. To join a channel type /join
#channelname where channelname = channel that you wish to join. 

If people would like more details then this - please email questions to
the list. :)


> > Tony from the Qld branch has raised another good issue for discussion.
> >         Are we going to look a standardised install?

CB - Vic uses NFS to do installs and LDAP to manage user accounts /
network (in a broken kind of way).  We use some handcrafted debian
packages (well I think they kinda are) - and it has been our every
intention to provide the "cookbook" recipe to other cb's - i think it is
more a question of fixing broken things. :( 

All of our systems (atm) go out with a minimum 486 dx4 100 mhz CPU, 32mb
RAM, and at least a 1G hdd. Standard monitor size is 14/15" with 17"
being allocated to people with visual difficulties. Many of the systems
we have distributed have been P133. Community groups get slightly higher
spec machines (part for servers/networks) - P200, P266. 

We distribute a stock standard machine - as per our program - extras
like things that we don't have enough of - we charge for - modems (25
for 33.3k) cdrom/sound (30). This is subject to availability. We do
provide information to recipients about how they can go about buying
relatively cheap peripherals when we have none - and they usually come
back to have them installed/configured. 

We do *not* supply printers to individuals because we have found it too
time consuming to do given that the quality of printers we have (that
are non-laser) is dubious. We now recommend that people buy printers
brand new for around $90 -120. We recommend the Canon BJC 1000sp. We do,
however, provide laser printers to community groups. 

All of our systems have been shipping with the GNOME desktop - with
applications such as Abiword (0.7), Gnumeric, Netscape, Xchat, TED,
Gnucash, GIMP, other GNOME apps, some programming toolkits, bluefish,
PDF viewer, Games, and all the standard tools. 

Where Abiword will not meet a persons 'wordprocessing' needs - we
install staroffice. 

I've given a bit of an overview - now I'll hope that some of our more
technically astute mailing list members can inform everyone else what's
so special about the packages Vic uses and *what's* so wrong with them. 
For e.g.: our latest cookbook package broke Abiword Spellcheck - and
hmmm...well a lot of users are now ringing us asking us why spell check
doesn't work?....

> > Can SA receive the same pack sent to Qld, so we can review and discuss?

Agh... you probably mean the laptop setup - yes - we can do that -
however, I wasn't too sure what went on that? 

I only vaguely hoped it contained the "cookbook" - but am not sure -
Grant (nevyn) could you please advise?? Or maybe Tony - you could advise
and provide feedback at the same time??

Cheers,

Kylie