Well, well, well. Hello again everyone, apologies for missing out on a Rewind last week but I did post 3 audio diaries this week, so I thought it was a bit redundant. It’s been a hell of a week, I know I say that every time, but I’ve been at LinuxCon 2009 in Portland hanging out with people I’d only previously read about. It was also my first time in the States. It took me 29 years but I finally made it over the water. So many interesting cultural differences and things to see, it was all a bit of a blur. Especially when combined with the jet lag. I arrived back yesterday morning but missed a night’s sleep because of the plane and the time difference. I slept 16hrs last night and I still feel like I could drop off any minute. It’ll take a few days adjustment I expect. So with a bucket load of stories to tell (far too many to fit in actually), here’s my week:

Jim Zemlin's Keynote

On Monday it was the first day of LinuxCon and I cramped into the main room with everyone to see Jim Zemlin’s opening keynote. It was called “Linux By Numbers” and basically involved Jim showing a number on the screen, followed by an explanation of what it meant. The thing that stuck out in my mind was over 10,000 lines of code added to the Linux kernel every week. But perhaps more importantly, over 5000 lines removed. That’s a hell of a turnover and shows just how many people are working on the Linux kernel worldwide. It was mind numbing to be in a room with so many of the most famous people in the Linux world. I was sat with Bradley and Karen from the Software Freedom Law Center, which was amazing enough in itself. They’re both really great people and I owe them a lot, having someone like that introduce you to people really makes a difference. For example, I was stood in the coffee area after the opening keynote getting a drink with Bradley and Karen when Ted Ts’o came over to say hello. As we were all stood talking I looked to my right and noticed Linus Torvalds stood about 6 feet away chatting with Bdale Garbee and others. I thought at first it might be the jet lag playing tricks on me and I was dreaming, but it was real. Bradley, Karen and I then went for lunch at a Thai place with Jeremy Allison. Jeremy is a close friend of Bradley’s, he works at Google now and he’s the co-creator of the Samba file server. Turns out he’s a big Red Dwarf fan and we talked a lot about that. Over the next few days I ate with Jeremy a few times and also had great fun watching him conduct the quiz dressed as Steve Ballmer. He spent about an hour getting into his costume and it was a closely guarded secret who he was going to be. More about the quiz later. Read the rest of this entry »

Me With Jeremy

Howdy folks, here’s the final of my LinuxCon Audio Diaries. I recorded it in Portland a couple of days ago but there was some trouble with my server and I had a lot of traveling to do, so the release has been delayed. This recording wraps up my week in Portland pretty well and I hope you enjoy it. I’m just off the plane back in England now, 2 or 3 hours ago. I’ve missed a nights sleep and I’m trying to keep myself awake till a normal time to help with jet lag. I’m a bit blurry eyed and definitely exhausted. It was an amazing week and something I’ll always remember for the rest of my life. I hope you’ve enjoyed the updates and I’ll have plenty more stories to relate as time goes on.

Mp3 file – The Final Update

The picture above is me with Jeremy “Ballmer” Allision, co-founder of the Samba project and all round top bloke in my book. There’s more pictures from Portland on Flickr.

Right now I’m off to find some match sticks to prop my eyes open. Take care, catch you soon

Dan

Howdy folks,

Linux Outlaws Saw

Here is my 2nd LinuxCon Audio diary update. Today was the first day of the conference proper and obviously there’s a lot to talk about. You can hear about my brushes with various Linux celebrities in the past 24hrs. It’s been great to meet Bradley and Karen in person for the first time and hang out with them. I also picked up the Linux Outlaws Saw I mentioned in the last update and I’ve added a picture for your amusement. It’s pretty awesome I must say. I hope I can get it back on the plane ok.

LinuxCon Update 2 – Audio File

It’s been a wild ride the last few days and as you can hear I’m still very tired but I’m hanging in there. I’ll be back with another update tomorrow. So till then, take care of yourselves

Dan

Howdy folks,

Portland Spirit

Greetings from lovely Portland, Oregon in the USA. I arrived here last night and I’m still pretty jet lagged to be honest, but I have events to relate already. I’ve made a quick audio clip to do just that and also uploaded a bunch of photos for you to look at. I’ll be posting more audio and hopefully photos as the days go on. I’ve decided to just encode this as mp3 and upload it, I know a few people won’t like that but it’s the quickest and easiest way too ensure everyone can get it. If it were a podcast I would set up a feed and ensure there was an Ogg version. These are just quick reports and besides, as a great friend and well known Free Software advocate told me “mp3 can be written and read 100% in Free Software”.

My First Audio Report

The Accompanying Photo Slideshow

I hope you enjoy the clip and I’ll be back with more adventures from LinuxCon 2009 in the coming days. Till then, take care of yourselves

Dan

The SAM desktop

After some delay it’s finally time for me to write up my thoughts about SAM Linux 2009, a distro I must confess I hadn’t really heard of until someone asked me to review it. It’s a German distribution based on the very popular PCLinuxOS. So how would I get on with this unknown quantity (to me at least), read on to find out…

Vital Stats:
Distro Base – PCLinuxOS
Packaging – .rpm (Managed by Synaptic)
Linux Kernel – 2.6.26.8.tex3
Default Desktop – XFCE 4.6.1

Installation:

The toolbox folder

I downloaded the standard install CD from the SAM website and got to work straight away. Upon booting it immediately became apparent just how much this is based off PCLinuxOS. You don’t exactly need to be Columbo to work it out, with big clues like a splash screen proclaiming “Powered by PCLinuxOS”. You then choose your keyboard layout. This is all to boot into a live session from the CD, before you begin the install. You eventually reach a GDM login screen which looks oddly similar to the Linux Mint 7 one, I guess they used the same theme. There’s no indication on the screen of what username or password to log in with, so I took a wild guess and put “guest” for both fields. This worked, much to my relief. Some kind of indicator on the screen would be really useful, it seems a bit of a oversight. Eventually you reach the live CD desktop, which is XFCE 4.6.1, an environment I haven’t used a lot in the past, but one that I’ve always enjoyed on my brief stays. In this configuration they’ve put the main toolbar along the bottom of the screen and a Wbar animated dock at the top. There’s no installer icon on the desktop and I was wondering where to begin. There is however a folder marked “toolbox”, looking in there I found an installer and some other applets. You’re prompted to enter the root account details and once again there’s no indication what these might be. Maybe I could have used Columbo after all, his wife’s probably a big fan of SAM Linux. I took a wild stab at “root” for both fields again, and it worked. Maybe I’m smarter than I thought. Read the rest of this entry »

As you will probably have heard me boasting everywhere, I’m going to Portland, Oregon for LinuxCon 2009 next week. I fly out on Friday (18th) and I think I’m mostly ready to go. A few people asked me to video blog the trip and I considered this, but a couple of problems immediately presented themselves:

1. As Fab said on the latest Linux Outlaws, “Have they seen you?!” He’s right, it’s not pretty.
2. I don’t have a decent camera or any real video editing skill.

This left me with a dilemma. I could write up reports of what happened each day but to be honest that sounds like far too much work. I’m not sure I’d want to write all that and I’m even less sure you’d want to read it. But then I hit upon a solution. What am I good at? Ok, don’t all jump at once. Audio seemed to be the answer. I’ll have my laptop and my portable Zoom H4 recorder for interviews anyway, so it should be easy to do a quick daily audio diary. Just something under 10mins reporting on what Linux celebrities I’ve met, what scrapes and adventures I’ve gotten into, and all that goodness. I’ll be posting the clips here each day and I’m calling it my LinuxCon Audio Diary. I’ve never been to the US before so this will be quite an experience for me, and I’m sure there’ll be plenty to talk about.

So that’s it really, I just wanted to let you know. Keep an ear out for that next week. Chip in with comments, questions or requests; as always, feedback is welcome. It’s gonna be quite a trip, as a great Liverpool band once sang, (no I’m not biased) get on the groovy train!!

See you soon,

Dan