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Linuxfest Northwest 2004 Wrap-up
prostoalex writes "Linuxfest Northwest 2004 took place in Bellingham, WA this past Saturday, as announced on Slashdot before. Check out the ever-expanding photo album and what people are saying in their blogs. I also have an extensive and highly subjective write-up on my site, but I can only vouch for the events I've been to myself. Compare that to Linuxfest 2000 coverage to see how things have changed."
Any pics of Linus in a speedo?
su -
/bin/rm -rf /
(enter root passwd)
-r = remove
-f = first route
Type this as root:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=1024 count=1
Then reboot. That should fix it.
How do I delete the first line in my routing table using /sbin/route on linux?
/sbin/route | grep -v eth0 will make the line disappear and bring you instant gratification...
Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
172.17.81.0 * 255.255.255.240 U 0 0 0 eth0
172.17.81.0 * 255.255.255.240 U 0 0 0 eth1
Bunch of fucking jokers 'round here.
route del -net 172.17.81.0 dev eth0
Pretty amazing that one guy from Finland started the whole Linux movement. It's testament to the open source concept. It keeps getting better. Soon it'll overtake MS and maybe (distant future) even Apple.
Keep chugging, guys!
moderators on crack!
smile, it was a joke, sorta..
That is what I have tried but I get this:
SIOCDELRT: Invalid argument
route del -net 172.17.81.0 netmask 255.255.255.240 dev eth0
If you go into any of the photo albums, you can edit many thinks like the title and the caption... Go and add your own captions to the insanely boring photographs!
Word. That did it.
I never would have believed it if it hadn't happened to me. Yes indeed, the captions on the photo albums mentioned in the article are editable by anyone. Just changed the caption of one of the photos myself.
Have fun. Be good!
Hey, Windows users, there is no such thing as "forward" slash, there is only slash and backslash.
without the netmask arg, route takes a wildass guess at the netmask, guesses it is 255.255.255.0 and then can't find any such route to delete
Wouldn't it be nice if the full text of the lectures at such meetings were available to reporters and technical writers? A lot of authoritative Open-Source knowledge is presented at events like this and never becomes available to Joe public... at least with transcripts available we can get writers to _re-organize_ the information later on.
just a nigerian personal web publisher
I noticed on the 2004 site that you can vote for "Most exciting part of Linuxfest?"
Well, where's the "Linux Klingon Debate" box then??
Si tacuisses philosophus mansisses. If you had kept quiet, you would have remained a philosopher.
but can somebody make those captions clickable so we cange the photos.
Thanks.
Sure the event could have been held in a larger town and been another (yawn) commercial flop @200 a head to hear some schmuck talk about how he worked for Pixar (cough).
But grassroots and small town kept this thing fun and educational. There were some big names including Amazon, Sun, and the man Rasmus Lerdorf.
Suprisingly there were a lot of families there, and even children scurring about chewing on network cables and doing...kid things.
The event gets better each year while keeping it noncommericial and free. There were quite a few regional and local businesses there but no one was pushing except maybe that Rackspace guy who thought the fest was his private infomercial.
It was all pulled together by a bunch of volunteers including the gracious host (Bellingham Technical College).
All things considered I'm marking this down on my calendar for next year. Cause each year they take stock and make improvements. Do the same.
I just found a picture of what looked to be a gurl at a geek gathering and you slashdotted the sight as I clicked on the "enlarge picture" .
....
Now I won't ever know if she was real !
And that is probably the only one I will ever see
Ah, yes: "ghardak!
(Overheard at the convention. Actually, hundreds of times.)
I just thought I'd warn those who don't browse at -1 that, given what the parent comment has pointed out, you might want to wait to look at the photo album until after you get home from work. An "admin" mode probably lets you edit not just the comments but the pictures themselves, too -- in which case all bets are off as to what'll be on that page once the trolls get done messing around.
Rank Presidents by th
I know there are girl geeks, but because of the high percentage of guys at these events. It is more like SausageFest 2004.
Such a negative view on the festival! There were alot more girls there than expected.
I believe her name was Elizabeth.
I had a great time at the Fest, as usual.
I do have some nitpicks about the original Slashdot poster's article. The original poster doesn't seem to have noticed (about Jakob Perry's talk in particular) that there was a newbie track of talks. Perry's talk was in that track. I do agree that tracks should be better marked, although the talk is clearly listed under 'newbie track' on the presentation schedule handout.
I presented two talks (one impromptu when the first one had standing room only) in the newbie track. Last year I presented a hands on tutorial on Glade. My talks this year and last year were very well attended. The new classrooms at BTC worked marvelously for the presentations I saw. I found the projector system to be really well integrated, and it worked with my 5 year old laptop (running Linux), without a problem.
As a presenter, I am working on getting my slides up on the 'net. However, I don't like to just put the slides up, I like to create a bit more content, as the slides for me are just aids for my presentation. I assume other presenters feel the same, and are working on getting their lectures online. So give us some time, if you will.
Getting presenters to post a lecture before it happens will be difficult as well, especially if they are creating new content for the event. As we are not professional speakers, it is a bit unrealistic to expect us to have something ready for publication before we give the lecture.
I think BLUG does a great job putting this event on year after year, and I'm proud to help support it. I've always had a blast when I've attended, and am already planning on attending next year. This is a real grassroots event, without corporate sponsorship and suits, without even an entry fee.
Kudos to BLUG, TACLUG, GSLUG, KPLUG, and all the other Lugs and linux afficionados that make this event so educational, entertaining and fun.
Actually no, that's not my name :). Nice try anyways!
There were more women than just me there. You might not see us in the pictures because we were doing things like presenting talks and helping to run the event.
Dear Mr. Coward,
/. post, it's going to take off because of the grass-roots efforts of a bunch of dedicated individuals, like those in all the LUGs that supported this effort.
If you have any interest in whether or not linux becomes a serious contender for either the desktop, the corporate data center, or mom and pop's computer at home, then you should care deeply about this post. Linux is not going to take off in these areas because of snarky comments in a
People in other LUGs (even that one in NM) are going to see posts like this and say, hey, we should put on a show like that! Before you know it, Linux comes out of the online blogs and news sites (like this one) that only other Linux geeks know about, and in to the hearts and minds of major decision-makers.
As for who really cares? About 1000 or so Linux users from Eugene, OR to Vancouver, BC. That's who.
Sincerely,
Satisfied LFNW2004 attendee
I don't think this level of derision is appropriate, however- The detractors are right that this story is remarkably free of anything interesting other than 'here's a non-NY or SF based linux related event, some guys blogged it'. Mention some new idea or technology that was presented at the event, or at least drop a slashdot-type celebrity name who attended. If there aren't any, be sure to think of that and rectify it in the planning stages of next year's event.
All the moderators are over in the Apple section moderating up the posts that claim the new 1.5 Ghz PowerBook is faster with 512Megs of RAM than a Beowulf Cluster of dual Xeons with 4gigs RAM each.
+5, Insightful!
+5, Informative!
+5, Interesting!
Uh, could you show a link? That seems a tad farfetched to me.
-1, Troll.
-1, Overrated.
-1, Flamebait.
-1, Mac Hater! Terrorist!
I think the fact that it's sitting here with 15 comments rated 2 or higher says something about how appropriate it is for the users of this site.
The original poster wasn't bagging the efforts of the LUG, but more so the Slashdot editors for approving it.
I guess they have a decision -- promote the ideals in which they believe, or serve their users?
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
I thought LFNW was awesome. I especially enjoyed the Pacific Northwest National Labs High Performance Linux Cluster talk given by Timothy A Witteveen of PNL. It is one hell of a machine. It is one hell of a machine. 9.4 teraflops and a 53 terrabyte SAN running NWLinux. It placed 5th on the last Top 500 List.
That 53 terrabyte SAN is one contiguous filesystem using lustre. The use of QSNet2/Elan4 interconnects make the use of terbyte data sets with lots of internode communication more efficient than past machines. These interconnects provide a peak bandwidth of 340 MB/sec in each direction. But even more impresive than the bandwidth is the latency, between 2 us and 5 us. Compare that with ethernet latency measured in tens or even hundreds of ms.
During the presentation Tim went over two examples of simulations performed on their cluster that could not be accomplished on other machines. These examples were outside of my domain of knowledge, but one involved simulating the behavior of water molecules and the other was an extremely detailed protein folding simulation.
One last bit that was interesting was their methodology for updating the machines. They have over a thousand and took some time to determine an efficient means to keep the machines up to date. It was determined that reimaging the maches was faster than applying patches. They utilize a multicast approach in which allows them, theoretically, to reimage all of the machines in 28 minutes. They do not always reach this theoretical maximum, but they reimage a thousand machines PDQ.
The meet & greet in the commons was fun. Pogo Linux had a free drawing for a loaded AMD64 system. There was plenty of swag to be had from all sorts of folks. It was cool to stop and chat with one of the Helix developers. All in all there was a really good group of folks gathered.
I know Slashdot is full of trolls, but I must say I am a little suprised at how many crappy comments LFNW is getting. All I have to say to those filled with negativity is screw you. Here in the Pacific Northwest we have some cool stuff going on. Whether it is the 3 new lugs in Seattle, OSDL in Portland, the Linux Cluster at PNL, SeattleWireless, PersonalTelco or LFNW there are exciting things happening up here. I think a couple people on this site need to take their heads out of their arses and take a look around. Folks up here are using linux, and getting stuff done.
"DRM is like violence: if it doesn't work, use more."
One of the perks of LFNW this year was a swank after party thrown by the local Class A Data Center, FiberCloud. The party was a great opportunity to meet a diverse array of folks.
I got to go on a tour of the data center, and I was really impressed. They currently have two bandwidth providers(AT&T and a Canadian Provider). The fiber running north doesn't touch any electronics beforing reaching Canada. They will be adding Sprint and MCI through a connection with their Everet data center later this year or early this year. The engineering of the facility was impressive. Their was forsight and redundancy built in all over the freakin' place.
But what was more impressive was how profesional they were in combination with how service oriented. Because of the size and location of their facility I got a small buisness feel from them. You know that real friendly, know your going to get to talk to a human and they are going to help you out kind of feeling.
They raffled off a pretty darn nice colocation package at the party. I left before the raffle. I hope they have just been delayed in informing me of winning.
"DRM is like violence: if it doesn't work, use more."
No mention of any Vancouver, BC stuff? Comeon. :P
;)
Jeez. Even one of Bellingham's TV stations caters primarily to the Vancouver market.
Let's face it, the linux center of mass in the Pacific Northwest is decidedly south of BC. Where is OSDL? Where are the West Coast linux strategists for IBM and Intel? Where is the 2nd fastest linux cluster and 5th fastest supercomputer in the world? Where is there a large Debian based distro aimed at homes and offices? Which Pacific Northwest city has new lugs sprouting up? Which prominent lug in the north did not participate at all in LFNW 2003, the largest LFNW to that date?
The triangle of Seattle, Portland, Richland (PNL puts it on the map) is the center of mass of Linux in the Northwest. Hopefully LFNW will take this into account in the future.
"DRM is like violence: if it doesn't work, use more."
Did Linux finally catch up to 10-year-old Windows 95 in supporting soundcards? How about getting rid of the multiple, incompatible software mixers? Or the incompatible, inconsistent toolkits? What about the fact that I have to install TWO ENTIRE DESKTOP ENVIRONMENTS just to run each other's apps?
Oh. Year of Linux indeed...
* If "Linux" just refers to the kernel and not the operating system, how can "FreeBSD" refer to the operating system (userland tools, standard libraries, etc.) and not just the kernel? Face it, "GNU/Linux" looks and sounds ridiculous.
* If you expect companies to follow the copyright of the GPL, you should support the RIAA going after infringers of its copyright. If not, you're a hypocrite.
* There is absolutely nothing wrong with a company being upset that its product is being pirated freely over online networks. Try getting a real job sometime and see what it feels like when your work is everywhere, and you start worrying that your days are numbered. Does John Carmack want you to "sample" his new game via the "free advertising" happening on eMule?
* OSDN-owned Slashdot thinks its niche opinion represents the majority of the world. This is a result of people visiting every day and buying into the groupthink. Nobody outside of Slashdot knows or cares about "Linux," "RIAA", "M$," or anything else Slashdotters think is such a huge issue in today's society. Go to a mall or coffee shop sometime and see what people actually talk
about.
* Speaking of OSDN--it's a Linux company...that owns a "tech news" site...that posts news stories negative toward competitors like Microsoft. If a Windows company or even Microsoft itself owned a "tech news" site and posted anti-Linux articles all the time, everyone would be up in arms. But with OSDN, it's a-okay.
* Slashbots think people don't like the music coming out these days, which is the cause of the piracy. Never mind that if people didn't like the music they wouldn't be pirating it, most Slashbots--again, this goes back to the niche opinion thing--don't realize that most people these days love the music coming out and want to hear all of it. Probing around, you discover that Slashdot is made up of nerds and fogies who listen to things like The Who and Blind Guardian and techno--not what mainstream society enjoys.
* Any company ending in "AA" is evil. Especially if it doesn't want you distributing its works without paying for it. Somehow, this mindset is supposed to make sense.
* The inevitable result of all this is a world in which nothing can be profitable because people simply pirate free copies. Is that really what
Slashbots want? OSS and free-ness in general reminds me of the hippie era of the 60s--idealistic socialism that only exists because of the surrounding capitalism around it that provides the environment for it to exist. We all know what happened to that idea.
* Slashdot editors are abusive. We all remember The Post. It's amusing the editors never mention the issue. The worst editor is michael, who will mod you down, insult you for your post count, and post unprofessional color commentary along with the article. This is the same bizarre person who cybersquatted Censorware for years--even as Slashdot posted articles negative toward cybersquatting! Michael played it off like he was some sort of stalking victim, which made it all the more bizarre.
* The moderation system is broken. If you mod someone as "Overrated," you can't be metamodded. People abuse this all the time to gang up and knock you down into oblivion.
* Somehow, user-ran executables are always a "New Microsoft Hole" (actual article headline). Meanwhile, LinuxSecurity [linuxsecurity.com] posts weekly security advisories for all the Linux distributions. You never, ever, EVER see any of these mentioned on Slashdot--bizarre things like arbitrary code execution via MPlayer.
* Microsoft is supposed to be some sort of non-innovative rip-off artist. Meanwhile, the same people posting those comments do it through KDE with taskbars, sidepanels, start menus, similar print dialogs, and an integrated web/filesystem browser. Slashdotters--ripping people off then criticizing those who came up with the ideas in the first place.
* Linux is "ready for the desktop." This is the yearly uttering since 1998. Never mind that there is S
Soon it'll overtake MS and maybe (distant future) even Apple.
I feel like I've stepped into a time machine, and I'm reading a 1998 comment from Slashdot.