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GNU is Not Unix Software Linux

The First-Ever Installfest in Egypt 214

Posted by timothy from the pent-up-demand dept.
MadFarmAnimalz writes "On the first of May, the Egyptian LUG had the first ever Linux Installfest (check out the photos and for Pete's sake mirror them!) at the Sawy Cultural Center in downtown Cairo. Turnout was absolutely incredible; the hall was maxed out at something between 500 and 1,000 persons for 7 solid hours (not bad considering our geurrilla marketing campaign can't have cost more than 7 or 8 dollars), and we were absolutely swamped!" Read on below for more details.

"The atmosphere was just unbelievable; people who had had linux installed realised the LUGgers were overwhelmed and stayed on helping other people with installs, we couldn't burn CDs fast enough, several thousand educational pamphlets were not enough by a wide margin. We were expecting maybe 150 or 200 people throughout the day, but we had already reached that number by 9:45 a.m. (15 minutes before opening!). To the best of our knowledge, the most successful LUG-driven event in the middle-east, certainly the biggest, and one hell of a day that we'll all remember. Note that we are now looking at the possibility of another Installfest during summer at the Bibliotecha Alexandrina and would welcome any extra resources. (A big thanks to MadFarmAnimalz' family who served the volunteers sandwiches carefully wrapped in copies of the GPL preamble and the deCSS code)"
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The First-Ever Installfest in Egypt More

The First-Ever Installfest in Egypt

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  • Since they asked for it (Score:5, Informative)

    by detritus` ( 32392 ) * <awitzke@wesaGIRA ... minus herbivore> on Monday May 03, 2004 @02:15AM (#9038480) Homepage Journal
    Theres a mirror of the site here [blurr.net]

  • They are nerds now! (Score:3, Informative)

    by mattjb0010 ( 724744 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @02:19AM (#9038492) Homepage
    Anyone else read this (dsc00836) [manalaa.net]as a triumphant "Nerds Now" after installing Linux?

  • Network Install (Score:5, Informative)

    by karmatic ( 776420 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @02:19AM (#9038493)
    I've held a couple of small-scale linux "Installfests" in the past, and the availability of CDs (and CD-Rom drives, in some cases) can certainly be an issue.

    I found that many computers support Network Booting, which RedHat [redhat.com] supports easily. While not every machine supports it, doing net installs on the machines that do frees up CD-ROM drives and CDs for the ones that don't.

    • Re:Network Install (Score:3, Insightful)

      by irokitt ( 663593 )
      Indeed, quite a few distros now support this, including my own beloved Slackware and I believe Gentoo too. Although it might be interesting to walk into the local computer superstore and ask if they'll donate some discs. Couldn't hurt.

    • Re:Network Install (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ajs318 ( 655362 ) <sd_resp2NO@SPAMearthshod.co.uk> on Monday May 03, 2004 @03:40AM (#9038667)
      Starting a distro flame war is not my intention here, I am just speaking from experience. But:
      Debian allows you to boot from CD, do a minimal installation {just enough to get the network up}, then eject the CD and finish the rest of the installation from the Internet. And it has no way of knowing whether the ftp.country.debian.org it's connected to is the real one, or just some LAN address that a bullshitting name server gave them which happens to contain a full mirror, but runs at full 100Mb/s rather than ADSL rate. {Unless you have > 200 clients connected to that server ..... but you wouldn't, would you?} When the users get home and plug into the real Internet, their ISP's {truthful} nameserver gives them the address of the distribution's real main ftp site, so they can pull all the extra packages they want.

      I'm sure the same technique could be applied to other distributions, though ..... Debian wouldn't really be my first choice for a n00b event. I suppose it's a balancing act really -- too much advance preparation is in vain if nobody turns up on the day, not enough and people get frustrated {and the Open Source movement can get cast in a bad light; ha ha, look, those smelly lentil-sucking communist hippies didn't think ahead did they?}.

      Perhaps someone will make an InstallFest kit, with a full mirror of a distro {Mandrake would be my favourite for this application -- n00b-friendly, good hardware detection, easy graphical setup, not sure though how it handles installation from network}, a DHCP server and a hacked BIND {to manage the aforementioned DNS spoofing}, and an ISO image of a minimal network install / recovery CD {itself in the form of an installable package, but with a depends: cdrecord and a recommends: k3b, just for ompleteness}. This net-install CD would hardly need any packages, so it could be quick to burn. You'd still need stackloads of blank media if you were giving them out rather than taking them back to use for the next person {and I'd think psychologically it's better that visitors do get a CD that they can take away with them}, but you might blag ..... I mean, arrange for these to be sponsored by a local computer store.

      • Re:Network Install (Score:2, Informative)

        by nairb774 ( 728193 )
        With Mandrake it is possible to do an network install. On the ftp sites they provide a network install floppy. This floppy only needs the address and folder of a copy of the cds. This can be hosted on ftp, nfs, and one other one that I can't remember right now. This would make it very easy to install. Connect to network, have a floppy for each connection, provide the connection information, and the install is run directly from the server. After the computer is booted the floppy can be removed and put i
      • The BIND part doesn't require a 'hacked' version. You just configure your local BIND to believe it is authoritative for debian.org. It doesn't check with any central authority; you can be authoritative for whitehouse.gov if you want. However, nobody in the outside Net will pay any attention to you, since the root servers tell them to check with the REAL whitehouse.gov servers. Only machines that use your nameservers by default will get the new debian.org addresses. (this, btw, is why you need to real
        • I was being just a bit melodramatic saying it would have to be a "hacked" nameserver -- yes, basically you would just have to make it claim to be authoritative for the debian.org {or whatever} domain, and just point it at your local on-site mirror. As long as the mirror is accurate, then there isn't much need to touch the "real" debian.org sites; but as you suggest, it could be configured to use a "truthful" nameserver in order to have access to the "real" sites, should it need an emergency sync due to a
    • I've held a couple of small-scale linux "Installfests" in the past, and the availability of CDs (and CD-Rom drives, in some cases) can certainly be an issue.

      I usually install just by copying the hard disk these days. To make that fast, I set up a boot partition and a smallish system image, anywhere from a hunred meg to a few gig at most, at the beginning of the disk and dd that onto the other disk. Then I move the disk into the new machine, dd the small system image onto a larger partition and resize th

  • We now need one ... (Score:1, Interesting)

    by killerface ( 573659 )
    We need a worldwide install fest tracked by local lugs... i'd set it up but im too lazy
    • Egypt is a country full of experienced young men and women who know that Linux will have a huge boost on future technology and that they will lose when they stick to Windows and Unix. Linux is their great opportunity to get to the first row while Europe and the US is trapped by the proprietary lockin.

      And: Egypt is an arabic country and you know the great Islamic culture and the strong sharia law is very similar to GPL rules. Only GPl software conforms.

      • Re:We now need one ... (Score:4, Informative)

        by ElGanzoLoco ( 642888 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @05:48AM (#9038874) Homepage
        I'm not sure, is that a troll or just an incredibly obscure play on words? (sharia/share, conform/conform :) )

        Whatever... Egypt, despite being conservative when it comes to social matters, does NOT apply the "sharia" or other islamic laws (and, before you ask, yes, I live here). Actually, the governement is trying very hard to *fight* the supporters of sharia.

        • Re:We now need one ... (Score:2, Interesting)

          by falkryn ( 715775 )
          Good point about the Egyptian dictatorship. Mubarak and his cronies (as well as Sadat and Nasser) are certainly not representative of Islamic principles. But as can be seen in things like the arrests/assasinations of groups like the Ikhwan are indeed its opponents.

          Oh and in the odd (and admittedly remote) chance that the Egyptian fascist intellegencia read this and get the idea that linux could be subversive to them, I don't live in Egypt. This is a Canadian telling you to fuck off and die.
      • It's an interesting point of view - that the political aspects of religion would affect things as secular in nature as IT and software

        I guess a lot of people in middle-eastern countries like Egypt use linux because it isn't American and commercial as well - are we heading for an east-west split in software philosophy?

        • Re:We now need one ... (Score:5, Informative)

          by sultanoslack ( 320583 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @08:42AM (#9039672)
          You obviously haven't been to the middle east. If anything it's more the opposite -- the only contact some parts of the middle east have with western culture is through the pervasiveness of American crap.

          I mean, if all that you saw of the west was Duncan Donuts, Levi's, Ford, Microsoft, Chevron and CNN -- found in American style malls around American style highways full of American cars -- you'd probably not be terribly fond of it. Some of the more insulated countries (I spent a little while in Saudi Arabia recently) are commercially very American, but there's very limited contact between normal people and westerners.

          There's much more American junk in the Middle East than you find in Western Europe.

      • Shariah and GPL (Score:4, Interesting)

        by falkryn ( 715775 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @07:30AM (#9039170)
        Interesting comment, as someone whose actually studied the shariah (though of course not gone nearly as deep as one may) and for whom Islamic studies was my mainstay before entering the IT world (I still consider it the most important thing out there, and paramount to my life, though I have to confess to dedicating an obscene amount of time to my current passion, after all it is my living). I myself have wondered about how close GPL-like thought can come into with traditional Islamic iqtisadi (roughly economic) thought. As you may konw many of the scholars (with some prominent exceptions) have rejected the concept of intellectual property, coupled with the fact that hoarding is considered a heinous sin. The idea of distributing source for the public benifit certainly seems in tune with the general Islamic ethos, though I don't know if I'd say that cancels out all closed models of software development as well (Allahu 'alam). I have given thought to the notion that Linux and other free systems is just what the Muslim nations could use right now to help bring back some of the intellectual heritage and scientific innovation that had been a hallmark in former times (not that it's dead by any means, just looks at Safawid and post Safawid metaphysics in Iran to disprove the idea that Islamic philosophy died with Ibn Rushd.) Certainly a system that Muslims can actively contribute to and make their own would be much better than just sending in checks to a closed business located in Redmond. wa salaam 'ala 'l-muhtadeen...

  • And now the real holy war starts (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 03, 2004 @02:20AM (#9038500)
    vi vs emacs

  • Huh? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Phidoux ( 705500 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @02:21AM (#9038501) Homepage
    A Linux install-fest and they advertised gorillas?
    • Darned clever if you ask me. Who really wants Linux on their computer, and who can pass up on meeting an Egyptian Gorilla?

      Monkey = always good
      Big Monkey = always big good!
      ???
      Installfest!

  • Internet2-based mirror (Score:5, Informative)

    by paulproteus ( 112149 ) <slashdot@a[ ]esh.org ['she' in gap]> on Monday May 03, 2004 @02:21AM (#9038502) Homepage
    Mirrored on an Internet2 site here: ta-da [jhu.edu].
    • Hmm - it seems to be available over the regular internet as well.

      It would be nice if more ISPs (non-university) supported Internet2. I suspect that the profit margins are insufficient to justify it at this point in time though.

      Out of curiosity, does anyone know of any good content, which happens to be Internet2-Specific (not found on the regular 'Net)?

      • Re:Internet2-based mirror (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Are you fucking retarded? Internet2 is a network for academic research projects, not for you to leech l33t warez.
        • My server (which I have easy access to if necessary) is on a GigE feed from the guys over at Level3 [level3.com]. I have all the bandwidth I _need_ for "leet" warez.

          My point is that it's a shame I can't access the content that _is_ there because my ISP doesn't carry it, and I was wondering if there was any content really worth having that I was missing.
          • His point was that internet2 is an academic research network. It connects universities. It is not for use by the general population. If you have a use for it then you will have access to it. If you do not have access to it then you do not have a use for it. It is not about being secretive or elite or anything; it is about keeping internet2 clean so that it can be used for what it needs to be used for.

        • Are you fucking retarded? Internet2 is a network for academic research projects, not for you to leech l33t warez.

          Are you fucking retarded? DARPA is a network for academic/military research, not for you to surf pr0n or whatever it is you anonymous cowards do with your time.

  • Great job getting that many people out guys, thst's amazing. I'm sure you're completely wasted right now but a further description of your marketing campaign and why you think it was so effective would be a great help to LUG's around the world. Was there some cultural aspect that you used to help you out or are Egyptians just dying to get Linux installed?

    • Re:Awesome job! Guerilla Marketing Campaign (Score:5, Interesting)

      by MadFarmAnimalz ( 460972 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @02:33AM (#9038542) Homepage
      Thanks quantumparadox. I am in fact doing a complete writeup, and yes we're still groggy (coffee isn't helping; need IV drip) and there's more pictures.

      We should have the whole thing ready for a slashback or something, including all the gory details of how IBM Egypt almost torpedoed us (believe it or not, they wanted the LUG initially to pay for the IBM volunteers' t-shirts and they wanted the LUG to pay to write IBM on the back of the shirts too... cue the "in soviet russia LUG sponsors IBM jokes.").
    • Was there some cultural aspect that you used to help you out or are Egyptians just dying to get Linux installed?

      I am an egyptian my self, and have been using using linux for the last 6 years or so (have been out of the country for almost a couple years though)....A great number of IT staff in Egy. belive in lunux, countires like Egypt need such an OS, they cannot afford costy licenses, espically that copyright laws are strongly enforced over there(ofcorse with the funding of MS and alike).

      Now that said,

  • mirror to help out (Score:5, Informative)

    by spre3368 ( 642525 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @02:21AM (#9038508)
    http://phreakco.us/egypt/ [phreakco.us]

  • Damn... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 03, 2004 @02:22AM (#9038509)
    Computers are great and all for what we use them for, but for them to be able to bring people together in a _social_ setting is pretty damn cool. Sorta throws itself in the face of the usual antisocial computer geek stereotype.

  • That's the way! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 03, 2004 @02:22AM (#9038510)
    The very best part of installfests is that isntead of just complaining about Microsoft, people actually get out and do something to help provide better options.

    reeddavid.com [reeddavid.com]

  • mirror in .de (Score:4, Informative)

    by uebermts ( 323725 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @02:26AM (#9038518)
    I setup a mirror in germany at: http://www.infodb.de/linux-egypt.manalaa.net/files /big10/

  • Egyptian-style penguin : ) (Score:3, Insightful)

    by botik32 ( 90185 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @02:28AM (#9038529) Homepage
    The penguins on the T-shirt in the last photo look especially neat... kudos to the designer!

  • Bring On The Stats (Score:5, Interesting)

    by karmatic ( 776420 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @02:29AM (#9038530)
    According to the Linux Counter [li.org], Egypt has 2262 registered machines (with 156 registered users), or 2.26 users for every million people that live there. With a really low turnover, and half the people being actually getting linux installed, they could easily have enough people to quadruple the counter stats. Perhaps the organizers should invite people to Register [li.org].

    With 3 more users, they could pass nepal.

  • How to make this more efficient. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rice_burners_suck ( 243660 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @02:39AM (#9038558)
    If the availability and speed of CD writers causes a problem at Installfests, then why not make up a distributed system for making these CDs? If you can get, say, 1000 Linux users to each make 2 copies of a Linux installation CD, and then mail those two CDs to the LUG ahead of time, then you'd have 2000 CDs ready to go.

    The only problem I can think of is verifying that what's on the CD isn't malicious code. Hmmmmm... That's a tough one. Maybe a better idea would be for Linux users around the world to each donate some money to a nonprofit organization created for the purpose of Linux Installfests. That nonprofit would then have thousands of copies of Linux CDs pressed each day, at a cost of almost nothing per CD. I can see how it would be in the best interest of all Linux distro makers, and all companies that use Linux as part of their strategy (e.g., IBM) to donate a few cents from each CD they sell to this organization. This organization would then routinely ship crates of CDs to LUGs around the world, for the purpose of installing on folks' computers, and giving them the CD as their welcome gift to the Linux community. If a nonprofit can't be started, then why not donate some of those CD duplication units that can make 10 CDs at once, or at least the funds to buy those things...

    By making this community grow as much as possible, we will all be doing a great thing. It is likely that companies will produce hardware drivers, application software, and other products for Linux. It is likely that by experimenting with Linux, a lot of people will become a lot smarter about computers, and the ratios of 1337 users to the idiot users (that Microsoft helped create with its talking paperclips) will be more favorable.

    Finally, some other folks mentioned network boots. Yes, I think this is a good idea. But still give folks a CD so they can reinstall if they hose their system.

    • Great idea, but actually the mentioned amount (2000 cd's) wasn't enough, at mid-day we were already starting to look for extra burners, and the great thing is that visitors with burners on their machines volunteered to help as well as help others with there installations.

    • Re:How to make this more efficient. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by pe1chl ( 90186 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @03:27AM (#9038641)
      Usually the difficulty is in forecasting the number of CDs required.
      You can burn 2000 CDs ahead of time, but what if only 200 people turn up? Then you are left with 1800 useless discs (after 2 or 3 months, nobody wants to have them as they are outdated).

      On the local computer show, the usergroup usually has Linux CDs to hand out to members and to sell to the general public for something like 1 Euro.
      They just have them printed at a CD factory, no messing with burning. And cheaper as well.

      But how many to order, that is the big question.
      • Even if we end up with these 1800 after ditributing only 200, the amount of 1800 is easily distibutable here in Egypt with the amount of knowledge hunger and enthusiasm among people
      • Usually the difficulty is in forecasting the number of CDs required. You can burn 2000 CDs ahead of time, but what if only 200 people turn up?

        People figure out these sorts of things every day. For example, in a manufacturing business, how do you know whether to produce 200,000 units or 8,000,000 units of some product? What if you produce 200,000 and there is some enormous demand, you can't meet it, and then your competition gets all of your customers because it reacts faster? Or, what if you produce 8,000,

    • This is why it would be a good idea to set up an FTP server {or several} to use for network installation. Then you only need to burn a few tens of megs onto the initial install CD ..... which is bound to be quicker. Anyone whose machine contains a CD-RW can stop behind and offer some net-install CDs. If you set up your own DNS on your LAN, you can just spoof the {text} addresses of the real FTP server, so the net-install CD should work over the "real" internet later {assuming your ADSL modem has an

  • How long... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Pig Hogger ( 10379 )
    How long before Bill Gates asks Rumsfeld to bomb-out the whole area???

  • yay (Score:1)

    by Vlion ( 653369 )
    This is just a generic coolness !

    It would be nice to see if it could be mirrored*wink*
    here in the US.

  • Who says that the debian install is... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ..just a bunch of hieroglyphics?

    This installfest proves that it isn't!

  • Installed ? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by noselasd ( 594905 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @03:25AM (#9038639)
    So the question is , what did they install ?
    Gentoo, Debian ,Fedora SuSE ? Something else ?

  • Arabic support (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Stonent1 ( 594886 ) <stonent AT stone ... intclark DOT net> on Monday May 03, 2004 @03:47AM (#9038682) Journal
    Hows the Arabic support in Linux? Last I heard, virtually non-existant.

    • Re:Arabic support (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 03, 2004 @04:01AM (#9038701)
      What the hell are you talking about? KDE and GNOME have both been translated to Arabic, and I believe Mozilla as well. Arabic font display using Xft is much nicer than on Windows were the fonts are unreadable unless seriously magnified.

      • Re:Arabic support (Score:4, Informative)

        by Wumpus ( 9548 ) <IAmWumpus AT gmail DOT com> on Monday May 03, 2004 @08:38AM (#9039639)
        What the hell are you talking about? KDE and GNOME have both been translated to Arabic, and I believe Mozilla as well.

        The last I tried (a couple of days ago), Mozilla Mail still had some problems with bidirectional text editing. I'd call it marginally useable at this point - the functionality is there, and works, but there's no acceptable UI to allow new users to access it, and there are some annoyances, like plaintext messages displayed with the wrong directionality. Check out bug 96057 [mozilla.org] in the Mozilla Bugzilla.

        KMail appears to work fine, until you try to read BiDi messages it formats with other mailers. They don't display correctly.

        Evolution doesn't seem to support BiDi editing at all.

        If there is good support for bidirectional e-mail somewhere, I'd love to hear about it, but I wasn't able to find anything I could give my parents and not hear complaints about me breaking their computer...

    • Re:Arabic support (Score:5, Informative)

      by IamTheRealMike ( 537420 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @05:17AM (#9038826)
      You must have last looked at the matter some time ago.

      On modern desktops, Arabic works just fine [silverpen.de].

  • 7 hours? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Yehtmae ( 704201 )
    7 hours to install Linux? Think I'll stick to Windows... :)

    • Re:7 hours? (Score:3, Informative)

      by bishiraver ( 707931 )
      Read again. It was packed for 7 hours - that doesn't mean the same people were there for the entire 7 hours. That's how long the floor was open, and it was packed the entire time.
  • ... who is Pete ?

  • Ftp install? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Set up an iso on an ftp server and install via ftp?
    just need boot floppy.
    Maybe some participants might be interested in trying FreeBSD?

  • Clothing (Score:3, Funny)

    by ttys00 ( 235472 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @04:43AM (#9038772)
    These people don't look like Linux geeks to me. They are clean and well dressed! :)
    • That's because they just installed Linux that day. Give 'em a couple weeks.

  • Speaking of Freedom... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by poptones ( 653660 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @05:03AM (#9038805) Journal
    Has anyone read some of the (English language) forum comments? I find it interesting these featured quotes from people such as Ben Franklin. My knowledge of politics is limited to conflicting ideals espoused by various agenda laden news organizations, so I honestly don't know: are there no mideastern/Egyptian icons of Liberty? Or are "American ideals" truly as strong internationally (or at least in Egypt) as american rhetoric would have us believe?
    • Actually Egyptians (out of their culture) are far more open to accept and learn about other cultures. That's how it's logic to see such quotes on english comments. Yet their own culture is rich with icons of liberty that other 'closed' cultures couldn't even go looking for them. Your question itself shows that while Egyptians were learning about Ben Franklin I guess you were sitting there trying to learn only about your icons. I guess Egyptian culture is an open source culture.
  • In India, IBM is aggressively displaying ads for Linux, describing it as a little child who's growing. He helps everyone, saves everyone lots of resources. Brilliant idea, very well executed.

    I just can't see why we won't find more linux acceptance at global level

  • software to handle installfests (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jasontheking ( 124650 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @05:35AM (#9038853)
    I've run three installfests for the past three years, and after the second time I decided to write some software to handle things more easily. (I must admit though, I've only had about 50 people turn up at the events I'm running, I guess I suck at marketing). Its at https://sourceforge.net/projects/installfest/ [sourceforge.net]
    You're going to have to pull it out of cvs , I haven't bothered doing any official releases or anything yet , its just a bunch of php scripts.



    It lets you gather the number of each distro , type of CPU , harware type (desktop , laptop, etc) that people want linux installed and configured for, as well as the number of people turning up to help who can handle it. And you get a nice little graph showing you how many people sign up each day before the event.



    There's another installfest project on sourceforge here [sourceforge.net]

  • Slashdot People can help - PLEASE MOD UP (Score:5, Informative)

    by MadFarmAnimalz ( 460972 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @05:48AM (#9038875) Homepage
    The Sawy Cultural Center is new and the management there was really supportive. We at the LUG feel we can do a lot of work with their support, and one way to get them enthusiastic about linux and open source is for them to feel the power of the open source community. We showed them that day how many people we could pull in, and I'm getting their admin to look at their server stats today ( [culturewheel.com]; hit it hard people).

    If you want to help us, e-mail Khaled Mohsen [mailto] who was our liason there and just tell him that you as a linux user and/or open source proponent would like to thank him for helping out the Egyptian Linux Users' Group, and make sure to extend the thanks to Mr. Mohamed Al Sawy too through Khaled.

    Show me the power of slashdot :)
  • that Linux is hard to install? People need to go te a InstallFest to get it done? They are overwhelmed by the amount of people showing up! This is not good...

    • Of course not.. (Score:2, Informative)

      by mecanicaz ( 641010 )
      We were overwhwelmed by the amount of people interested to get the CD's to install it by themselves. We were surprised by the amount of people helping others installing after they got linux installed over their own PC's. We were happy to see this spirit spreading among people after understanding the concepts of free software.

  • /. 'ed (Score:3, Funny)

    by CastrTroy ( 595695 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @07:04AM (#9039048)
    Turnout was absolutely incredible; the hall was maxed out at something between 500 and 1,000 persons for 7 solid hours

    seems that not only the web site, but the event itselft was slashdotted.
  • ...in February I distinctly noticed a lot of Tux images on billboards. There were a lot of computer companies advertising Linux services where I was staying around the Ma'adi area. Don't remember seeing a Microsoft ad, though the internet cafes all seemed to run XP. Perhaps this should be where LUGgers target their actions?

    Bob
    • here in ireland there are no adds for linux or Mac. just some adds for IBM and Dell but these are aimed at the server market. tis a pity there isn't a drive to inform the average consumer about alternatives to Wintel in the Desktop market. it seems there's a real drive in promoting alternatives , especially linux, in the east and asia, why isn't there an effort in this regard in the west? i understand that in places like india and china where the IT boom is only starting, there is a bigger potential market

  • aN00bis? (Score:4, Funny)

    by jerky42 ( 264624 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @08:05AM (#9039419)
    Would this be the Egyptian god that new users pray to?

  • Dollars? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    geurrilla marketing campaign can't have cost more than 7 or 8 dollars

    That's a lot! When I spent 2 weeks in Egypt (admitedly in '88) I averaged $6 US per day. That included hotels, train fares, food, tourist sites, water, 2 day trip on a felucca, souveniers, baksheesh, you name it. NYC last November (a city of around the same size) wasn't nearly so cheap.



  • If I showed up in Iraq with a couple thousand Mandrake discs, do you suppose I'd have the same response as this LUG received in Cairo?

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