[Speakers] Transitional/Introductory Presentations

[Bruce Smith]

> Overall, I think what you're charting here is a kind of introductory tour.

Yup.

> As such, it's a different vantage point than many earlier efforts, and if
> it brings in the crowds and keeps 'em, great. 

We won't know unless we try.

> >They can see pictures of the stuff on the SuSE box in Bestbuy.
> They CAN, but it is dangerous to assume they have.

I'd never assume that.

I'm only saying that people are much more impressed with the real thing,
compared to pictures of it.  That want to SEE that things really run
without a BSOD, they are responsive, and not "cheap imitations" of the
"real thing" as some people associate with "free" software.

> >We don't really need to get into the details of the browser/WP/email/...
> >just enough to show them it really exists, this is what it really looks
> >like, and it really works.  Just showing some of the pull down menus is
> >probably good enough.  (see, it has a spell checker here ...)
> To this end, we should select some fairly standard stuff, and while pointing
> out that other choices exist, it would be good to select applications and
> a desktop that has a reasonably familiar appearence.

Yup.

> >I would even go as far to start the presentation at the login screen,
> >login, start OO-impress, open the slides, and continue from there.
> >(providing that logging in doesn't screw up the projector)
> Well, we know it does....

No we don't.  GUI login screen to GUI desktop _may_ work fine.
We simply need to test it before we decide.

> >If we plan on using the LTSP box for these demos, and if the LTSP box is
> >running SuSE, and we give some live demos, SuSE'ify'ing it is a must.
> Frankly I wouldn't use LTSP for this tour. Keep it simple and oriented
> to the user and the workstation. Introducing concepts like thin clinets
> and remote logins will lead to all kinds of complexity. Let's do that in
> one of the followup presentations.

There is no need for "LTSP" to ever be mentioned.  For our purposes it
appears exactly the same as a normal desktop machine.  The newbies never
need to know that it's not a standard desktop PC.

I'm thinking LTSP (or some standard box) is better because we know and
control what software is loaded.  I may not have OpenOffice loaded on my
laptop.  Adam's laptop may be missing something else that we should
demo.  Using the same hardware/software every time has real advantages.

It doesn't have to be the LTSP box, but I don't know of any other
desktop that we can leave at the chamber for this purpose.
Unless we want to reformat/reinstall a desktop on the driftwood box
(since we officially canned that project last night).

 - BS