A campaign to help Cal Poly students install a FREE, STABLE, and SECURE Unix operating system on their computers

Event Details:

Date:

April 14, 2007

Time:

10:00 AM - 4:00 PM

Building and Room:

Engineering East 20-124 (Networks Lab)

Register:

With this Web form.

How to Prepare:

• Backup your important data!
• Make sure you have 5 GB of hard disk free.
• Defragment your hard drive
• Know about the technical specifications of your computer, write them down, and bring them with you on the day of FYM
• Check out the previous FYM notes below:

Notes from previous Free Your Machines that are useful:

Questions you may have:

How much disk space do I need?

We propose about 5 GB. If you have substantially less, please notify us of this fact so we may figure out a way to work around it.

How long will it take?

We suggest clearing the rest of your day in case there are complications.

What can I do to make things go faster?

There are a number of things you can do to help us make your install go as quickly and smoothly as possible.

• Back up your important files or your entire hard disk. In order to install the new operating system we will have to rearrange things on your hard disk. While we attempt to do this in such a way that no data will be lost, errors can happen, and it is possible your hard disk could be completely erased. If we have to perform a backup for you at the event this will add quite a bit to the amount of time it takes to do the install.
• Defragment your hard drive. If you don't know how, a friend can probably help you out with this one. If you come to Free Your Machine with a severely fragmented disk, there might not be enough time to install on your machine (defragging takes a while, so just have your computer start when you go to bed or out for the day).
• If possible, make a free partition on your hard disk for the new operating system. If you don't know how to do this or don't have the tools, don't worry. We can do it for you.
• You should have allavailable documentation on your video card and monitor at the event. Every graphic card in the PC world tends to be different and trial and error can take a long time. If we know exactly what you have we can get the graphical user interface running much more rapidly. This goes for any hardware you have in your computer. We can always open the case, but if you have documentation on your components it will make things go more rapidly.
• If you have a computer that you would consider "unusual" in some way, let us know about it in advance so that we can make sure we're prepared to handle it. (especially if you are running a non x86 architecture, such as a Power PC Macintosh, or Sun Sparc, please let us know) "Unusual" could be just a hodge-podge machine that you built yourself, or a computer that has had problems working properly in the past under other operating systems. If you had to "jump through hoops" to get your computer running in the past you should let us know.
• We will provide installs via CD-ROM, so make sure you have a functioning optical drive in your computer.

We would like to hear from you. The more we know about your computer, the better prepared we can be for the install. We would also like to keep track of approximately how many people are going to attend so that we make sure we'll have adequate resources to take care of everyone. And of course, if you are interested in the CDROM of your choice we need to know as soon as possible so that we can make them for you. What to bring with you to the event on Saturday:

• Your computer
• Power cables for the above
• Any manuals for your computer and monitor will help a lot in some cases, so bring it if you have it.
• Any thing else that you feel relevant