Most of the burned CDs in circulation were Fedora Core 2 and Mandrake 10.0, a few point releases newer than what most of us were running back in the spring. Partitioning was the main sticking point of the day. Two of the laptops had unusual disk geometries that confused the installer's automatic resizing, and we ended up doing the partition table by hand for both of them. If you're planning to dual-boot an older laptop, check the install notes for known issues with your particular model before you start, and always, always back up first.

On the desktop side, the conversion went smoothly once we'd confirmed the network card was supported out of the box. The owner had been putting off the switch for months after hearing stories about driver trouble, but in the end the only real hiccup was getting the monitor's native resolution detected correctly, which took a quick edit to XF86Config.

Thanks to everyone who brought burned CDs, extra RAM sticks, and patience. A few members mentioned wanting a repeat session focused on wireless cards, so we'll likely schedule a follow-up before the end of the year. Details will be posted here and brought up at the next regular meeting.