to be installed

First off I will state the obvious two points:

1. If you want to be SURE all of your stuff will work right when you get
home from the Instal Fest, you must bring it all to be setup. Linux
stability and hardware configuration has gotten WAY easier in the past
year or so BUT, the only way to be completely SURE it will work is to
use the exact equipment. Having to learn how to configure your printer
or something else on your own, with help from this list, may not be a
bad thing for some. But, maybe you don't want to have to do that.

2. If you want to be sure a monitor, keyboard, etc. will be available to
do your install, you have to bring your own. Yes, PLUGers bring extras
but what if they are all used up? You get to sit and wait instead of
installing.

Judge your risk on these two against the "pain" of lugging your
equipment to the event.

George Gambill wrote:
> First, we don't have any volunteers (yet) to provide Gentoo CD's.
> Therefore, bringing your CD's is probably a good idea.

If you have your own CDs, why not bring them? Compared to transporting
a 21" monitor, what's 3-5 CDs more? ;^)

> Second, We should have extra monitors, keyboards and mouse(s). I trust the
> PLUGers monitoring this list will correct me as needed.

Let's say you borrow a monitor and it has a higher resolution that your
one at home. The distro installer may decide to configure the higher
resolution as default and if you and your helper don't know or forget to
change it, you will have a blank screen when you fire up X at home.
What if your home mouse is USB and the only mouse you could borrow was
serial? Can you reconfigure or will the distro reconfigure for you when
you get home? Maybe, but what if not?

Personally, I'd bring it all.

> The printer should not be an issue provided the printer drivers are on the
> Gentoo CD's. No need to bring it unless you want to be really certain.

Printers can be tricky, depending on what brand/model it is. Ask on the
list ahead of time. The printer support is great and easy for most
popular printers. Others may not be that way. Find out the risk of
needing help before the event and bring the printer or not based on
knowledge. Google and this list are great resources.

> The scanner is an area I have had no experience with so I will yield to the
> groups (PLUGs) opinion. Folks, what do you think? I would recommend
> bringing it.

Scanners are like printers. Find out before hand. My scanner is SCSI
and Just Works(TM). :^)

> The box is always good to bring.

Um, yea.

> The desk ... probably not. 8-)

Most desks are very Linux compatible and need no configuration or
adjustments to work with Linux. In fact, the very first Linux was
universally desk compatible before it could even run on a CPU! Even BSD
had desk compatibility very early in it's development.

Alan