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206 lines
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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
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<title>Atlanta Showcase Report Issue 19</title>
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<BODY BGCOLOR="#EEE1CC" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#0020F0"
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ALINK="#FF0000">
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<H4>
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"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
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</H4>
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<P> <HR> <P>
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<!--===================================================================-->
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<center>
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<H2>Atlanta Showcase Report</H2>
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<H4>By Phil Hughes,
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<a href="mailto:phil@ssc.com">phil@ssc.com</a>
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<a href="mailto:todds@ontko.com">todds@ontko.com</a></H4>
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</center>
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<P><HR>
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<a href="http://www.ale.org/showcase">The Atlanta Linux Showcase</a>
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is over, and everyone is beginning to recover.
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Recover, that is, from being awake too long, being on a plane too long and
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stuffing more Linux than will fit into one weekend.
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<p>ALS was put together by the Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts, the local
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Linux user's group in Atlanta, Georgia.
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The show began on Friday evening, June 6 and ran through Sunday
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afternoon.
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More than 500 people attended.
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The report following this one by Todd Shrider covers much of the show,
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including the talks.
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<p>I want to thank Amy Ayers and Karen Bushaw for making their photos
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available to us with a special thank you to Amy for getting them scanned and
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uploaded to the SSC ftp site.
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<p>I spent most of my time in the <I>Linux Journal</I> booth giving away
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magazines and talking to show attendees.
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One aspect that made this show special for me is that I didn't spend
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most of my time explaining that Linux is a Unix-like operating system to
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the attendees.
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Instead, I got to discuss Linux with experienced people with thoughtful
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questions, letting them know in the process how <I>LJ</I> could help them.
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Each attendee was truly interested in Linux and stopped at each booth in
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the show.
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I expect attendees appreciated the low signal-to-noise ratio in the
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booths; that is, conversations were solely about Linux.
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<h3>The Roast</h3>
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<p>On Saturday night there was a roast--no, I didn't change from a
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vegetarian into a meat eater overnight--we were roasting Linus.
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That is, a group of people presented interesting stories about Linus,
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intended to only slightly embarrass him.
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At the end of the evening, I felt that the roast had been successful in
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every way.
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<p>In front of a crowd of about 115 people, Eric Raymond, David Miller, Jon
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"maddog" Hall and I got to pick on this Linus character.
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Topics varied from Linus almost being hit by a car in Boston because he was
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so engrossed in talking about a particular aspect of kernel code, to the evolution of
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the top-half/bottom-half concept in interrupt handlers and to why Linus was
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apparently moving from geekdom to becoming a "hunk"
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sportswear model. (See the cover of the San Jose <I>Metro</I>, May 8-14, 1997.)
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<p>Maddog finished the roasting by telling a few Helsinki stories and showing
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a video that included Tove's parents talking about Linus.
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A good time was had by the roasters and the audience and, as Linus'
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closing comment was "I love you all," we assume he had a good
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time too and wasn't offended by our gentle ribbing.
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<h3>The Future</H3>
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<P>The show came off very well. I consider this sucess an amazing feat for an
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all-volunteer effort.
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The ALE members plan to write an article for <I>Linux Gazette</I> about how
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they made this happen.
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We'll also make this information available on the <a
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href="http://www.ssc.com/glue">GLUE web site</a>.
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I would like to see more shows put on by user groups.
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The local involvement, the enthusiasm of the attendees and the all Linux
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flavor of the show made this weekend a great experience.
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We are already thinking about a Seattle or Portland show and would like to
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help others make regional shows a reality.
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<P><HR>
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<p><a href="./alephotos.html">Take a look at the ALS Photo Album.</a>
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<center><H2>More on ALS</H2>
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by Todd M. Shrider,
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<a href="mailto:todds@ontko.com">todds@ontko.com</a></H4></center>
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<P><HR>
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<P>I first started writing this article in my hotel room late Sunday evening
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(or early Monday morning) planning to get just enough sleep that I would
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wake up in time to catch my plane. The plan didn't work--I
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missed my 6:00 AM flight out of Atlanta.
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I did the second draft while waiting for my new 9:45 AM flight.
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The third draft
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came (yes, you guessed it) while waiting for my 1:30 PM connection from
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Detroit to Dayton, also having missed the previous connection because of
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my first flight's late arrival. Suffice it to say, I'm now back home in
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Indiana and still enjoying the high received from the Atlanta Linux
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Showcase.
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<P>Thanks to all the sponsors and to our host, the Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
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user group, the conference started with a bang and went off
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without a hitch. The conference was a three day event, starting with
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registration Friday and ending Sunday with a kernel hacking session led
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by none other than Linus himself. In between there were numerous
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conferences found in both a business and technical track, several birds of
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a feather (BoF) sessions and a floor show. These events were broken up
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with frequent trips to local pubs and very little sleep.
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<P>This was my first (but not last) Linux conference, and I found that an
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added benefit of ALS was meeting all the people who
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use Linux as a viable business platform/tool. (These same people tend to be doing
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very cool things with Linux on the side).
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From companies such as Red Hat to Caldera to others such as
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MessageNet, Cyclades and DCG Computers, it was obvious that many people
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have very creative ways to make money with
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Linux. This wasn't limited, by any means, to the vendors. Many of the
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conference speakers talked of ways to make money with Linux or of their
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experiences with Linux in a professional environment.
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<P>
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All of these efforts seemed to compliment the key-note address, World
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Domination 101, where Linus Torvalds, called for applications,
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applications, applications. Did I say he thought Linux needed a few
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more useful applications? Anyway, he pointed out the more or less obvious
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fact that, if Linux is going to be a
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success in a world of commercial operating systems, we need every
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application type you find in other commercial operating systems. In other
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words, if you're thinking about doing--don't think--just
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do it.
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Another thing that Linus pointed out, and that I was glad to hear echoed
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throughout the conference, was that Linux needs to be easy to use. It
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needs to be so easy that a secretary or corporate executive
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could sit and be as productive as they would be
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with Windows 95. We need to make people realize that Linux has gotten rid
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of the high learning curve usually associated with Unix.
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<P>Something pointed out by Don Rosenberg, while speaking on the "how-to" and
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"what's needed next" of commercial Linux, was that we are now in a stage
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where the innovators (that's us) and the early adopters (that's us as well
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as the people using Linux in the business world today) must continue to
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push forward so that we can get a group of early adopters (the old DOS
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users) to take us seriously. In Maddog's closing remarks he urged us all
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to find two DOS users, convert them to Linux and then tell them to do the
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same. As a step in this direction, today I introduced a local computer corporate sales
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firm to Linux; whether they take my advice and run is left to be seen, but
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believe me, I'm pushing.
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<P>The rest of the conference was filled with business and technical talks.
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The business talks included things such as Eric Raymond's "The Cathedral
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and the Bazaar", talks on OpenLinux by both Jeff Farnsworth and Steve
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Webb and "Linux Connectivity for Humans" by none other than Phil Hughes.
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Lloyd Brodsky was on hand to talk about Intranet Support of Collaborative
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Planning while Lester Hightower brought us the story of PCC and their
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efforts to bring Linux to the business world. Mark Bolzern spoke of the
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significance of Linux and Bob Young talked of the "process" not
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the "product" of Linux.
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<P>The technical discussion track started with Richard Henderson's discussion
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of the shared libraries and their function across several architectures.
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Michael Maher gave a HOWTO of Red Hat's RPM package management system and
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Jim Paradis discussed EM86 and what remains to be done,
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so that one can run Intel/Linux binaries under Alpha
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Linux. David Miller then followed giving a boost of enthusiasm with his
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discussion of the tasks involved in porting Linux to SPARC and Miguel de
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Icaza took us on a trip to the world of RAID and Linux. We convened the next
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day to hear David Mandelstam discuss what is involved with wide-area
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networks and Mike Warfields anatomy of a cracker's intrusion.
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<P>All in all, the conference was a huge success. What I might suggest as an
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improvement for next year is more involvement from the vendors (or maybe
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just more vendors), a possible sale from the vendors of their special
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Linux wares to the conference attendees and a possible tutorial session
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like the ones seen at Uselinux (Anaheim, California, January 1997). Other than
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that, a few virtual beers (I owe
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you Maddog) and lots of great geek conversation made for one wild weekend.
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<!--===================================================================-->
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<P> <hr> <P>
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<center><H5>Copyright © 1997, Phil Hughes and Todd M. Shrider<BR>
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Published in Issue 19 of the Linux Gazette, July 1997</H5></center>
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