11 October 2010

Install Fest in UPB

Saturday ROSEdu organised the traditional yearly Linux Install Fest, which previously was known as Ubuntu Install Fest and they invited people from various communities too (Fedora, openSUSE, Debian). The event is targeted to new CS students (in their first year) at the Politehnica University of Bucharest who needs to install Linux, which is required on some of their courses.

It was impressive to see so many students, my estimate (didn't see the official count) was over 100, installing and using Linux. Of course, almost everyone installed Ubuntu (that's what they are required to know for school), from all of them I believe I saw a couple with openSUSE and nobody asked about Fedora :)

install fest

The presence was so large, a record, that it got the organizers a bit unprepared (previous editions had less than a fifth of the participation) but they still managed to cover it: they had another lab ready and split the crowd... they split themselves too, but I saw some students waiting (I couldn't help those, since I have ZERO experience with Ubuntu).

After a couple of hours of installing they took a pause when everybody moved in a big room to listen to a presentation by Razvan (who is a really good speaker) about of advantages of CLI versus GUI, part of their weekly Tech Talks and then resumed the install.
install fest

The event was supposed to end with a LAN party, but I didn't stay until then, a few other friends from the Fedora community joined and we went together to celebrate the departure of one of us who is joining "the dark side" (moving from the country too, which is a good thing for him). We will remain friends.

6 comments:

  1. I helped as much as I could - and enjoyed every minute of it - but I believe some people left home without having had a Linux distro installed on their laptops / desktop machines, which is a pity.
    Those of us providing help were simply overwhelmed by the sheer number of interested people.
    That's how much of a success this event was.

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  2. @Dan: until which hour it lasted? there was still the LAN party?

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  3. 6pm.
    You can read the ROSEdu team's review here (in Romanian):
    http://pilgrimgray.wordpress.com/2010/10/10/linux-install-fest-done/

    There was no LAN party.

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  4. I was invited, and really wanted to come, but something came up at the last moment and I had to miss it :( Guess we'll have to do it again, then :)

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  5. i know rpetre, we did wait for you :)

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