[svlug] getting FOSS in front of newbies at a low-income assistance org (St. Anthony's)

Sat Dec 8 18:22:23 PST 2007

hi,

I wanted to let you all know that St. Anthony's will be holding an event to
familiarize people with FOSS.  They are doing outreach to non-profits and
individuals in SF's Tenderloin district.  This event, which will be held
next Saturday from 10 am to 2 pm, will, unfortunately, conflict with the
SV-LUG installfest at Google, but St. Anthony's set the date, and there was
not a whole lot we could do with it.  Daniel Gimpelevich had the idea that
maybe the sv-lug installfest could be moved for that Saturday to St.
Anthony's.  I thought that would be a great idea, if it would not disrupt
the SV-LUGers too much, but I suspect it will be pretty hard to rearrange.

Also, we certainly will not enjoy the kind of blazing high speed that we
would get at Google.  On the other hand, you are not going to meet a whole
lot of newbies at Google, and there will be bunches of them at this event.

Here is what we are currently contemplating doing at this event,

1.  train low-income individuals and non-profit org reps how to use various
FOSS tools.  This is not going to be an indepth training.  It will be more
of a get-acquainted-with-FOSS type of event;

2.  handing out GNU Linux CDs to those interested;

3.  Installing Linux on boxes at they come in;

4.  making contacts in the non-profit org community to gauge interest in
FOSS migrations and adoptions;

5.  Showing those attending the event how to get tech support for their
distro of choice.

*Who will attend*:  There will be two rooms, let's call them the small room
and the big room.  We will be in the big room (available space = 10 yards x
14 yards).  In the small room will be a company that does Windows work for
the clients.  We probably won't have all that much direct contact with the
Windows folks.  They might be sending us a few clients if those clients
can't make use of Windows on their machines, for whatever reason (viruses,
licensing issues, etc.)  About 30 people have signed up to get free
troubleshooting on their hardware with the Windows folks.

In addition to those 30, Karl thinks that there might be an additional 50
people or so who will be attending.  He says that St. Anthony's has done
significant community outreach to non-profit orgs and other community
organizations to make them aware of this event.

*Hours*:  10 to 2 pm, but Jim Stockford has suggested that volunteers should
arrive at 9 am on Saturday, Dec 15.  I will be there all day, but everyone
can, of course, feel free to come and go as they please, although it would
be nice to know who is going to be there for how long.

*Big potential payoff for our LUG*:  Making contacts with lots of other
non-profit orgs in the tenderloin.  Since there will be reps from other
tenderloin non-profit orgs there, this will be a phenomenal opportunity for
establishing relationships with people who might be interested in exploring
FOSS adoptions and / or migrations for their orgs.

*What Karl thinks is probably *not* going to happen that day*:  Karl said
that it is rprobably *not* a good idea to be actually *giving out* boxes on
that day, because he said that it would cause a commotion.  The actual
metaphor he used was "like Evita throwing cash to the multitudes."  LOL.
Instead, we will make a list of people who are interested, and Karl he would
like to make arrangements to have those needs triaged.  Instead, Karl
suggests that we see this event as an opportunity to showcase FOSS.

*How the room is set up*:  The room we will be using is really quite large.
There are three outlets along the 14 yard wall, and two along the 10 yard
wall.  There are lots of tables and chairs to use.

*A description of the boxes we will be showcasing*:  Karl has received a
donation of 8 working Dell Optiplex GX 150 machines, and a ninth box that
just needs a power supply.  Specs:  512 MB RAM, 20 GB hard drive, 1 ghz chip
speed.  The idea is that these boxes would eventually be given out after
Karl and Kami and our team triage the crowds to see who is serious about
getting a box and who the best fit would be.  I believe that we could
probably get a few more machines from James Burgett of the ACCRC.org if we
need them.  People could also bring their own notebooks, but don't plan on
walking away from the notebooks.  This is the tenderloin, after all.  We are
going to be maintaining a knowledge base for the boxes that we give away on
this wiki, so that when the end users get these boxes, they will be able to
send this link to whatever lists or forums they use for support.  We might
be moving the wiki to a different server, but for right now, it is on the
Digital Tippint Point wiki, for lack of a better place:

http://digitaltippingpoint.com/wiki/index.php?title=St_Anthony_Support_Project

*What will happen that day*:  people will probably come into the room and
mill around to just look at the FOSS boxes and ask questions.  I am going to
suggest that we have one or two stations set up where we can give 10 minute
"lightning talks" approximately twice per hour on the basic "how-to's" of
using GNU Linux on the desktop.  We could hand out basic fliers as to how to
get support from one or two popular forums.  We would want to set up yet
another work station or two for diagnosing hardware problems and installing.

*Giving out CDs*:  Sameer Verma has a whole bunch of pressed Feisty CDs that
he has been interested in giving out.  He has given some, if not all, of
them to Jim Stockford.  We could have those available to give out to people
who seem interested in trying them.   I have a friend who is a big openSUSE
fan, and he will probably bring a few openSUSE CDs to hand out as well.

*Stuff we will need to bring*: 9 monitors, 9 mice, 9 keyboards (as Karl only
has the boxes themselves); at least 5 four port switches (one to split the
room, the others to feed the individual boxes); at least 6 six-jack surge
protectors; at least 18 AC power cables (9 boxes and monitors); at least 9
ethernet cables, preferably at least 20 feet each, plus one or two ethernet
cables reaching, say, 50 feet (we are going to have to run an ethernet cable
from the wall jack in a different room, because this room has no ethernet
outlet); a spindle of say 25 CDs for on-the-spot burning of CDs. If anyone
has some torchier lamps they could bring for lighting, that would be great.
Also, everyone might want to consider bringing their own screwdrivers and
pliers and whatever other diagnostic / building tools you think you will
need.

*dress for video, please*:  I am going to be videoing this event, so please
try to wear solid colors, but not white, and not dark colors.  Light blues
and greens are best.  I am probably going to be panning the room (shooting
the whole room to show the attendance) on several occasions, so please take
that into account in advance.  If people are bothered by that proposal,
please let me know, and I will try to confine my shooting accordingly.

*Software on the 9 boxes*:  I have two of the 9 boxes, and I am currently in
the process of installing Gutsy Ubuntu (7.10) on those boxes.  We chose
Gutsy because the Ubuntu community is simply amazing, and we want to have a
good forum for these newbies to turn to.  Of course, if someone wants to
install another distro on those boxes, I personally am not opposed to you
doing so; however, IMHO, you should be prepared to mentor that person, which
probably should include writing up a short little one-page summary of how to
get support for that distro, and maybe even giving them your email address
for support questions.

Thanks in advance for any interest you might have in coming to this event.
I hope that it is well-attended and fun for everyone.
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