[svlug] Linux World Report

[Larry Colen]

I was about halfway to SF from Felton when I realized that I had left
my badge at home. I hoped that I could reregister and not have to pay
for an exhibits pass, but wasn't going to turn around and ride 45
miles home to get the damn thing. I got to LW and found the
registration line, while I was waiting I called Julian and told him
where I was. He said that I could use his spare badge, but that I'd
need to use his ID to get a badge holder.

After waiting in the badgeholder line, I get to the front and hand the
woman Julian's spare badge and his drivers license. She makes some
comment about "now that we know you are who you say you are" and hands
me the badgeholder.  I had about 15 minutes to do a quick scan of the
show floor before Julian and I left to meet Lenore for lunch.

After lunch I walk past the security guard, who then stops Julian for
not having a badge holder. While she's talking to him, I take mine off
and hand it to him, at which point she lets him on the floor. I
certainly hope that everyone feels especially safe with all these
security procedures that are now in place.

I have not made it to every year of Linux World. I missed the first
one because I was in Singapore, and the third year because my boss was
being a prick. However, the evolution of Linux World has been
interesting to watch. Initially, the "big name" booths, were only big
names in the geek community. In the last year or two, the presence of
major industry names became a lot more noticable. Last year was, as
someone put it, kind of depressing, because a lot of companies were
going belly up.

This year, at least half of the floor space was taken up by a few huge
booths:
IBM, HP, Sun, Red Hat, AMD, Intel...

There wasn't really a lot that was particularly newsworty, or
interesting at the show. Linuxworld has become a not particularly
interesting, run of the mill trade show. The closest thing to a
surprise was the Microsoft booth. In the words of the guy I talked to
they were just there to "talk with folks, open up a dialogue". He did
complain that video drivers always seemed to be released for Linux
before they were written for Windows.

I did score on a debian 3.0 install CD, and I'm in the process of
installing it on my laptop. I thought Debian was supposed to support
the 2.4 kernel now, but it wasn't intuitively obvious. I've been
running Red Hat for 6 or 7 years (effectively since Caldera Pre I, but
after Caldera did not upgrade the kernel and the latest RH
distribution did, I switched, whenever that was), so getting used to
the new installation procedure will probably take a few iterations.

  Larry

-- 
"I stuff cash in my drivers seat because Ray said that the more money
that I put into my racecar, the faster it will go". - Becky Swafford
lrc at red4est.com                                    http://www.red4est.com/lrc