Ubuntu Wiki

Our first SupportSaturday will run under the theme Install, Upgrade, and Tweak-Fest II. It is scheduled for Dec. 5th 9am - 3pm. (The first hour will be for set-up. The venue will open to the public at 10am. Support activities need to be concluded by 2:30pm to allow tear-down and clean up.)

Venue

The venue location will be announced on our meetup site shortly. The room is a classroom with an U-shaped table setup. The size is 9m x 6m (roughly estimated!). It has:

• chairs for min. 20 people,
• around 9 to 10 tables (each big enough for 4 chairs and a workstation),
• a projector with a screen (~1.5sqm),
• 2x2 power points are on the left and right side of the room in a distance of ~2m,
• One RJ-45 wall plug (not sure that we could use it to connect to the internet and attach a switch). The room is reported to have wireless internet access using a captive portal. One option would be to bring a computer with two network interfaces and establish wired/wireless routing.
• one desk,
• whiteboards,
• corkboard

ToDo

• find volunteers
• create signs and flyers
• marketing: meetup postings, buzz on mailing lists, word of mouth, direct search for people having issues in Vancouver (use Google, Launchpad, Ubuntu forums)
• scratch order of events (checklist/flight-check)
• prepare an Ubuntu 9.10 mirror and a PXE (network installation) for all 9.10 flavours (Not as much fun but much easier to install from CD. KK) ... are we going to support all flavours, or should we focus on the "standard Ubuntu" to keep our support cases simple(r)?
• gather needed equipment (identify who will supply) We may be able to borrow some from Free Geek.

• figure out "lessons learned" from Windowless Wednesdays, and use that info to make SupportSaturdays stronger

Needed equipment

• personal laptops (to look things up, to compare, to submit bug reports etc.)
• network switch
• (qty) network cables (lengths)
• (qty) screens/monitors (for those that bring in desktops/towers) (optional)
• (qty) keyboards (for those that bring in desktops/towers) (optional)
• (qty) mice (for those that bring in desktops/towers) (optional)
• (qty) power bars
• (qty) extension cords
• masking tape and pen for labeling people's equipment
• Something to back up peoples' computers before hacking at them.
  • USB drives (or firewire/SATA for speed)
  • NFS, Samba, and FTP server with large hard drive
• 9.10 Karmic Koala install CD's (to do live-boot testing)
• (further discussion needed) Router, or Ubuntu machine to act as router.
• extra USB wireless dongles (in case built-in wifi doesn't work for people)
• A short guide to "getting started with Ubuntu" as a take-away. A few pages of tips printed for easy reference, especially where to get help afterward (i.e. Launchpad, not Google!)... teaching people "how to fish."
• can we leverage our O'Reilly relationship and get review (or cheap) copies of "The Official Ubuntu Book"?
• sign-in sheet, so we know who came, and can follow-up if necessary
• "Powered by Ubuntu" stickers for the attendees who come for help

Questions to Ask "Helpees"

• these are in the meetup.com RSVP questions. We can also do a more detailed survey if necessary.
• Are you coming for assistance? If so, please tell us briefly what services you need.
• Please tell us about your computer. What hardware is it? (Make, model, RAM, CPU, disk space)
• Are you currently running Ubuntu on this hardware? If so, which version?
• Do you have a recent backup of your personal data? (If not, we highly recommend that you copy all data to an eternal disk. If you need help doing this, please let us know here)
• Please specify your email address. This will only be used if we need to gather more information in order to prepare to help you.

Participants