Linuxfest Northwest

Putz3000I would consider myself an unlikely Linux ambassador. Not that I hide any Linux use or fascination but that I am not out there on a mission to encourage or convert people to Linux. Mostly it would be an occasional conversation about me using Linux for something or a conversation where I am explaining that there are more operating systems then just Windows or OS X. Most of the time my Linux conversations are with those that already have some connection to Linux. To be honest I have probably been a much bigger "Ambassador" to LibreOffice than to Linux; and I am not an uber LibreOffice or ODF fan boy but one that believes for most basic users it will work just fine without all the Microsoft expense. All of that has taken a slight detour within the past couple of weeks.

At the end of April I was finally able to do something "geeky" by attending LinuxFest Northwest (check box in the 'ol geek bucket list). It's not that the sessions where so enlightening or life altering that I have been sending up Linux smoke signals from the Bridger mountains or anything like that; although they were informative and enjoyable. Nor was I overpowered and brain washed by the four guys I carpooled with for the 14'ish hour drives. Although we did have some good conversations some regarding Linux and some regarding Open Source issues, and to say none of it has had an influence on any of my views would be untrue. I did come back from LinuxFest Northwest with a more renewed interest in Linux and have been using Fedora now almost exclusively outside of work. I also returned with what I consider some cool SWAG. Now it's the SWAG that's the most important thing of all right? I came back with a nice black Fedora t-shirt that I thought fellow carpooler dowdle was going to mug me for, a beanie with GNU printed on it from the Free Software Foundation that I purchased, and a hippie looking acid dyed t-shirt promoting Linux and LinuxFest Northwest 2015 which I also purchased. I have been intentionally wearing them when I can.

My first "Ambassador" moment came when my oldest boy asked me about the GNU printed on my beanie. This gave me an opportunity, as well as a challenge, to explain to an almost 9 year old what GNU meant within the context of the Free Software Foundation. This included the discussion of locked down proprietary software and the negatives of such as well as the pro's of software that is open and free to improve or be fixed. In addition to my oldest son being in the car with me I also had two of my other boys one of which was listening to the conversation intently as well.

My second "Ambassador" moment came about on a quick trip to Walmart. I was once again wearing my GNU beanie. I was in the produce area and walked near a Latino family whose dad looked in my direction. Shortly thereafter his family passed by me and as he did he looked at me, smiled, and said "GNU huh?" and kept walking. Now it is certainly possible he thought my beanie was promoting the Wildebeest but I like to think he knew it was in reference to Free Software.

The third and most recent "Ambassador" moment once again took place at my local Walmart store a little after eleven at night. This time I was wearing my "Peace, Love and Linux", LinuxFest Northwest t-shirt. I had just finished checking out at one of the self checkout stations and ended up having a conversation with gentleman named Keith (we exchanged names as we parted ways). Keith saw my shirt and asked me if I used Linux which turned into a nice conversation. Now Keith knew of Linux and knew of OpenOffice but that was probably all. It's even possible Keith had an experience long ago or perhaps he has just read about Linux and OpenOffice but beyond that I would say Keith was someone that probably had some degree of interest in Linux. He asked me the usual questions of how easy or hard it was to install these days and where could a person get Linux, did you have to look on eBay? I told him he could just download it from the distribution's website. Told him briefly about the DistroWatch website which a person could find links to the actual distributions websites. I told him most users probably used Ubuntu or some derivative of Ubuntu or they probably used Fedora. I told him either one should install and work just fine on most hardware. He asked about OpenOffice which led to a discussion of OpenOffice and the origins of LibreOffice and which one was probably the best to use and how most distributions most likely included it by default. I even explained how LibreOffice was also available for Windows and OS X too. All in all it was an enjoyable conversation that lasted several minutes and ended in a hand shake and the exchanging of names. Keith also verified a couple of times the names of the two distributions (Ubuntu & Fedora) I had recommended. Now I have no idea if Keith will actually try installing Linux or try using LibreOffice. Nor do I know if he will have a good experience or a bad experience if he does decide to try using Open Source software. What I do know is that because I simply wore an article of clothing promoting Linux, Keith saw an opportunity to express an interest in something to someone that might be able to answer questions and provide some first hand feedback.

I have never really found a way to "get involved" with a project before as I am not a coder, have no deep comprehension of the inner workings of Linux, nor do I feel I would make a good candidate for documentation writing. This wasn't a bad way to get involved and to be honest it was a lot easier and more enjoyable then attempting to submit a bug report.

Dr. Melanie Rieback's talk - XenClient: Client-side virtualization, and how to take VDI offline

XenClient is a client-side, Type-1 hypervisor which is quite a neat concept. Basically you know how server virtualization has been amazing for servers... with one of the strong points being that it abstracts the hardware and makes deploying new systems easy? Well imagine being able to do that for end-user computers... and doing it in such a way where you can take the VM with you even when you aren't connected to the Internet/LAN... and then being able to sync back when you able to touch base. Deploying a new desktop system could be just as easy as saying, download the VM image from the storage center and go with it. That is the promise of a client-side hypervisor... but since it is type 1 (rather than type 2 which is "hosted" on top of an OS) it is much more secure and performant. Melanie especially covers the dark art that is disk and data synchronization and the challenges they bring.

This video was recorded back in April but I had a technical snag and couldn't post it until now.

Direct link, right-click save as:
LFNW2012-XenClient-Melanie_Rieback.webm (416.4 MB)

Michael Gapczynski's ownCloud - Your Cloud, Your Data, Your Way

This was the second part of a two presentation series. I missed the first part so make of this what you will. Michael primarily talks about the PHP programming interfaces to ownCloud.

Direct link, right-click save as:
LFNW2012-ownCloud-Michael_Gapczynski.webm (159.5MB)

Robyn Bergeron's Fedora talk.

As you may know I'm a big Fedora fanboi and I really enjoyed meeting and listening to the new Fedora Project Leader talk. Robyn found out the projector in the room was dead but that was ok as she wasn't planning on using slides anyway. I really enjoyed the frankness of her talk and can see why she was picked to be the new FPL.

Direct link, right-click save as:
LFNW2012-The_Fedora_Talk-Robyn_Bergeron.webm (233.1MB)

David Mandel's Teaching Linux and Linux System Administration as Distance Education Classes.

I arrived right as the talk was starting and during the first minute or so I am franticly setting up the camera. Sorry about that. There is quite a bit of interaction between David and several audience members who also teach Linux in an academic setting. I teach a Linux SysAdmin class myself and enjoyed this. It was on the later track on the second day so it was allowed to run a bit long. Enjoy.

Direct link, right-click save as:
LFNW2012-Teaching_Linux_via_Distance_Ed-David_Mandel.webm (361.4MB)

Deb Nicholson's Software Patents: What You Can Do.

Direct link, right-click save as:
LFNW2012-Software_Patents-Deb_Nicholson.webm (394.4MB)

Max Mether's High Availability for MySQL.

Direct link, right-click save as:
LFNW2012-MySQL_HA_Solutions-Max_Mether.webm (304.6MB)

Will Sterling's Linux Logical Volume Manager Advanced Topics.

Direct link, right-click save as:
LFNW2012-LVM_Advanced_Topics-Will_Sterling.webm (244.4MB)

Oscar Baechler's introduction to Calligra Krita

As you may be able to make out from the poster image, Oscar is running Krita on Microsoft Windows 7. He wanted to show the new 2.4 release and had trouble getting it for his preferred Linux distro and had to settle due to time constraints.

While Oscar is fairly new to Krita, he is a very skilled and experienced digital artist and didn't take long to adapt to it (1 week). With his Wacom tablet, he makes it look easy. Room conditions and video resolution / quality make it hard to see some finer details so make sure to have your own copy of Krita active so you can play with it as you watch, pause, watch this video.

Direct link, right-click save as:
LFNW2012-Krita-Oscar_Baechler.webm (307.5MB)

Larry Cafiero's Introduction to CrunchBang.

Direct link, right-click save as:
LFNW2012-CrunchBang-Larry_Cafiero.webm (280.8MB)