Fun at LinuxWorld 2003 Expo
So,
First a tip: when the expo floor opens at 10 AM, walk straight ahead and to the left a little bit towards the gigantic Red Hat display to get your free red hat. They only give away these good-looking caps at certain times of the day. I missed it at first because I went directly to the Free Software Foundation booth. Without them, there would never have been any such thing as a LinuxWorld conference, so I began at the beginning.
EFF was there selling good bumper stickers. I bought “Fair Use Has a Posse”. The guys from React OS were interesting. They have their own operating system (not based on Linux) that is attempting to be compatible with Windows NT/2000. I got to see the whole OS install in about 2 minutes and then it booted up and ran Minesweeper in a window. Windows was not running. React OS was running. This was cool.
There were a lot of other cool things that I may go into later, but let me sum up the main part of the day. The Debian folks were supposed to have a booth. Somehow the bureaucratic necessities didn’t get taken care of and so there was no Debian booth. Instead, a number of Debian developers, users, and other interested parties sat down in the floor in a spot where some exhibitor had failed to show. There were several open WiFi networks available from this location and electricity outlets. So, in an impromptu fashion, Debian people spent the whole day in the floor burning Debian CDs for passersby and hacking around on their laptops. I had some guys help me try to get my wireless card working in my laptop. (Unfortunately still a work in progress.) Efforts were also made to acquire a legitimate booth, but nearly $300 is/was needed, and so a real Debian booth may materialize tomorrow or the next day, or perhaps they’ll be back in the floor. I had a lot of fun. Pictures soon.
Also, someone put a poster on the Microsoft booth. Not just any poster. It was a raging picture of Tux trampling the Redmond HQ that reads, “Good Evening, Mr. Gates, I’ll be your server today!” (Popular from the ‘99 San Jose Expo.) This stayed there for the last half of the day without the Microsofties noticing. Pictures of this too very soon!
This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.