260 lines
15 KiB
HTML
260 lines
15 KiB
HTML
<!--startcut ==========================================================-->
|
|
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
|
|
<HTML>
|
|
<HEAD>
|
|
<title>The Fourth Annual Linux Expo LG #30</title>
|
|
</HEAD>
|
|
<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#A000A0"
|
|
ALINK="#FF0000">
|
|
<!--endcut ============================================================-->
|
|
|
|
<H4>
|
|
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
|
|
</H4>
|
|
|
|
<P> <HR> <P>
|
|
<!--===================================================================-->
|
|
|
|
<center>
|
|
<H1><font color="maroon">The Fourth Annual Linux Expo</font></H1>
|
|
<H4>By <a href="mailto:dpenland@mindspring.com">David Penland</a></H4>
|
|
</center>
|
|
<P> <HR> <P>
|
|
<A HREF="./photos1.html">Photo Album</A>
|
|
<P> <HR> <P>
|
|
This year, Red Hat Software decided to hold the fourth annual Linux Expo
|
|
at Duke University's Bryan Center in Durham, North Carolina. The event was
|
|
scheduled over three days from April twenty-eighth to the thirtieth. In
|
|
addition to the normal vendor displays and conference, the Linux Expo web
|
|
site promised such diverse attractions as a quake fest and a paintball
|
|
tournament. I arrived at the Center at seven-thirty on Thursday to find
|
|
over one hundred people already ahead of me in line. Registration wasn't
|
|
until eight o'clock. Apparently I was not the only Linux fanatic champing
|
|
at the bit.
|
|
<P>
|
|
The doors did not actually open until a little past eight, and I did not
|
|
get in to register until about eight forty. As a pre-registered attendee, I
|
|
received a Linux Expo tote bag bearing the Expo logo, as well as logos of
|
|
Expo sponsors. Inside I found a bound copy of the proceedings, a VAResearch
|
|
tee shirt, a Red Hat cap, an issue of SysAdmin, and a Caldera flashlight, as
|
|
well as flyers advertising specials at Expo vendor booths.
|
|
<P>
|
|
Prominently placed in front of the entrance was the Red Hat booth. Their
|
|
booth featured the new Red Hat Linux 5.1, due to be released the following
|
|
Monday. Also on the upper floor was the Caldera, Linux Hardware solutions,
|
|
Linux International, Solid, and RHAD Labs booths, as well as the Expo store,
|
|
and the Softpro Bookstore.
|
|
<P>
|
|
Because of registration delays, the tutorials and technical conference
|
|
fell thirty minutes behind schedule, and remained out of sync with the business
|
|
track for the rest of the day. The Extreme Linux tutorial was kicked off by
|
|
Mad Dog Hall, who explained the name Extreme Linux, and the snow
|
|
boarding penguin logo. Basically, Extreme Linux is Linux with an attitude
|
|
Although Mad Dog said that the project's founders do not want to tie.
|
|
the commodity cluster idea to a single operating system, he urged people
|
|
to use the name Extreme Linux when referring to clusters of Linux machines.
|
|
<P>
|
|
After Mad Dog finished, Peter Beckman explained how Extreme Linux
|
|
cluste rs were used at Los Alamos' Advanced Computing Labs. Several members of
|
|
his team talked about their experiences with the system, and the problems
|
|
they had solved. The talk featured the Linux Expo cluster, a four node cluster
|
|
set up especially for the show. The cluster consisted of 4 dual 333
|
|
MHz Pentium two's, each with 256 megabytes of ram and a four gigabyte disk
|
|
drive. The cluster was tied together with a Myrinet network. After putting the cluster through its paces with modeling programs, Beckman decide
|
|
to bring out a "practical application", the Extreme Linux monster truck.
|
|
<P>
|
|
Although it had been a radio shack remote control toy in a previous
|
|
life, the monster truck had undergone an "Extreme" transformation. The body had
|
|
been removed, and the truck's circuit board hacked. For vision, the monster
|
|
truck had a Connectix quickcam with a custom mount to allow panning.
|
|
Mounted on top was a Toshiba Libretto with a wireless Ethernet connection
|
|
to the cluster. An operator sat at the console of the cluster, controlling
|
|
the truck as it cruised across the floor observing the crowd with
|
|
its quickcam. The operator's console was projected on a screen, and the crowd
|
|
could see themselves from the truck's point of view thanks to the quickcam.
|
|
Beckman assured us that the truck had a practical use, pulling network
|
|
cables under the raised floor at Los Alamos. Without a doubt, the truck
|
|
stole the show. For more information see http://www.Extremelinux.org/.
|
|
<P>
|
|
After the tutorial, I decided to make my way to the vendor area on the
|
|
lower level. Strategically placed at the entrance to the vendor area was Cobalt
|
|
Microserver Inc. They were showing the inexpensive Cobalt Qube microserver, a
|
|
blue 7.25"x7.25"x7.75" cube with powerful intranet server capabilities. This
|
|
little box will be near the top of every Linux geek's Christmas list.
|
|
<P>
|
|
Inside the door I found Stay online, a retailer of inexpensively priced
|
|
computer components. The vendor area was so jammed with Linux enthusiasts
|
|
that I had a hard time getting to every booth. Linux Mall was once again
|
|
on hand offering great deals on everything. I picked up Red Hat Linux 5.
|
|
1 for twenty-five dollars and Star Office Commercial for fifty dollars. Sun
|
|
Microsystems was a very noticeable new addition to the Expo this year,
|
|
showing off complete Ultrasparc computers as well as Ultrasparc based
|
|
motherboards for building your own homebrew ultrapenguin machine. Alta
|
|
Technology and Paralogic, two vendors of pre-built Extreme Linux clusters
|
|
were also present. At another entrance, Jim Paradis of Digital Equipment
|
|
Corporation entertained a mass of power hungry linuxers with a new smp alpha
|
|
machine.
|
|
<P>
|
|
Cobalt wasn't the only company with miniature gee-whiz computers.
|
|
CorelComputer was showing off their soon-to-be released Netwinder computers.
|
|
These little boxes (9.5"x6"x2") have everything you could want in an
|
|
intranet/internet client, and can be used as web servers as well. The
|
|
Netwinder could be serious competition for the Qube, but I think many customers might choose a mixed environment of both.
|
|
<P>
|
|
Another major attraction was the RHAD Labs booth, which featured a
|
|
couple of computers running gnome. The booth was staffed by members of the RHAD Labs development team, and Miguel de Icaza made occasional appearances.
|
|
At just about any point in time, people were lined up three deep to get
|
|
a look and gnome and ask the developers questions. One of the gnome computers
|
|
had a camera attached to it, and some interesting pictures from the Expo
|
|
have been posted on http://www.gnome.org/.
|
|
<P>
|
|
Toward the end of the second day of the Expo, I got an unexpected
|
|
surprise which made the show immensely better than I had expected. While
|
|
looking through the popular tee shirts offered by Xunilung, I overheard
|
|
someone proclaiming that Linux was a misnomer, and that the correct name of the
|
|
system was Gnu-Linux. This was a position I had heard before. I stepped
|
|
back from the tee shirts to peek around people who had gathered around a table
|
|
placed perpendicularly to Xunilung's. Sure enough, the gnu-linux admonishment
|
|
was coming from Richard Stallman. For those who are not familiar with rms,
|
|
as Stallman is often called, he is the person who started the gnu project in
|
|
1983 to provide a free version of Unix for anyone who wanted it, unencumbered
|
|
by proprietary licensing restrictions. Stallman is responsible for the Free
|
|
Software foundation, and the general public license.
|
|
<P>
|
|
Although I do not really agree with him about the naming of Linux, I
|
|
firmly believe Linux could not have been developed without the tools provide
|
|
d by the FSF. Stallman has been a hero of mine since before Linus discovered
|
|
Minix, so I was somewhat speechless when I saw him there unannounced.
|
|
I stood back and watched for a while as young hackers got autographs and
|
|
bought gnu tee shirts, CD-ROMs, and books. Occasionally Stallman would place
|
|
the platter from an old disk pack on his head. With this "halo" in place, he
|
|
became Saint Richard, patron saint of the Church of Emacs, and he would bless
|
|
the young hacker's computers provided they did not have any proprietary
|
|
software on them. When it was my turn to talk to Saint Richard, I thanked
|
|
him for the work he had done, and bought two Emacs books. He signed the books
|
|
happy hacking, and happier hacking, Richard Stallman.
|
|
<P>
|
|
After my encounter with rms on the second day of the Expo, I found my
|
|
way to the auditorium where Linus would be giving the keynote speech. I
|
|
was lucky, I found a seat about fifteen rows back from the stage. Less
|
|
fortunate fans continued to file in for another fifteen minutes, and by the
|
|
time Linus got on stage, people were standing and sitting in the aisles. An
|
|
overhead projector indicated the theme of Linus' talk, titled Ramblin'
|
|
Linus. Linus took the microphone and said "I'm Linus, and I am your god",
|
|
at which point the crowd responded with deafening applause. Linus thanked
|
|
various people for their work, in particular Alan Cox who has taken over
|
|
the normally thankless job of maintaining the stable kernel for the last
|
|
year or so. Some of the topics covered were the current state of the
|
|
development kernel, the upcoming release of the 2.2 kernel, and future
|
|
directions of kernel development. Linus spent about twenty minutes answering
|
|
questions from the audience, and then everyone filed out for a southern
|
|
style barbecue dinner in the university yard.
|
|
<P>
|
|
Conference talks were the main focus of the Expo for me. Unfortunately
|
|
there were so many talks offered, I had a hard time making up my mind about
|
|
which ones to attend. Extreme Linux is the only tutorial I made it to,
|
|
but there were eleven more, on subjects as diverse as programming with gtk+,
|
|
Python, hacking the Linux kernel, LinuxConf, and a demonstration of the Coda
|
|
filesystem.
|
|
<P>
|
|
The conference was broken up into a business track and a technical
|
|
track. The technical track auditorium was where I spent most of my time, but
|
|
I did make it to several interesting business talks. Robert Hart of Red
|
|
Hat Software gave a talk on linux certification dealing with what certification
|
|
meant, and who should try to get it. He also encouraged the audience to
|
|
drop off resumes at the Red Hat booth, which I did. I am still wait
|
|
ing on your call Robert. Mad Dog gave an anecdotal talk on how Linux is
|
|
used around the world, and Tim Bird of Caldera filled us in on the COAS
|
|
project. COAS is a project to develop an integrated administration tool for
|
|
Linux and possibly other unices, they are looking for volunteers, so drop
|
|
them a line. The last talk in the business track was actually a panel which
|
|
discussed free software licensing. The panel consisted of Eric Raymond,
|
|
Richard Stallman, and Bruce Perens, who moderated. Raymond's and Stallman's
|
|
views were not exactly in sync, so some very interesting discussion concerning
|
|
the state of free or open source software licensing took place.
|
|
<P>
|
|
The technical track started earlier, and ran longer than the business
|
|
track all three days. Unfortunately, registration problems, and technical
|
|
difficulties threw the schedule off the first two days, and technical talk
|
|
s were out of sync with business talks which made it hard to move freely
|
|
between tracks. David Miller gave a very technical talk on optimizing the
|
|
Cobalt Microserver. Peter Braam of Carnegie Mellon University gave two
|
|
informative talks on the new VFS interface, and the Coda distributed files
|
|
system. The Coda team has made a lot of progress, and the filesystem is so
|
|
mething worth looking into. Peter also mentioned that the team is looking
|
|
for a good system programmer who likes interesting work, but doesn't mind
|
|
being poor.
|
|
<P>
|
|
Bruce Perens and Daryll Strauss both gave talks on the use of computers
|
|
to make movies. Strauss showed us how a pile of alphas running Linux help
|
|
ed with the making of Titanic. During a short video presentation, he pointed
|
|
out some amazing effects that were computer generated. Bruce went over
|
|
some basics of computer animation in Toy Story, and showed an experimental
|
|
piece by Pixar called Gerry's Game. The auditorium was packed for both talks.
|
|
<P>
|
|
Miguel de Icaza discussed the gnome project to a very large crowd. Due
|
|
to technical problems with his laptop, the talk ran over by about thirty
|
|
minutes. Fortunately, Miguel is a very entertaining speaker, and he kept
|
|
the audience's attention while half of the RHAD Labs team and a concerned
|
|
member of the audience fretted over his computer. Lars Wirzenius presented
|
|
his Linux Anecdotes, a history of the linux system from someone who was
|
|
right there when it was created. Lars shared an office with Linus at the
|
|
University of Helsinki, and was the first person to actually run Linux
|
|
on his computer. Alan Cox, a fixture at Linux Expo, gave a talk about the
|
|
trials and tribulations of porting Linux to the Apple Macintosh 68K. His
|
|
talk was titled "I don't care if space aliens ate my mouse". The title
|
|
comes from an old Apple document, apparently the only official document
|
|
ever written on the apple mouse.
|
|
<P>
|
|
These were only a few of the talks given at the Expo, a complete list
|
|
can be found on the Linux Expo web site: http://www.linuxexpo.org . In
|
|
addition to vendors and talks, there were other things to keep Expo attendees
|
|
busy. A quake fest ran all day every day on the lower level, with deathmatches
|
|
every fifteen minutes. Prizes were awarded for the highest body count from
|
|
each match up. Birds of a Feather sessions were offered throughout
|
|
the three days on a variety of topics, and an "email garden" was set
|
|
up to allow attendees to get access to the net for checking their email.
|
|
On Thursday, the age old question of which editor, Emacs or vi, is superior
|
|
was finally answered. Obviously, the only way to resolve the issue was
|
|
through brute force, so the Expo hosted Editor Wars, a paintball tourname
|
|
nt. When the CO2 propelled paint mist settled, the vi team emerged from the
|
|
field victorious.
|
|
<P>
|
|
Wrapping up the show Saturday evening was the second annual Linux Bowl.
|
|
Mad Dog was the host, and the teams consisted of conference speakers and
|
|
audience participants. Rasterman, of RHAD Labs, and audience members were
|
|
the judges. Bruce Perens and Eric Raymond were two of the contestants.
|
|
Some of the questions asked were: what lilo option is used to list currently
|
|
mapped files(answer: -q), what was the first kernel tar.gz to exceed
|
|
ten megabytes ( to which Bruce Perens promptly replied Microsoft NT. The
|
|
correct answer was 2.1.88), which movie featured the Red Hat Office building
|
|
(one contestant replied Debbie does Durham, and Mad Dog felt compelled
|
|
to award one point. The correct answer was Kiss the Girls), why was the
|
|
Beowulf project named Beowulf( answer: it sounded cool), and a trick question,
|
|
what was the first system to run UNIX ( answer: a pdp7).
|
|
<P>
|
|
The Fourth Annual Linux Expo was a tremendous success, and I think every
|
|
one went home happy. The show organizers deserve a big round of applause
|
|
for their efforts, and if this year's turn out is any indication of things
|
|
to come, they had better get a bigger building next year.
|
|
|
|
<!--===================================================================-->
|
|
<P> <hr> <P>
|
|
<center><H5>Copyright © 1998, David Penland <BR>
|
|
Published in Issue 30 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, July 1998</H5></center>
|
|
|
|
<!--===================================================================-->
|
|
<P> <hr> <P>
|
|
<A HREF="./index.html"><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM SRC="../gx/indexnew.gif"
|
|
ALT="[ TABLE OF CONTENTS ]"></A>
|
|
<A HREF="../index.html"><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM SRC="../gx/homenew.gif"
|
|
ALT="[ FRONT PAGE ]"></A>
|
|
<A HREF="./raymond.html"><IMG SRC="../gx/back2.gif"
|
|
ALT=" Back "></A>
|
|
<A HREF="./wuest.html"><IMG SRC="../gx/fwd.gif" ALT=" Next "></A>
|
|
<P> <hr> <P>
|
|
<!--startcut ==========================================================-->
|
|
</BODY>
|
|
</HTML>
|
|
<!--endcut ============================================================-->
|