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Sixth DebConf Ends in Success

Posted by Hemos on from the great-news-for-debian dept.

fabbe writes "The 6th annual Debian Developers Conference (DebConf) was held in Helsinki, Finland from July 10th to July 17th 2005. With over 300 registered participants from around 40 countries, this was the largest DebConf to date. More than 20 sponsors provided DebConf with a total budget of around 125,000 euros. The conference featured talks, workshops, demonstrations, coding marathons and round table discussions on various aspects of the Debian Project. The presentations were captured by the DebConf5 Video Team and are available online at at Debian's site. "

112 comments

  1. configuring Debian by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    A musty atmosphere of neglect pervaded the subbasement of University Library. The books on the shelves were covered in a fine layering of dust. There were dim lights over the small study cubicles at the end of each aisle between the towering shelves. The lights produced only enough illumination for the top of the desks, leaving the surrounding stacks and central walkway shrouded in a perpetual twilight.

    I had finally found the copy of the heavy API guide I needed for my work connecting my SQL database to the graphical front end I had been slaving over all weekend. However, the intricacy of the cover of the neighboring book drew my attention and I brought it along to the desk for better inspection under the light. The cover looked a lot newer than the heavily thumbed volumes beside it. Emblazened
    across the front was the title "Linux - Unleash the Power of your PC" together with a picture of a fat cartoonish looking penguin. As I opened the book I felt a strange buzzing in my head that quickly passed. I shrugged it off as my attention was drawn to a CD which dropped out and landed on the desk in front of me. It bore the same title as the book, together with something about 'Knoppix' which was a word I did not recognise.

    I had heard of Linux though. The University ran Unix on some of their servers, although I rarely chose to interact with those systems. Perhaps I should broaden my horizons though. I liked to think I knew just about everything there was to know about using Windows, but you could never have too many strings to your bow. Almost without thinking I slipped the CD into my pocket and returned my attention to my work.

    A date with my girlfriend Paige followed the work in the library. I was one of the few students on my CS course to actually have a partner since, although computers interested me and would one day be my means of making a living, I was careful not to get drawn into the geek subculture that seemed to pervade the department. Some of the guys with their nerdish glasses and unwashed t-shirts grunted at me strangely when I declined to join in their games of Counterstrike, but I reminded myself that while they were shut up in a grimy computer lab scoffing Cheetos I was getting laid on a regular basis.

    That night in my dorm room while I was getting ready for bed, I remembered the CD in my pocket and fired up my laptop to take a look. I still couldn't make out what the strange messages flowing across the screen meant. Perhaps if I sounded them out their meaning would become clear. I tried to phonetically pronounce the words but they disappeared too quickly to be replaced with a blank screen. I gave up, turned off the light and climbed into bed.

    The erotic dream started with Paige slowly caressing my back and buttocks. The caressing transitioned into an incredibly gentle massage starting at my neck and shoulders and running down my back. My butt cheeks were being massaged apart and I spread my legs and raised my rear as her hand reached underneath me from behind to stroke my erection. Her hand was very warm and felt wonderful as I started to slowly thrust into her hand as she started jerking me off. A huge long warm and moist tongue started playing over my testicles and anus. It felt fantastic. No one had ever licked me there before. I never knew how sensual it felt.

    As her hot hand was expertly running up and down my rigid penis something started probing my anus. It snaked its way into my anal opening and it started slowly expanding. Suddenly I had the urge to move my bowels, but I didn't care, as my attention was totally focused on my imminent orgasm. My penis was released as Paige suddenly grabbed my sides and jammed her hips against my butt.

    I woke up to find myself with my rear in the air. Someone was grabbing my sides and hitting my butt. I jolted fully awake as I felt something expanding in my rectum and realized I was being fucked. The cock in my butt was still expanding and was becoming painfully large. I thought I could actually feel it movin

  2. Worf meats his match. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic



    After months of effort, young Wesley Crusher was ready to test his secret hologram portal program. The program made a small gap between the holodeck doors and the "environment" that was currently running, allowing Wesley and one other guest to open the door and observe the program without being seen by anyone inside. Ever since Wesley first saw Lt. Worf, his curiosity about Klingon mating habits was sparked. And every time he saw the tall, dark warrior, or even smelled that distinctly Klingon scent, Wesley could think of nothing else but the mysterious Klingon penis.

    How big was it? Did it grow and throb like Wesley's? Was it surrounded with dark, kinky hair like Cmdr. Riker's? Would Worf let him touch it like Cmdr. Riker did? What did it taste like? Could it be even larger Cmdr. Riker's hot throbbing eight centimeters? Wesley had to know! His hand reached under the computer counsel and began stroking around his circumcision scars. How stupid he was for showing his mother that ancient Kellogg file he found while poking around in the sexual mutilation medical archives. He should have never accepted the passwords from Cmdr. Riker.

    Anyway, it was time for the final test. Lt. Worf had entered the holodeck, and Wesley had primed him by discretely leaving erotica on Worf's counsel when he was out. He made his way down the hall until he came to the holodeck doors. Pretending to examine the reservation schedules, Wesley looked both ways before quickly typing in his password for the portal program. The door slid open, Wesley jumped in and the door closed behind him. It was just what he had wished for! There was Lt. Worf, naked, and a holographic Klingon female clinging to the upper branches of a holographic tree spitting down at him. "Oh, Fuck!" Wesley whispered in amazement at the pendulant, 40cm tool between Worf's legs, and seven hot, throbbing centimeters of pubescent flesh unsuccessfully attempted to rip through Star Fleet's latest, high tensile strength trouser fabric. Wesley had no choice but to soothe it. The going was awkward through the high-tech cloth. Its elasticity made inserting a hand difficult, so Wesley slipped them down to his ankles and went work. The spitting and threats continued until Worf's huge organ was fully erect. Worf was becoming an animal. A lusty husky musky animal!

    Suddenly Worf collapsed. He lied on his back with his erection throbbing up vertically, tempting Wesley. Minutes slipped by as Wesley and the holographic Klingon female watched and waited. Wesley wanted to touch the huge organ, to taste it. He typed in his password again, and shut down the programs. An unconscious Lt. Worf lay waiting. Wesley kicked his shoes and trousers off his feet and went forward. He stood above Worf, hesitating. Was he dying? Could he still touch the great penis and then arrange for an emergency transport to sickbay before it was too late? Worf's smell was overwhelming. One hand vigorously manipulated the 14-year-old, seven centimeter, pink-white human penis, while the other slowly reached out to unsheathe the tribble-sized head on the flag pole in front of him. At the moment when pale thumb and index finger closed onto the ebony, horned foreskin...

    "Wesley! Ensign Crusher! What were you doing here?"

    It was Lt. Worf.

    "Sir, I was walking by the holodeck doors and I saw a warning light flashing, and... oh, I hurt down there!"

    "Quiet! You should never interfere with rituals you do NOT understand."

    "What happened, Sir? I swear! I saw the warning light, and there you were..."

    "A likely story."

    "What are you hiding, sir? What is that dermal regenerator for?"

    "See for yourself." Warf allowed the boy to sit up.

    "My penis!" Where is it? This isn't fair!"

    "I ate it." When Wesley awoke from the subsequent faint, Worf was dressed. "Ensign Crusher, I found your portal program. I am sure this will be the end of ALL your computer privileges."

    "No, Lieutenant! Please!"

    "You fou

  3. 1992 Called... by 1992+Called · · Score: -1

    Debian sucks.
    Sorry, it's Monday morning.

    --
    Trolling the trolls who troll the trolls since '92
    1. Re:1992 Called... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


      Well, happy Monday.

      There. Feel better?

      --
      Trolling all trolls from 1992_Called to users.pl

  4. A question that has been bothering me: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Do these confrences ever end in failure?

    1. Re:A question that has been bothering me: by Darkon · · Score: 2, Interesting


      Do these confrences ever end in failure?

      This one might well do given the current climate.

    2. Re:A question that has been bothering me: by 10scjed · · Score: 1

      It just means the conference closed out with a return code of 0

      --
      --10scjed IANAL,AFAIK
  5. Success? by October_30th · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Hmm... what would have been seen as a failure? Just curious.

    --
    The owls are not what they seem
    1. Re:Success? by suitepotato · · Score: 1

      Actually, I was going to ask this too. I mean, it's like saying in the news that someone "suffered an untimely death". Might they have "enjoyed a timely death"?

      "Damn, Mr. Reaper. That was right on time. Another minute and it would have been really bad timing."

      What WOULD failure be for this? They declared surrender and changed the base to Red Hat/Fedora Core? They decided that the new policy was too fast and people can't live at these speeds and we need to go back to the "when Hell freezes over" method of updates?

      What the hell is failure for a Debian Conference? Most not getting drunk after hours at the bar with their friends? No one gets lucky with a geekette? What was the definition of success?

      Seems weasel-worded to me. I think it would be better to say that the conference "went well" or "went wonderfully" or "narrowly avoided raid by local police".

      --
      If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
    2. Re:Success? by poopdeville · · Score: 1
      Actually, I was going to ask this too. I mean, it's like saying in the news that someone "suffered an untimely death". Might they have "enjoyed a timely death"?

      Except that when "suffer" is used as a transitive verb (which is to say, when it takes an object), it means primarily "to undergo or sustain." Similarly, the primary definition of the noun "success" is "The achievement of something desired, planned, or attempted." Evidently, the Debian team was attempting to make this the largest DebConf ever.

      --
      After all, I am strangely colored.
  6. The Utnubu Project by ballstothat · · Score: 4, Informative
    Perhaps one of the more interesting bits to emerge from this was the Utnubu project...

    Link:
    http://www.joachim-breitner.de/blog/archives/59-Li nux-Ball-Utnubu.html

    I think Debian can learn a lot from the rapid success of Ubuntu, and hopefully this project will help heal some of the growing rifts between the two camps.

    --
    10
    20 Print "Balls To That"
    1. Re:The Utnubu Project by diegocgteleline.es · · Score: 1

      I, for one, erase my Ubuntu partition and welcome our new Utunbu overlords!

    2. Re:The Utnubu Project by electrichamster · · Score: 1

      Compact version of your sig:
      10 PRINT "Balls To This Post"
      20 GOTO 10

      :P

    3. Re:The Utnubu Project by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Utnubu? Did they think Ubunto too easy to pronounce or something?

    4. Re:The Utnubu Project by ballstothat · · Score: 1
      I have a hard time admitting that your cleaned-up version of my code will compile faster, but I'll admit defeat

      However, it has always been my personal credo that it's "all about goto 10 loops". And frankly, I think that applies to all facets of life, not just BASIC programming.

      --
      10
      20 Print "Balls To That"
    5. Re:The Utnubu Project by nurhussein · · Score: 1

      I, for one, erase my Ubuntu partition and welcome our new Utunbu overlords!

      It's "Utnubu" dammit! Ubuntu for n00bs!

    6. Re:The Utnubu Project by electrichamster · · Score: 2, Funny
      However, it has always been my personal credo that it's "all about goto 10 loops". And frankly, I think that applies to all facets of life, not just BASIC programming.
      I think you'll find thats called obsessive compulsive disorder.
    7. Re:The Utnubu Project by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And this video is clearly inspiring on those issues

      http://dc5video.debian.net/2005-07-14/02-Ubuntu_Ta lk-Mark_Shuttleworth.mpeg

    8. Re:The Utnubu Project by Zaiff+Urgulbunger · · Score: 1

      Thats not what I heard.... nope. The word on the street is that "Utnubu" is for _Ut_ter Nubu's. Hence the name! ;)

  7. Did it help this issue ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Linux drivers are the problem that it is not mainstream. Any advances mentioned ?

    1. Re:Did it help this issue ? by ssj_195 · · Score: 3, Insightful
      The only possible things that could help with this are:

      1) 100 programmers are hired full-time to reverse-engineer drivers;

      2) More than a handful of manufacturers actually open up their specs;

      3) Linux freezes its ABI, which I for one am not particularly in favour of.

      None of these have happened, to my knowledge. Oh, and Linux Desktop has bigger problems than drivers, but those that can plausibly be solved via hard work are rapidly being addressed.

    2. Re:Did it help this issue ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

      are you nuts?

      linuxsupport MORE hardware than windows XP does.

      creative Audigy card? Linux supports it on first boot, XP you have to install the drivers from creative.

      Nvidia video card? Xp requires drivers to be installed, Mandrake/mandriva installs them for me.

      I can go on... you obviousally know nothing about linux.

    3. Re:Did it help this issue ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      are you an idiot?

      support != working out of the box

      most people define support as, "there exists a driver, which I can install on my system, without having to write any code of my own"

      I can on... you obviousally know nothing about support.

  8. Nice Post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Last night was halloween, as I'm sure you celebrated -- I went as a french maid. 4.5" platform stilletto heels, red fishnets, the werks. I scared alot of people. especially with the fake bolld capsules. Anyway -- as for last nights dancing (& trying not to break my ankles in the process) the fresh anus piercing held up unusually well. If you have ever examined that area of your body, youve noticed the "fleshyness" of the skin about the 'pucker'. It was extremely easy & painless to pierce. No blood- or very little at that. And honestly no real discomfort. The absolute most difficult stage in the process is placing the jewelry (ESPECIALLY IF YOURE DOING IT YOURSELF.!!!) I have actually tried this particular area of the body for piercing before, about 3 years ago. It worked, but eventually wanted to grow out. This time, its got a good 3/4" asshole-skin to get through. I apologize for the graphic nature of my diction. Today, prior to its morning cleaning- consisting of Dial anti-bacterial liquid soap, a shower, etc- i noticed I wasnt able to see [and/or find]the top of the barbell ball. Aye de Mi! The holes were both still there, fresh and stretched to about a 14ga, just enough 'inhale' the barbell ends. I decided the barbell was a wee bit too short in length, and replaced it with a 5/8 14ga SScurved barbell. Sitting is even more pleasurable than before. It is a surprisingly protected area of the body. Not much gets to it. So you get the picture. Lets say youre on your knees, ass in the air. the top of the anal opening is where I placed my jewelry: //{(*)}\\ Initially, it was easyenough to use a 14ga needle with a 16ga 1/2" BB in the back of the needle, as trying to insert jewelry in that type of extreemly fleshy skin is & can be, literally, a pain in the ass. So i used the needle for both the piercing & an insertion tube. Mushy butt-flesh IS hard to manage. The Vertical nature of the piercing is just fine. I was concerned that bathroom issure might present a problem. But excrement from your own body is initially sterile, however funky. Pooing has not presented a problem. Wiping has become the tricky part. Some advice- wipe gently, almost dabbing where possible. Im not into scat, and think crap is rather nasty. Im also not one to judge, so I keep my ass as clean as possible. Especially in recent times. So far, the only noticible aftereffect, is that the skin between eentry & exit points has had some swelling, nothing like inflation, but definately noticible. It has become an eye-catching, interestingly pierced "butt-nub". And I adore it. I am planning to get a disposible camera or something in the very near future so I can send up some pictures, in about 2-3 weeks. They will be sent though. I have decided that the final jewelry for this piercing will be an L-bar of 14-12 ga. One last thing: I did not pierce through the sphincter muscle itself- only the skins which cover & protect it- the butt-nub area. To find out exactly what a butt-nub is, get a porno with chicks who have had ALOT of anal experience. They say a butt-nub is the first step to "trunk-butt". We will see. In anycase, mine's pierced. Of all the piercings Ive had & have, the anus piercing oozes a bit differently that the rest. Above all, keep keep the jewelrey clean. If it gets krusty, it will most likely lead to an infection. Anus piercing infections smell noticibly worse than others. for the obvious reasons.
    Other than that, I cant say much more. Coughing & Sneezing, though, have taken on a whole new perspective...:)
    I will be sure to let you know how all goes. And dont forget the picures! they're comming.

  9. wow, no torrents.. by ghee22 · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    i just feel, ... like giving up. no one cares about torrents, no hosting server wants to set them up. bandwidth shamwidth, who cares? even though debian may not be the latest & greatest, that does not mean that they have to be as traditional on their website as well..

    --
    "Persistence is annoying success." - ghee22 11:28:1999 - 10:53:PM
    1. Re:wow, no torrents.. by zyklone · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      Noone who has enough bandwidth cares.
      Torrents are for people without enough bandwidth.

    2. Re:wow, no torrents.. by electrichamster · · Score: 1

      Apparently noone who has enough bandwidth understands the bittorrent concept either.

    3. Re:wow, no torrents.. by Karora · · Score: 1

      We discussed having torrents, but the host for the videos supposedly has multiple Gb to the internet and is better able to handle streaming (if the client software supports it) than torrents.

      I'd be interested to know what the bandwidth usage is, but I doubt that the bandwidth is challenged unless a lot of people are downloading 150MB videos by accident. I'd expect more cherry-picking than mirroring (it's a total of 7G or so).

      Feel free to set up a torrent though - this is open source, scratch-your-own-itch territory, after all... :-)


      .

      --

      ...heellpppp! I've been captured by little green penguins!
  10. MOD PARENT WHORE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1


    at least link to ubuntu's site instead of some shitty no-insight copynpaste blog

    http://www.ubuntulinux.org/

  11. Good lord. by debrain · · Score: 3, Informative

    Google: "Debian bittorrent", [I'm feeling lucky]

    Downloading Debian CD images with BitTorrent

    1. Re:Good lord. by Saven+Marek · · Score: 1

      The site isn't clear on it which one of those CD images contains the videos?

  12. wow...RTFA! by huckda · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's most interesting with pretty much zero insight as to what made it "successful"...

    --
    "Just Smile and Nod." --Huck
    1. Re:wow...RTFA! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      what made it "successful"...

      Top 10 Reasons why DebConf was successful:

      10. BSD is dead!
      9. They met in Hel which is better than Hell.
      8. Sponsors gave a lot of money to support a conference for an distrib that likes to be free.
      7. They have videos!
      6. They talked about President Bush: "From Pigs to Stripes"
      5. The had a lunch break!
      4. They want help from end-users and told you the difficult process that it involves.
      3. They gave a presentation on goals including becoming current like every other distribution does on every release.
      2. There were no non-geekish girls, girls have cooties after all.

      1! They got on the front page of Slashdot with absolutely no content at all. Yay!

      -- I am a Debian user and love it :) --

    2. Re:wow...RTFA! by NineNine · · Score: 1

      It's most interesting with pretty much zero insight as to what made it "successful"..

      I think that it's implied that it was successful because a whopping 300 people registered. I'm not saying that this criteria is either good or bad, but that's what I take from the summary + article.

  13. oh my fucking god. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    whoa. just whoa.

    1. Re:oh my fucking god. by electrichamster · · Score: 1

      Gentlemen, start your wget's.

    2. Re:oh my fucking god. by garcia · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's amazing that "women in software" (of any kind) should raise a comment like "oh my fucking god." and "whoa. just whoa". You wonder why they shy away... A bunch of horny geeks getting excited over something completely mundane.

      Get a grip and grow up.

      For those of you that don't want to download the video: It's the opening slide for "Women in Debian and Free Open Source Sofware" by Magni Onsoien and Erin Clark (7/15/05).

    3. Re:oh my fucking god. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Gentlemen, start your wget's.

      Could be wrong, but it appears they are limiting downloads to 2 connections per ip. All my 3rd downloads are spinning until one of the two running ones complete. Torrents, people.. PLEASE this is nuts!

    4. Re:oh my fucking god. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't bother. I've download the first 30MiB and both girls are fucking ugly.

    5. Re:oh my fucking god. by alfino · · Score: 3, Informative

      I've had the pleasure to meet most of the Debian women at the debconf. And believe it or not: they were there to hack and improve Debian, not to serve as sexual attractors. Strangely, noone at debconf had a problem with that, or even thought otherwise. So why don't you (average slashdot reading horny male geek) go jack off to some porn site and not come back?

      --
      echo mailto: !#^."<*>"|tr "<*> mailto:" net@madduck
    6. Re:oh my fucking god. by Knuckles · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      To be fair to the OP, later on a girl with really big boobs can be seen *ducks*

      --
      "When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
    7. Re:oh my fucking god. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Now that we have your attention... Do any of you know this Mitch Obrian fellow? (aka the troll)

      Funny that nobody has mentioned the unisex sauna yet. Alas, no pictures!

    8. Re:oh my fucking god. by Daytona89 · · Score: 1

      Mundane? What if the women are Debiant? Debiant Debutantes even? I smell a video deal.

    9. Re:oh my fucking god. by tyrione · · Score: 1
      You wonder why they shy away... A bunch of horny geeks getting excited over something completely mundane.
      Get real. Women who love attention from men don't shy away. Dykes and lipstick lesbian[read bisexual] shy away, while even the traditional prude in her mid-twenties still saving herself for the fantasy white knight still gets a tingle by all the attention.
    10. Re:oh my fucking god. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Uh yeah, and how would you know?
      It isn't simply a matter of swapping the situation around and envisaging what guys would think of all the attention from a bunch of girls.

  14. haha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    hot chicks showing up wearing microsoft t-shirts.

    1. Re:haha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      Explain again how hot chicks showing up is "Failure".

      Unless you mean the fact that they're wearing Microsoft t-shirts... Scartch that, any clothes at all.

  15. Congratulations! by hobotron · · Score: 3, Insightful


    You just described the formula for a successful meeting!

    --
    There is truth in humor.
  16. s/sixth/fifth/ by cortana · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    The editors are just setting themselves up for cries of "dupe!" next year...

  17. Debian?!?!?! by Howard+Beale · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    I thought they were dead!!!

    1. Re:Debian?!?!?! by iggymanz · · Score: 4, Funny

      I see dead operating systems, they're all around me, on servers shuffling traffic and packets, and they don't even know that they're dead

  18. "success"? Huh? by diegocgteleline.es · · Score: 2, Funny

    Sixth DebConf Ends in Success

    Success? Could it be different; I mean, successful here means "it was not cancelled"?

    1. Re:"success"? Huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Success" as in "the conference attendees were not attacked by a giant tentacled monster from outer space".

  19. DebConf ends in success... by Gandul · · Score: 0

    ...with all registered participants singing kumbaya.

  20. and their consensus... by gik · · Score: 5, Funny

    "let's use redhat as our base distro from now on!"

    (DUCKS)

    --
    ZERO
    1. Re:and their consensus... by suitepotato · · Score: 1

      They also announced that the name was a joke gotten out of hand and no one could remember what it was anyways, so it will now be called "Debbie".

      Lawyers for Little Debbie and several hundred thousand women named Deborah were audibly drooling.

      Trekkies promised a write-in campaign saying that no one hearing the name would be in the slightest reminded of the Denebian Slime Eel reference anymore.

      --
      If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
  21. Define Success by ari_j · · Score: 2, Insightful

    For some, success is holding a conference on schedule with no deaths or maimings. For others, it is deciding exactly what the goals are for the next release. The blurb does not tell us what success the conference actually met, and from the other comments so far it appears that the article doesn't, either.

    Why not just say "Sixth DebConf Ends" instead of "...Ends in Success" when the additional words are meaningless?

    1. Re:Define Success by MrHanky · · Score: 1

      Of course. For Debian, success is defined as "relatively few deaths and maimings -- under a free license". HTH.

    2. Re:Define Success by martin-boundary · · Score: 1

      Remember that Debian is a Unix like system, and in the Unix philosophy successful conferences don't print out anything. That extra bit you're talking about was added by the slashdot submitter interface, but you can easily remove it by exporting the environment variable SLASHDOT_PEDANTIC="no". It's really only intended to make the exit code visible in the GUI.

  22. SAT-Style Analogy by ballstothat · · Score: 1

    Ubuntu : Debian :: PC-BSD : FreeBSD

    --
    10
    20 Print "Balls To That"
  23. As if Ubuntu wasn't weird enough.. by spaztech · · Score: 1


    As if telling everyone, "Here, have a copy of 'Ubuntu,'" wasn't bad enough. Now I can tell them I am also in full support of 'Utnubu' which is Ubuntu backwards. My coffee induced stutter is challenged enough. Seriously, I cringe everytime someone says, "OOB-WHAT-TOO?" as I hand them a copy.

    --
    /. spaztech ./
    1. Re:As if Ubuntu wasn't weird enough.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm sure Red Hat can put a lot of their sucess down to having a non-ridiculous name.

  24. Congratulations Debian... by pdbaby · · Score: 2, Funny

    ...on the completion of DebConf 1998!

    Ah but I do jest. Huzzah for Debian, my favourite distro

    --
    Global symbol "$deity" requires explicit package name at line 2. - If only $scripture started "use strict;"
  25. I'm glad it was successful by Lemming+Mark · · Score: 0, Troll

    But who won?

  26. oblig torrent by LinuxHam · · Score: 1

    Crap. I got two of the three vids before the site slowed to a crawl. Can someone please bundle the presentations and vids into a torrent?

    --
    Intelligent Life on Earth
    1. Re:oblig torrent by LinuxHam · · Score: 1

      Replying to self. I went right to the camp and didn't notice the hundreds of megs in each day's directory. I thought the days were going to hold the PPTs or PDFs. Sheesh.

      --
      Intelligent Life on Earth
  27. NEWS: Skype might be next KaZaa? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    First file excange, now some guy/gal made a "music-on-call" bot... What's wrong with this world? Do you want it on to be legeal too?

  28. Question by 101percent · · Score: 1

    What really upsets me is they made their video files in something other than ogg theora. Why?

    1. Re:Question by David+McBride · · Score: 1

      Because they want as many people as possible to be able to play them. Ogg Theora support isn't as widespread as MPEG2.

    2. Re:Question by lspd · · Score: 4, Informative

      What really upsets me is they made their video files in something other than ogg theora. Why?

      As a member of the Debconf video team, the guy that took all of the video home to finish processing, a Debian Developer and a Free Software nut, I'm probably as well qualified as anyone to answer this question.

      In a nutshell it's mpeg rather than Theora because none of the people arguing now, after the fact, that it should have been done in Theora were volunteering to help when the actual work was underway. Ffmpeg is GPL, it's in Debian main, and it has no problem encoding to mpeg-1. There are enough stupid software patents to be relatively certain that both Theora and mpeg-1 infringe on some. If there is a valid freeness issue against mepg-1, file a bug against the ffmepg package.

      Mpeg-1 allows anyone on any platform to view the files with minimal fuss. The results look remarkably good at the low bitrate used and AFAIK no one is running around suing over the use of mpeg-1. For a low bitrate encoding, what exactly does Theora add?

      It's even more comical that some are saying we should have used Theora while others are arguing that we should make DVD images (mpeg-2, where patents are actively enforced.) You really can't please everyone.

      Still, for anyone who wants the wholesome buzzword goodness of Theora, wait until we're finished processing the videos and Theora versions will be made available.

    3. Re:Question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Well put, lpsd! (I'm Herman, btw)

      We will try and please everyone, eventually. Compressing a week's worth of video several times in different formats takes a non-trivial amount of CPU time. By Debconf6 I hope we have sorted out how to do it timely and efficiently.

    4. Re:Question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As one of the DC5 video team members, I can tell you why: MPEG1 is patent-free and widely available. Theora/OGG streams are better quality and more hip, but we would be excluding a lot of users.

      Some people have expressed an interest in creating a Theora/OGG compressed set, so your wish may still come to happen. But we had limited resources, and a ton of videos to capture and encode. Even with fast processors, we could not afford to be processing multiple versions "on the go", we had to do one, and move on to the next day.

      Theora/OGG are not widely supported. Don't play in QT, MS Media Player, etc. So we went for least common denominator. This way, we have one guy complaining we aren't hip. The other way, it'd be a zillion people whining that they can't see it.

  29. I am an end-user: Debian sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Why is it that every time I apt-get update and apt-get upgrade my PC stops functioning from one broken package or another?
    This kind of offline-ness never happens at work machine with the XP automatic updates.
    Troll? Redundant? Heard it before? Well that doesn't help much.

    1. Re:I am an end-user: Debian sucks by Sinus0idal · · Score: 1

      Maybe you have done an apt-get upgrade where an apt-get dist-upgrade may have been more apt ha, get it.

      Taxiiiii

  30. Success! by RumGunner · · Score: 4, Funny

    Bill Gates is bankrupt, and everyone now runs Debian. Great conference everybody.

  31. Successful end? by stienman · · Score: 2, Insightful


    Sixth DebConf Ends in Success

    Ok, so how exactly can a conference be unsuccessfully ended? Is this where the attendees launch a sit-in and prevent the conference from ending, or what?

    It just seems like a hollow success.

    "What was good about the conference you jsut attended sir?"
    "Well, it ended. I'm quite thrilled by how well the organizers were able to get everyone to pack up and go - it was quite a success."

    -Adam

    1. Re:Successful end? by Stauf · · Score: 2, Funny
      ~$ debconf
      Usage: debconf [options] command [args]
      ~$ echo $?
      255
      My debconf didn't end in success :(
  32. MPEG1 is playable for everyone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Ogg/Theora will be made available, eventually. So will DVDs, I hope. MPEG1 is the format that most people can play without installing extra software. MPEG-LA collects royalties for MPEG2 and MPEG4, so those are unsuitable.

    Ogg/Theora requires extra software to be installed, even for many Linux users. Hence, Theora was not the first choice of the video team.

    1. Re:MPEG1 is playable for everyone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ogg/Theora requires extra software to be installed, even for many Linux users

      Then this should be the perfect occation to promote Theora and make those users install it. It's not that hard: just do a search for 'theora' in synaptic and click-n-install. I prefer the gstreamer-lib to go with totem-gstreamer.

  33. You are using "testing" or "unstable"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If so, that's why.

    1. Re:You are using "testing" or "unstable"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, a friend recommended "unstable" sources.list in order to get the latest and greatest in software packages. Now it's too late to go back to sarge and I'll just need to figure a way around the current no X problem (or install everything again like I know how).

    2. Re:You are using "testing" or "unstable"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Blame your friend, not Debian. They actively discourage end users from using Unstable. It is meant for developers working towards incorporating their packages into the Debian "framework."

      In any event, it probably isn't too late to downgrade to Testing. Point your sources.list to Testing and try installing xserver-xfree86 and xserver-common. Work backwards from there, fixing any dependency issues.

    3. Re:You are using "testing" or "unstable"? by grolschie · · Score: 1

      Debian "unstable" is fine. Problems arise when people add unofficial sources to /etc/apt/sources.list

    4. Re:You are using "testing" or "unstable"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually I always hear people being encouraged to run unstable. They say "oh unstable is more stable than most distros and it's really up to date!".

      It's the classic Debian Switcharoo.

      Want new software? Run unstable! Oh, it broke, well you should have been running stable!

      Once you get tired of the games just move on to a professional distro not this hobby horse crap made by college kids and unemployed c coders in their free time.

    5. Re:You are using "testing" or "unstable"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Actually I always hear people being encouraged to run unstable. They say "oh unstable is more stable than most distros and it's really up to date!".

      It is true. Other distros have dependency hell, too. Especially if you try and upgrade them, instead of reinstalling.

      Once you get tired of the games just move on to a professional distro

      If you are comfortable with doing things the Windows way (i.e. reinstalling when the time comes for a major upgrade) I suggest you keep on with that.

      I have painted myself into a corner with SuSE, dependancy-wise. That happened easier than it would have happened with Debian.

    6. Re:You are using "testing" or "unstable"? by FishandChips · · Score: 1

      Debian unstable is not fine, in fact it's a bit of a joke. Neither Gnome 2.10 desktop environment nor KDE 3.4.1 are currently available - the first is borked and the second isn't around at all. Funny that, since plenty of other distros have been running both quite happily for a few months now. We won't even go into wifi or xorg. As other distros, even Debian-based ones, show more and more that it doesn't have to be like this, a lot of folks must be wondering what on earth Debian is actually for. No amount of gay write-ups about Debconf can conceal the feeling that the Debian folks still haven't noticed that the world's moved on a bit since the 1970s.

      --
      Las qué passoun
      tournoun pas maï
    7. Re:You are using "testing" or "unstable"? by LordoftheWoods · · Score: 1

      It is intriguing and irritating how many people there are who dont use Debian but complain about it. gnome-about for me reveals version 2.10.2, and things have been running smoothly for me. It may not be "all there" but its certainly not "borked."

      If you watch the videos you'll see a nice anecodote about how one of the devs was complaining long ago before he was a DD, yet after it was suggested that he fix what he didn't like, he actually DID. Before you go about calling something a "joke," get your facts straight. unstable is development code and is not targetted at users (not that the adventurous can't, however, use it; I have in fact had few problems). It is not a "joke" because it serves its purpose perfectly: acting as a sort of 'entry point' for new packages and upgrades of old ones.

      Last I checked, GNOME 2.8 (from Sarge) is not from the '70s. Getting the latest and greatest software released has never, ever, been a priority in Debian. Building the best possible OS is, and this means letting things stabilize in unstable and testing before being released. Debian as an organization will not, as a rule, risk a release of new and unproven code to its stable OS. So before you go ranting about how your distro r0x and such, you could do yourself a favor and try to understand the distro you love bashing. To further refute your comment:

      mike@Tyr:~$ apt-cache show xserver-xorg | grep Version:
      Version: 6.8.2.dfsg.1-4

      Yes, this is a recent development, but it still shows a total lack of factual backing on your part. ( You don't have to run Debian to find these things out, there is packages.debian.org )

      I have no idea what about Debian could make a fellow Linux-user say such things such as that the information provide about the conference are "gay write-ups" to "conceal the feeling that the Debian folks still haven't noticed that the world's moved on a bit since the 1970s." Such hostility is utterly unfounded.

      And before the Ubuntu fans enter combat with their notions that Ubuntu has "replaced" Debian, let me say that you betray the beliefs of your own group of developers by saying that. I do not believe that any Ubuntu dev beliefs that Ubuntu has replaced Debian. Ubuntu had been a good citizen in the community and has contributed much back to its base distro. There is a generally good relationship between the two. The idea that Ubuntu makes Debian obsolete is created by misguided Ubuntu fans and contrasts with the ideas of those in charge of Ubuntu. Ubuntu is a great OS, it has benefitted immesurably from the countless hours of work put into Debian, and I believe it will continue to benefit from that work. It is not, at least not yet, completely independent from its base. Ubuntu has put tons of work into making an easy-to-use Debian with a pretty face, and to provide the world's kiddies with the latest and greatest software. Only a select group of Ubuntu fans have declared independence from Debian. I dare say that Ubuntu and Debian are not all that different; what the users see (and complain about) has changed since the people who created Ubuntu care about addressing problems which Debian devs don't see as problems worth addressing, or that they believe need to be addressed by individuals according to their needs and not be predetermined by the distro.

      This is a bit overboard in the rant department to me, but i feel it was worth it. I will come to the defense of Debian as long as I continue to see it as the best distro for me, and that may mean thourougly addressing the misguided accusations of others. Let the inevitable flameware begin (for the Xth time, where X is immesurably large).

    8. Re:You are using "testing" or "unstable"? by FishandChips · · Score: 1

      As it happens I use Debian Sid and typed my comments on it (then and now). Try hitting apt-get install gnome-desktop-enviroment. Your post suggests exactly why Debian is struggling to adapt to the twenty-first century: patronising incomprehension of the aspirations and needs of orginary computer users, for which read human beings: "Ubuntu has put tons of work into making an easy-to-use Debian with a pretty face, and to provide the world's kiddies with the latest and greatest software." So other distros are toys for kids, only real men use Debian, etc. Some of us can see where this is leading and we aren't keen to go there, imho.

      --
      Las qué passoun
      tournoun pas maï
    9. Re:You are using "testing" or "unstable"? by LordoftheWoods · · Score: 1

      Other distros are not necessarily toys for kids, if you had read my post you would have seen I find Ubuntu a very amiable distribution. Not just for kids, but for anyone who enjoys using it. I don't like the "There is only Debian" or "Real Men use Debian" mentalities either. My opinion is that if you are an ordinary computer user and also the maintainer of your computer (you know how many problems this causes in the Windows camp), then you have needs which Debian does not serve and Ubuntu would be a much better choice. As for the dependency issue with gnome-desktop-environment, this is generally a non-issue: it is just a slight quirk which happens every now-and-then because of the fine granularity of packages being released into the archive. Yes, it could be avoided by reworking the scripts which release the packages into the archive, but as I said it is a non-issue because those who use unstable are supposed to be developers who know what that means and that it will be resolved when all dependencies are released into the archive. It even explains it to you:

      "Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable distribution that some required packages have not yet been created or been moved out of Incoming."

      Again, this is just how it works since packages are released little-by-little into unstable. But somehow I suspect you already knew this..

      Also, the only reason I chose to use the world 'kiddies' in my post was to characterize the whining which often happens about Debian due to the age of its stable packages. Besides, why would "ordinary computer users" feel the need to upgrade anyway? Why would they even consider using unstable, Debian's development system? Some such users in the windows camp are still using 7-yr old Windows 98. The only updates they really need are the "Priority: high" ones to software with potential security vulnerabilities, they hardly need to update all of GNOME.

  34. Not in Helsinki by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    BTW DebConf5 was held in Espoo, not in Helsinki.

  35. Erinn Clark by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Of all the distros, Debian definitely has the best looking geek chicks on board.

    1. Re:Erinn Clark by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You still have to compete with the BSD attractor.

      Sorry, no links, last attempt apparently blew up the BSD-box the pictures were on... Heh heh.

  36. slammed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hey, I got one frame in!

  37. Sixth? by bioglaze · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If this was sixth, was the first one 0th?

    --
    Who is John Galt?
    1. Re:Sixth? by darketernal · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yes.

  38. and our consensus? by consonant · · Score: 1

    all you base are belong to us

    --
    [Slashdot Comments We Liked]
  39. Phew... by Momoru · · Score: 4, Funny

    Sixth DebConf Ends in Success

    At least it wasn't like the previous five DebConf's which ended in bloodshed.

    1. Re:Phew... by Jim+Hall · · Score: 1

      Sixth DebConf Ends in Success

      Nope, doesn't help. For some reason, I'm still reading this headline as "Sith DebConf Ends in Success".

      So now the Sith have organized, and it's no longer "one master, one apprentice." Damn. Time to get your lightsabers ready.

  40. High level of comments by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I must say that the slashdotters comments are very informative, analytical, well written and informative. More of this stuff please ...

  41. Mark Shuttleworth gave a talk on Ubuntu by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting
    Mark Shuttleworth gave a talk about the purpose of Ubuntu.

    The video server is still responsive; there should be a mirror or two of that video, btw.

  42. Questions on current Sid by tyrione · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Some questions (if these were addressed at the conference my apologies for asking here):
    • What is the status on KDE 3.4.1 and accompanying addons becoming current with X.org currently kludging its way through Sid?[alioth hasn't updated its 3.4.1 packages since early June, long before Branden submitted X.org into Sid.]
    • When the hell is GNUstep going to get rebuilt against Freetype 2.1.10?
    • When will the Debian Java Policy become standard and agree upon?
    • Should I just build my own local debs for Eclipse 3.1 or will they be released before 2010?
    • What is the status, or if a plan even exists, regarding Debian working on a seemless Wireless config subsystem similar to say OS X? [waproamd, ndiswrapper, etc are ductape building blocks]*

    I am well aware that all these questions could be directed to a package manager, yet when it's broadcast to a higher level audience more attention helps overcome the inertia in place which always causes those package manager to accelerate their updates and/or be more pro-active on such concerns.

    [Note: I would assume when municipalities adopt the OSS model they plan on having both wired and wireless options accessible to their employees that could only help us regular users in seeing improvements to a vitally overlooked section of networking]

    1. Re:Questions on current Sid by andersa · · Score: 4, Informative

      What is the status on KDE 3.4.1 and accompanying addons becoming current with X.org currently kludging its way through Sid?[alioth hasn't updated its 3.4.1 packages since early June, long before Branden submitted X.org into Sid.]

      Everybody is working on the transition from GCC 3.3 to GCC 4. A big pile of packages have still to be rebuild. During that time the X Strike Force is working on getting Xorg to compile on all architectures. Once all that is in place. KDE 3.4.1 will be uploaded, and the bug squishing on that will begin. I'm guessing a month or so before a fully working KDE 3.4.1 is in sid, give a couple of months/take a week.. ;)

      In the meantime you can still use Alioth KDE 3.4.1 packages with sid and xorg (Yes, Really!). You need to delete all aspell and libjack packages from sid, and get libaspell and libjack from testing, then KDE will install without problems. And hold off on upgrading once you have something that works, unless you are prepared to sort out the dependency issues that are bound to arise

    2. Re:Questions on current Sid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "I am well aware that all these questions could be directed to a package manager, yet when it's broadcast to a higher level audience more attention helps overcome the inertia in place which always causes those package manager to accelerate their updates and/or be more pro-active on such concerns."

      You're assuming the packages managers read slashdot, and if they did that they carefully crawl through all comments?

      My interpretation of your post (and I'm betting top dollar I am not along on this one) is that you are A.) too lazy to email the packages managers and B.) showing off.

      Do us all a favour and just talk to the right people and stop showing off.

    3. Re:Questions on current Sid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      s/along/alone/

    4. Re:Questions on current Sid by Overfiend · · Score: 3, Informative

      [alioth hasn't updated its 3.4.1 packages since early June, long before Branden submitted X.org into Sid.]

      Correction: I didn't upload the X.Org X11 packages to unstable (sid). David Nusinow did. David has taken the lead on X.Org X11 responsibilities, as I have recently acquired others.

      Doesn't stop me from helping out and doing commits, but I've been distancing myself from the actual package uploads over the past year or so. For example, Fabio Massimo Di Nitto handled most of the XFree86 4.3.0 uploads.

      --
      Address-collecting spam robots don't know how to crack ROT13. Do you?
    5. Re:Questions on current Sid by tyrione · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the correct. I hadn't figured once you were elected to lead the Debian Ship you'd have to handoff X packages as well.

      I've got them installed with Alioth packages, with a little tinkering it is working.

  43. you FAIL 1t by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Redundant

    800 w/51D2 Megs of

  44. More info on Available Videos by sirmikester · · Score: 4, Informative

    Check out http://wiki.debian.net/?DebConf5Talks for more details about the available videos (some including slides).

    --
    In linux libertas
  45. Ob "Monty Python and the Holy GPL" reference by g2devi · · Score: 1

    MORTICIAN: Bring out your dead!
    Bring out your dead!
    [clang] Bring out your dead!
    [clang] Bring out your dead!
    [clang] Bring out your dead!
    [clang] Bring out your dead!
    SLASHDOT: Here's one -- nine pence.
    DEBIAN: I'm not dead!
    MORTICIAN: What?
    SLASHDOT: Nothing -- here's your nine pence.
    DEBIAN: I'm not dead!
    MORTICIAN: Here -- he says he's not dead!
    SLASHDOT: Yes, he is.
    DEBIAN: I'm not!
    MORTICIAN: He isn't.
    SLASHDOT: Well, he will be soon, he's very ill.
    DEBIAN: I'm getting better!
    SLASHDOT: No, you're not -- you'll be stone dead in a moment.
    MORTICIAN: Oh, I can't take him like that -- it's against regulations.
    DEBIAN: I don't want to go on the cart!
    SLASHDOT: Oh, don't be such a baby.
    MORTICIAN: I can't take him...
    DEBIAN: I feel fine!
    SLASHDOT: Oh, do us a favor...
    MORTICIAN: I can't.
    SLASHDOT: Well, can you hang around a couple of minutes? He won't be long.
    MORTICIAN: Naaah, I got to go on to SCO's -- they've lost nine today.
    SLASHDOT: Well, when is your next round?
    MORTICIAN: Thursday.
    DEBIAN: I think I'll go for a walk.
    SLASHDOT: You're not fooling anyone y'know. Look, isn't there something you can do?
    DEBIAN: I feel happy... I feel happy.

  46. no roiting or violence is good by achacha · · Score: 1

    At least there was no rioting, raping or pillaging, I would say it was a success. With these Debian people you can never tell which way things will go.

  47. ends in success? by m4c+north · · Score: 1

    exit $SUCCESS

    --
    Who's your user, program?
  48. 300-40-20 by damicha · · Score: 0

    you say

    300 participants (usually 15$ are industry sponsored at compatable events)

    40 countries, makes less than 10 per each of 40 countries.........

    20 sponsors.....

    this is one sponsor every 15 participants.....

    Are you sure about having the Debian numbers, not some DoD 'conference'?

    If so, bye bye debian...........