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118 lines
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<title>Linus Speaks at SVLUG Meeting LG #27</title>
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<H4>
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"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
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<H2>Linus Speaks at SVLUG Meeting</H2>
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<H4>By <a href="mailto:chris@dibona.com">Chris DiBona</a></H4>
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<P> <HR> <P>
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<A HREF="./svlug.html">SVLUG Photo Album</A>
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<P> <HR> <P>
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When we gave the job of arranging speakers to Sam Ockman, we never doubted
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his ability to bring in terrific speakers. His first speaker for our
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January meeting was his personal hero, H. Peter Anvin. For February, we had
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two speakers: Eric Raymond of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" fame and Bruce
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Perens of Debian. Therefore, the question became "How do you top these
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Linux luminaries?" Sam's answer was our March speaker, Linus Torvalds.
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<P>
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Until December, the Silicon Valley Linux Users Group (of which I am the
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Vice President) had met in the back dining room of the local Carl's Jr.
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(local burger chain). Carl's held around 40-50 people tightly. We had been
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talking about moving the meeting from this spot for some time, and some of
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our members who worked at Cisco pleaded to get a room for us
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for the Eric Raymond meeting in February. As expected, this meeting was standing
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room only, and we knew that with Linus coming we needed a much
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larger space. Again, Cisco (with Ben Woodard pushing it through) came
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through for us with a room rated for 350 people in their Gateway
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Conference center.
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<P>
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About a half hour before the meeting began, the chairs were full and
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people began to sit on the floor, against the walls and all
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around the room.
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Approximately 500 people had come to hear Linux speak.
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We were
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lucky--the air conditioning was in good shape, and
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the fire marshal didn't show up.
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<P>
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The meeting began and after the user-group formalities were complete,
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Linus was presented with the VA Research Excellence in Open Source
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Software Award, co-sponsored by Red Hat and O'Reilly. The prize was a
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loaded dual Pentium 333 from VA Research. In fact, Linus made out very
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well, receiving not only the computer just mentioned, but also a Palm Pilot
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professional
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from Klaus Schulz of 3Com and a six-pack of real beer from local legend Rick
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Moen. It should be noted that Linus didn't know about any of these awards
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before coming to the meeting.
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<P>
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Accompanied by thunderous applause, Linus stood before the podium and expressed
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his shock at the number of people who had showed up to hear him speak. He
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had been under the impression that it would be a small, intimate meeting
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like the first one he had attended last year at the burger joint.
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<P>
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He began his speech by telling the group what he wouldn't be talking about.
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He said he wouldn't be talking about user issues or MIS issues--all
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he would talk about was what he was doing with the kernel.
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<P>
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The hour-long speech (not counting the Q&A afterward)
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was a technical discussion of how he is improving SMP (symmetric
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multi-processing) support in the kernel.
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He talked about the challenges of moving from a single
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kernel resource lock for all CPUs as in the 2.0.x kernels to
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individual resource locks for the new kernels. He discussed the ways these
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changes affect things internally for the kernel, and how it affects the
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handling of shared memory, interrupts and I/O. Linus also spent some time
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talking about how the file system is being changed internally for better
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performance. The speech will be available on-line by the time this article
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goes to print (see Resources below), I'd recommend that you download it
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and listen to the whole thing.
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<P>
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In addition to videotaping the speech and taking still photos,
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the meeting in its entirety was broadcast over the MBone (Internet
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protocol multicast backbone). After Linus had finished speaking, all of the
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door prizes were given out, and everyone left the meeting happier and smarter
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than they were the day before.
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Special thanks are due to Linus Torvalds for speaking and to
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everyone else involved in making this meeting a success.
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<P>
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<H4>Resources</H4>
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<ul>
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<li>SVLUG: <A HREF="http://www.svlug.org/">http://www.svlug.org/</A>
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<li>REDHAT: <A HREF="http://www.redhat.com/">http://www.redhat.com/</A>
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<li>VA Research: <A HREF="http://www.varesearch.com/">http://www.varesearch.com/</A>
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<li>O'Reilly: <A HREF="http://www.ora.com/">http://www.ora.com/</A>
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</ul>
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<!--===================================================================-->
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<P> <hr> <P>
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<center><H5>Copyright © 1998, Chris DiBona <BR>
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Published in Issue 27 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, April 1998</H5></center>
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