<p dir="ltr">Hi Stuart I apologize for not letting you know I asked one of the guys at work at the help desk to install Ubuntu on it yesterday have been little bit under the weather so I didn't get back to you</p>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Oct 8, 2015 10:44 PM, "Stuart Levy" <<a href="mailto:stuartnlevy@gmail.com">stuartnlevy@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br type="attribution"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
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<i>A non-fictional fable about some things happening in the IMC
follows, with lessons at the end.</i><br>
<br>
About ten days ago, I'd asked imc-tech list + some makerspace people
whether anyone had a plan for the (then-unusable) IMC public PCs - I
was offering to install ubuntu on them if nobody did. Nobody
responded. I guessed that meant that nobody felt ownership of
them. <br>
<br>
Last weekend, I learned - thanks to Sophia! - that Barry Todd had
been feeling responsible for them. Barry and I traded notes, and
one or the other of us would go install some usable software, either
Ubuntu or Windows 7, on them in time for the bulk of this weekend's
festivities. Great.<br>
<br>
This afternoon, I had some time, and went over to the IMC. A
meeting was in progress next to the PCs, so I hung out and waited
for that to end, about 40 minutes.<br>
<br>
While I was there, Chris Ritzo came by, we chatted, he showed me
some of the great stuff he's been doing toward WRFU streaming - even
to the point of trying it out. This is wonderful!<br>
<br>
When the meeting ended, I went to check out the PCs, and found:<br>
<br>
(a) They were plugged into a switched outlet, which had been
switched off at the breaker.<br>
So anyone pressing their On buttons would get nowhere.<br>
I moved them (<i>for the second time</i>) to a non-switched
circuit. (How should this be communicated? See below.)<br>
<br>
(b) Someone had already installed Ubuntu on them, just this
morning around 11am. It works nicely.<br>
<br>
(c) Sophia had not heard of (b) and was not sure who would have
done it.<br>
<br>
<b>For better and worse,</b> this is typical of how things work at
the IMC:<br>
<br>
- The IMC can a neat place to hang out. By hanging out there,
I met by chance with Chris, a valuable meeting as well as a pleasant
one.<br>
- People see needs and fill them. That what you'd hope for.<br>
- People too often DON'T TELL OTHERS WHAT IS HAPPENING OR WHY.<br>
<br>
Because of this,<br>
I lost about 75 minutes I could have used better elsewhere.<br>
<br>
I don't know who set up Ubuntu. I'm guessing it wasn't Barry,
who would likely have installed Windows (as he previously had on the
other similar machines in the office) and would likely have let me
know he'd gone in to set them up.<br>
<br>
What if someone wants additional Ubuntu packages installed
besides the default ones (a media editor, mplayer, cd burner, Chrome
browser, ...)? Who has an admin password to the machines to make
that possible? Who would even know who might have it? Should I
just break in and create an admin account?<br>
<br>
This last is not a theoretical question. I would like to
install a CD/DVD-burner on at least one of those computers, and then
let people know it's available. This would involve hardware and
probably software. (Hardware? Should I buy a CD writer drive, or
is one lying around?)<br>
<br>
<b>What I wish, for a start:</b><br>
The <a href="mailto:imc-tech@lists.chambana.net" target="_blank">imc-tech@lists.chambana.net</a> list could be a good place to
trade this sort of information. Not just "such-and-such is broken,
please help", but a place to log plans and actions. I know Barry
has been finding surprising changes made to things he's been feeling
responsible for keeping up - not a good way to maintain morale.<br>
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