Thursday, August 14, 2008

linuxworld recap:

summary:

installfest: went well did 750 machines 600 at linux world and 150 at accrc/mcrc.

Caveats: 1. dont use machines for installfest to test installfest hardware. We have a significant number of machines with incomplete/old software installs. This is due to people turning on machines and seeing what looks like a complete install then putting it into the "done pile"

Good news: doesn't actually add to the workload as we expected to do a final load to cover any last minute modifications to the software before placement.

Bad news : the number of installs on the server do not match the number of machines in the done pile. this caused no small amount of stress amoung those who are tracking our progress.

I have 10 pallets at approx 75 machines each labelled done and due to installfest. Accrc will give away 750 machines. All other details are indeed details.

Collection event: was abyssmal. amounts of material are measured in pounds not tons and probably did not exceed 3 digits. Accrc is very much out of pocket due to linux world.
(A recycled computer grosses about $40 in raw materials and poorly thought out state funding 750*40= $30,000 so installfest will eventually cost accrc 30k before labor costs) .

since refurbishment and placement are why I'm here this is just cost of doing what I want to do, but it does piss me off that the for-profit grinders are paid to destroy while I have to pay to preserve.

2 Comments:

Blogger ace36 said...

installfest: went well did 750 machines 600 at linux world and 150 at accrc/mcrc.

That's awesome!!!
Just think of all the PR that was generated and keeps on getting generated from this

Caveats: 1. dont use machines for installfest to test installfest hardware. We have a significant number of machines with incomplete/old software installs. This is due to people turning on machines and seeing what looks like a complete install then putting it into the "done pile"

A few ways to have avoided this, would have been to:
1) enforce mandatory CDs-only hardware testing and netinstalls for ALL incoming PCs. This means to try avoiding as much as possible default-booting from hard-drives.
2) clarify the baseline-standard hardware specs for each of the Ubuntu variants used at installfest.
E.g., to FIRST test each PC for CPU, RAM, and hdd-capacity... and then AFTER THIS, install the appropriate Ubuntu variant based upon this info.

Bad news : the number of installs on the server do not match the number of machines in the done pile. this caused no small amount of stress amoung those who are tracking our progress.

Yep, that certainly affected the resulting numbers. OTOH, a certain number of the "missing" server-tracked installs could be accounted for by the aforementioned testing of installfest hardware and by untracked initiated-but-failed server installs.

since refurbishment and placement are why I'm here this is just cost of doing what I want to do, but it does piss me off that the for-profit grinders are paid to destroy while I have to pay to preserve.
... and THAT is the very quintessential irony of all this !!!! >:(

9:10 PM  
Blogger ear said...

This sounds very interesting. Re-use costs more than pure disposal.Interesting laws and programs. How long until "Idiocracy"?

Glad to see that you're still going strong!

8:38 AM  

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