KLUG Meeting Minutes 28-APR-1998

[CJGIDMAN@xxxxxxxxxx]

RE: Kalamazoo Linux Users Group
    Meeting Minutes
    28-APR-1998

Attendees: Bruce Smith, Bob Brown, Adam Williams, Brian Ritz, Scott Yellig,
           Rick Knowlton, Chris Gidman, Richard Dunbar, Richard Harrison,
           Shawn Mattingly, Brij Bhargava

(Attendees listed in no particular order.)

Presenter: None
Topic:     Install Linux on 2 PCs
Food:      Bob brought milk (and didn't drop it.)
           Bob brought pizza (for which we passed the hat.)
           Adam brought brownies (delicious as usual.)
           Chris swiped popcorn from another room (Yes, two weeks in a row.)

What a party we had Tuesday!  As you can see from the attendee list we had
a near record attendance.  There was great food, new faces, and no less than
five, yes, five computers in the room.  Since we didn't want the pizza to
get cold and we had a lot of hardware to set up, we went up to the room
at about 10 after six.  (We did check back at 6:30 and 7:00 to see if others
had arrived.)

Once in the room, Richard Harrison's IBM PS/2 486/50 with 8MB RAM was set
up on the left while Richard Dunbar's 586/133 with 16MB RAM was set up on
the right.  We immediately dove into the pizza and chatted for a few minutes
before starting the installs.  Bruce Smith had brought in the free Linux
distribution we received from S.u.S.E., but he hadn't had much time to play  
with it so there wasn't much excitement over it.  (Bruce, perhaps you could
prepare an evaluation for this mailing list?)

As the installations began, what little order was in the room dissolved into
near chaos.  What follows in an attempt to recount how the meeting went.
But please be aware that it wasn't all as clear cut and well defined as it
seems.

Bruce focused on installing BSWare on Dunbar's machine, while
Adam and Brian began installing on Harrison's machine.  As this progressed,
Rick Knowlton brought his machine (Cyrix 586[clone]/150 with 64MB RAM) 
upstairs and we hooked it up to the big overhead projector.  His goal was to 
get X-Windows working.  Scott set to work helping him.  Bob and Shawn
traveled from group to group offering assistance as needed.

Harrison's machine proved difficult right from the start.  After verifying
that his PS/2 had MicroChannel construction, there was great doubt that
Linux would be installed on it.  Further trouble came when his CD-ROM turned
out to be IBM SCSI.  A trot down to a PNU LAN connected computer produced
a boot disk for a version of Linux that supports MicroChannel and IBM SCSI.
However, once booted, it wanted a Slackware CD-ROM which we did not have.
A dejected (in my estimation) Harrison went home without Linux installed.

SINCE THE MEETING -- It appears that Adam has a boot image for getting Red Hat
Linux to support MicroChannel and SCSI.  See his posting for more details.

The trouble with Rick's machine was apparently related to the S3Virge driver.
When running startx, he received a Signal 11 (Segmentation Fault).  Scott
first upgraded all XFREE86 packages to the latest version.  This didn't help.
After that, he switched to a standard VGA driver.  This solved the problem.
Shortly after that he was running with 24 bit color!  It was fun to watch
this transition happen on the big screen.  I believe Rick was pleased with
the results.

Dunbar's installation went well.  He has a slave drive with about a Gig on
it.  This is where Bruce installed Linux.  Once they had picked the packages
to install, it was mostly just wait while the CD cranked away.  However,
once installed startx produced another Signal 11!  Two in one night!
Dunbar's machine was also using the S3Virge video driver.  Again switching
to standard VGA resolved the problem.  Final configuration for Dunbar was
setting up LILO to boot Win95 by default and Linux by request.  Everything
worked well and he left happy.

It was definitely an exciting night.  I think all of us discovered that when
we have the InstallFest on 16-MAY-1998 we need to be prepared for those
unusual machines that someone drags out of their closet, blows off the dust,
and says "I think I'll let them put Linux on this."

Well, in case you think that I made a typo above when I said FIVE computers,
think again.  Bob brought in the KLUG 486 and Adam brought in an OLD case.
(The case had a mother board and various other components, thus, I classified
it as a "computer".  Whether or not it is actually a computer is perhaps,
as Bob said several times that night, a metaphysical question.)
When Adam could no longer spend any time on Harrison's installation, he 
gutted the case he brought, threw away the internal components and put the 
KLUG 486 into it.  The group now has its own computer -- with case.

That's all for this week.  See you on Tuesday!