Day One

8-21-05
My fiance was gracious enough to give me almost a full day on Sunday to play with the new toys.
I attempted to install several several different distributions. I'm writing this a day later so i don't have a full account of every error but here's a good recollection.

Ubuntu and Kubuntu (5.04) -
Attempted install on both machines with errors that caused termination mostly accounting for file issues on the cd. I read online that a few people have had the same problem and they attributed it to burning the cd too fast. I reburned both of them at 4x just to be safe. I left these distributions alone for the time and moved to Mandrake 10.1. After my failed attempts with Mandrake I put the Ubuntu CD into the G1 and started another install. At bed time it was still installing packages. In the morning, it was sitting at a reboot prompt. I did so and booted up to a login screen! In fact i'm filling out this blog using that very machine.

Mandrake 10.1 -
I ran the install on the Gn and kept getting errors about low resources. I was able to continue the install, but I got 3 errors again referring to files. At one point during the base install it locked up and never regained consciousness... well not in the next 10 minutes anyway which is when i pulled the plug on that one and went to the G1 with Mandrake. I got no low resource errors, but the same 3 error messages came up. That's when i figured i had another cd burned too fast, but it locked up at a later point as well. I restarted that install and performed one in text mode. This one went extremely smooth except when i got to a boot prompt and logged in, I had no idea what to do. xfree86 wouldn't start. startx returned no file named found. I searched online for how to get X running, but couldn't find much useful documentation. I was a little frustrated at this point and probably gave up sooner than i should have. This is when i went to Ubuntu again.

I'm unable to work on the project tonight (8-22-05) due to work I need to get done, but tommorrow i'll be working with Kubuntu on the Gn. It's not the greatest machine, so i'm worried i might have to go with a smaller distro that is for older less powerful machines. This machine (G1) will be used to show at a committie i'm attempting to organize to help me decide on the best distro to use.

Goal

Working on no budget and volunteer helpers, our goal is to create a low cost effective source of providing technology to low-income families. We would like to create multiple computer labs around the city of Lafayette in donated locations. The computer setups must be low-cost, low-maintenance and user-friendly.

The committee has determined that open source software is the route to take. I am starting this blog to document my findings and hopefully get help from some people more knowledgable than myself. As of now our plans are to figure out a Linux environment that can be used for all services necessary to provide these learning environments with little training to the end user.

Thank you for taking an interest in our project.

Environment

Downloaded and burned several distributions from online in the form of iso files and burned to cd. The distro list is as follows:

ubuntu 5.04
kubuntu 5.04
Mandrake 10.1
damnsmalllinux 1.4

at the time of this writing i am downloading:
Knoppix 3.8.2
K12LTSP 4.2.1

The hardware I snagged to work with are

Dell Optiplex G1
P333
64 Megs RAM
6 Gig HD
All peripherals are onboard

Dell Optiplex Gn
P233
128 Megs RAM
2 Gig HD
3rd party Sound and NIC (undetermined of type right now)

These setups are the lower end of the level of PC's we want to work with. Our goal is to develop cheap systems that function nominally.