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LinuxOttawa distro progress

Last year I presented some ideas for a distro the club could use to introduce
people to Linux. Some of the desiderata:

- handle old machines (so possibly 32 bit, though that may be ancient history)
- handle UEFI and legacy
- include some useful tools and/or allow their easy setup via scripts
- be "reasonably" mainstream

These meant I had to be able to customize, and I didn't really want to do
everything from scratch.

The candidate solution was 32 bit Antix-17. I was able to add Double Commander
and change the wallpaper and set username "user" to had pw "user", and username
"root" to have pw "root". Then using the ISO snapshot, I got a UEFI/legacy bootable
ISO. Antix is debian based, which I am familiar with. Yes, I know, there are other
choices. If there are plenty of workers to take on the job, I'll be happy to let
them drive us to Arch or RedHat or ...

Some glitches recently noticed:

- the network setup is via "ceni". Not ideal. Maybe a better tool can be found.
  Or a "HowTo" on the desktop.
- My choice of wallpaper (a picture of parliament) is too bright. It's easy to
  change.
- I had to find the installer. The snapshot ISO doesn't have the desktop icon.
  But the installer is in /sbin/minstall.
- The install from the snapshot does not give the user a chance to change username
  and password and root password. Maybe a "customize.sh" script is needed with a
  click-on icon to launch it.

In any event, I would welcome some feedback and will come early to the March 11
meeting. Maybe we can set up a working party some Saturday and move the project
forward, then consider a "Welcome to Linux" session to try to attract newbies.
Scott did at one time mention we could probably afford to have some USB give-aways.

Discussion welcome.

Best, John Nash

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