I will blog more...

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I will blog more.
I will blog more.
I will blog more.
I will blog more....

LFNW14 Wrapup

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Welcome to LFNW!
April 26 and 27, Bellingham, WA turned its nerd factor up to 11, and openSUSE was there, sponsoring, presenting, and to make sure everyone had a lot of fun!

This was the 15th anniversary of LinuxFest Northwest, and the both the organizers and attendees made it clear why this event keeps growing every year.  At last count, there were 1500 attendees; and for the first time openSUSE had a wealth of enthusiasts volunteering in the booth to make sure we could help everyone get in touch with their inner Geeko.

Big Geeko
Adrian Klaver and Caleb Gebhart, local advocates, were on hand in the booth most of the weekend, showing two very different sides of openSUSE: Adrian is an avid Python and Qt developer, and has no problem walking anyone through a problem. Caleb brought his gaming laptop, and made the point that gaming on openSUSE, especially through Steam, is as fun as it is easy to setup. Carl Symons, of Community Tech NW stepped in when we needed an extra smiling face in the booth.

Hangin' with Jon 'Maddog' Hall
Taking a more professional turn, Peter Linnell, Technical Specialist for SUSE, and Bryan Lunduke, SUSE's social media manager (and all around ridiculous guy), fielded questions, shared swag, and made sure 'Big Geeko' got lots of love. Bryan and I collaborated on "10 things you'd love about SUSE if you only knew..." which drew an audience of about 150! Peter was able to attend as well, and help out with Q&A, and Michael Miller, SUSE's VP of Marketing and Global Alliances joined the audience as well. Michael hung out at the booth after for a while, where we all got so spend a little quality time with Jon 'Maddog' Hall, Executive Director of Linux International (and grumpy grandpa to all of us Linux users). Peter Linnel wrapped up our presentation track with a deep dive into OBS on Sunday, to another full room.


Presenting with Bryan
Speaking of the "booth", that just really doesn't do it justice.  The openSUSE Lounge was a  popular place, what with the comfy chairs, lots of friendly people, and free Lime JeOS for everyone! When it came time for Jakob Perry, long time LFNW organizer, to give an interview to Slashdot, they couldn't find a more comfy spot to hang out!


Even Ubuntu folks get hugs here.
When it was all said and done, we handed out 100 openSUSE 13.1 promo DVDs, gave away a dozen SUSE USB sticks to the World Famous Raffle, and made countless origami penguins and chameleons (including special orange, blue and red ones for those other distro booths ;-)

We're already looking forward to LFNW2015, where we're sure to have even more fun than before!
Everybody loves openSUSE!

openSUSE @ LFNW 2014

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LinuxFest Northwest 2014 is shaping up to be a great event for openSUSE!

We'll be recreating the openSUSE Lounge in our luxurious 100 sqft. booth space.  Stop by and relax in a comfy chair, and have a sip of LimeJeOS with one of our awesome community volunteers!

openSUSE is about community, and about having fun... what better way to show it than a comfortable place to hang out in the middle of any otherwise busy conference hall?

The gang from Community Tech NW will be running the tutorium... this will be a great place to get hands-on with 13.1, as well as a variety of other distros.

The tutorium is, without a doubt, the strongest community component of LFNW - the chance to sit down in front of a variety of Linux desktops and get some advice from experienced users.

Bryan Lunduke and I will be co-presenting "10 things you would love about SUSE if you only knew..."
I'm almost as excited about publishing our out-takes as I am about doing this presentation.

In addition to openSUSE being a Gold sponsor, SUSE donated a dozen USB sticks to the World Famous Raffle.

I just need to decide which Live image to preload...

I hope you can come out and Have a Lot of Fun with us!

Rewind: LFNW 2013 presentation

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I realized, while prepping for LinuxFest Northwest 2014, that I'd never published my 2013 presentation here. So...

Looking to build a web application?  You're going to want a JS framework to give your app some structure, and save yourself from building a new bowl of spaghetti code.
The problem is, we're spoiled for choice.  I'll sum up what I learned trying to find 'the right solution':  what options I evaluated; how I trimmed the fat and picked criteria to make a reasonable choice for a particular app; then spent some time actually building a small demo app to get in the groove.
Slides: ODP PDF

openSUSE @ LFNW - HELP WANTED!

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LinuxFest Northwest 2013 is April 27th & 28th in *beautiful* Bellingham, WA!

LFNW is an annual event produced by the Bellingham Linux Users Group ( http://blug.org ), and volunteers from other northwest U.S. open source users groups. This is a free event and produced entirely by volunteers, and features Linux and open source experts and aficionados sharing their experience and enthusiasm. This generally means that there will be a lot of smart people who come with something to share and a desire to learn.

http://www.linuxfestnorthwest.org

openSUSE is sponsoring LFNW, so its important we make the best of our community investment in this enthusiastic crowd (last year Jos got to see firsthand what it looks like when 1500 enthusiastic Linux users hit a conference hall).

I still need a few committed, knowledgeable community members who are comfortable networking in a big diverse crowd. As a benefit of our sponsorship, we will have a luxurious 100 sq.ft. space on the booth floor. Used well, we can actually bring folks in and work with them 1:1 - doing installs, teaching techniques, sharing stories: anything that helps this *awesome* Linux community understand that openSUSE is like a warm group hug. If you can help out, please get a hold of me via email, twitter, facebook, g+ or whatever, as soon as possible.

Cheers - and here's to seeing you at the end of April!