[brlug-newbies] August 21st Linux SIG Workshop

[edslinuxbox@cox.net]

Greetings all, 

As many of you know, the Cajun Clickers Open House was held this past Saturday from 9:30 AM to 3:30 PM. Joe Zachary and I left there Saturday afternoon with sore throats from having told the Linux story to so many people. According to Roger Carlyle, approximately 75 new members were signed up. The interest in our Linux Desktop SIG was very high! We will be doing an InstallFest in the Clickers Computer Lab for our next workshop. All current members that have experience with installing Linux, please come and help us out. I fully expect a standing room only crowd, which may mean that we may need to do the installs on a first come, first installed basis and possibly extend it to another session. The driving force behind this surge in interest is the recent drop of support for Windows 98/ME by Microsoft and the pending release of Windows Vista and its proposed increased hardware requirements. Come out and meet the new SIG members and help us get them up and going. 

f you currently have any incarnation of Windows on your machine and you wish to dual boot Windows with Linux, then prior to the InstallFest be sure that the following has been accomplished:

1. Insure that you have at least 3 gig of free space on the existing Windows       drive or that there is available unallocated space on the dirve.
2. For Windows versions that support it, boot into "Safe Mode"
3. Double click on "My Computer"
4. Highlight and right click on each hard drive on the machine and select "Properties"
5. Click on "Disk Cleanup" and follow the prompts to remove all of the unneeded files
6. Click on "Tools"
7. Run "Scandisk" or "Error-checking", depending on the version of Windows
8. you are running, check "Automatically fix file system errors" and let it run. Run "Defragment Now". The prompts will vary depending on the version of Windows, but be sure you force the defragmentation even if Windows says that it doesn't need to be run.

Depending on how recently you performed items 5 throught 8, it may take hours for them to successfully complete. If you have the time after having completed all of the above, repeat the above a second time but skipping the "Disk Cleanup" portion. 

Also, anyone that would like to help Joe, Will and I by taking on a, or some, workshop is more than welcome do so. There are lots of opportunities here, including workshops of how to use the OpenOffice Suite, The Gimp, Amarok, Digikam, using and customizing FireFox, scanner software, CD/DVD burning software, web development software, desktop publishing, and many more, as well as how to use the normal KDE tools, like Control Center, the file managers, etc. 

I hope to see everyone on Monday evening, 

Ed Richards