SCaLE 6x 2008 - Linux in LA

I attended the 6th annual Southern California Linux Expo (SCaLE 6x) this weekend at the Westin hotel on Century Blvd near LAX. It was my second year in a row. This year again, I used a promo code mentioned in a podcast ad which brought the registration fee down to only 30-something bucks, a really great price.

The first thing I noticed this year was that the attendance seemed a lot higher, maybe even double what it was last year. The Jono Bacon keynote on Saturday morning was packed and since I got there a little late, I was told to go to the overflow room. Unfortunately there were some technical problems in the overflow room and the video shut off before the presentation was over so I missed the end of it.

The exhibit floor was again full of vendors related to Linux, Linux distros, networking and monitoring tools, and open source software in general. This year I enjoyed visiting the booths of Foresight Linux, Splunk, and LinuxFund. I got some decent swag like a red hat (baseball cap) from RedHat, a water bottle from Sun Microsystems, and a purple stuffed octopus from Plain Black. The latter I gave to my 4-month-old son.

I attended the following sessions this year:

• PostgreSQL 8.3: Latest Features of the Most Advanced Database - Josh Berkus
• GNOME: Ten Years of Freedom - Ken VanDine
• GIMP Demystified - Akkana Peck
• Linux Entertain Me! - Cecil Watson
• The Ubuntu Desktop: Bling for Usability - Ted Gould

The conference had a "try it" room where various tutorials were offered every hour. I wish I could have attended one of the sessions on Inkscape, but I found out about it too late.

Overall, I had a great time and will definitely attend again next year if I can. I love the fact that the conference is low-cost, close by, and on the weekend so I don't have to get permission at work to attend.

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.