SCaLE 5x 2007 - Linux in LA

I attended the 5th annual Southern California Linux Expo (SCaLE 5x) this weekend at the Westin hotel on Century Blvd near LAX. It was the first Linux conference I'd ever been to. I heard about it on several of the Linux podcasts I listen to. They were offering a discount with a promo code mentioned in the podcast ad. It only ended up costing me 30-something bucks to attend - not a bad price.

Overall the conference was pretty good. There were a lot of good presentations and an exhibit floor with vendors and projects represented. I attended the following sessions:

• How to Heard Cats and Influence People - Jono Bacon
• Open Source Business Applications - David Uhlman
• The State of Linux Systems Management - Simon Bennett
• Samba For Beginners - Mike Maki
• Wireless Networking for Beginners - Dennis Rax
• Open Source Licenses, a Review with Corner Cases - Chris Dibona
• Web Applications: What is your Backup/Recovery Plan? - Paddy Sreenivasan

I also attended the following BOFs:

• Building a Linux Home Entertainment System - Cecil Waton
• Ubuntu - Jono Bacon

The conference had en email room where there were several computers set up, all running Linux. The computers and monitors were very stylish. They were made by the company Shuttle. Each of them had an instance of Knoppix running.

I love that Los Angeles has a Linux conference. I am surprised I hadn't heard of it until this year. I will probably go every year if I can.