The Changelog

At work, we use Linux (and Debian, in specific) for a lot of different things: everything from our phone system (running on Asterisk) to file serving and running some proprietary applications. I'm one of the people that finds, sets up, and maintains these systems, and I write code for our in-house use as well. I like to learn from others, and get to know others that may have things in common with me and with our environment. So going to conferences is a useful thing to do.

I'm hoping that some reader out there will have a good suggestion for a conference I ought to attend. Here are some that I've looked into and my thoughts on them:

• Usenix Annual Tech Conference: I went last year. There were some very good talks, but the audience size was not all that large. I got to meet some peers there, but I didn't get to talk in-person to anybody I'd worked with online before. (LISA being in fall/winter means it's too early to consider it just yet)
• LinuxWorld Conference & Expo: My general impression of LWCE in the past has been that its technical talks aren't very technical; that is, they either cover things I already know or don't care about. They are starting to publish their program this year, and I see a few interesting things though. There have traditionally been a lot of Debian folks at the .org pavillion.
• Debconf: It seems to be focused almost exclusively on developing the Debian operating system, rather than on using it. While I am a Debian developer and have been for quite awhile, I would find new uses of Debian to be more interesting than new ways to hack on Debian. Plus, the insanely early registration requirements means that it's too late to go this year anyhow. (And my brother is getting married right in the middle of it.)
• OSCon: There look to be some interesting talks in the database area, and some about Xen and virtualization, and Simon PJ (one of the ghc hackers) will be there. So this would be interesting, though somewhat light on the admin side of things.
• OLS: Seems very focused on the kernel, and not much else. That is of interest, of course, but is one piece of many. Though there was a talk about Linux deployment at Nortel that sounded interesting.

My leading candidates are probably Usenix and OSCon. I'm interested to hear what people think, especially those that have attended some of these conferences.

Well, we're back from the Usenix '06 Annual Technical Conference. Overall, a very nice conference. This is the first Linux/Unix conference I've been to since the old LinuxExpo (NOT LinuxWorld) events in the late 90s.

I must say it was quite fun to be around so many intelligent *nix folks. I learned quite a bit, and learned how much I had in common with some (and how little with others). A very nice social at the New England Aquarium Friday night.

Some very interesting speakers, too, with lots of experience to share. I'm glad I was there.

I have only one main complaint about Usenix -- they tried to cram too much into too few days. The conference sessions ran till as late at 6:45PM, with BoFs after that. That left almost no time to see anything of Boston and meant that very few people could actually stick around for all the BoFs. Next year, they should use more days and schedule fewer things in the evenings.

The highlight of the trip, though, wasn't Usenix at all, but instead getting to meet some Boston-area Debian folks Saturday night. Lots of fun, and Mako is as crazy in person as he looks online :-)

Our train trip in each direction was nice, too.

More to come...