congrats Wolfgang! Sounds like really good press for the Hurd. :)
and good press for ReiserFS, too! On Tue, Jul 15, 2003 at 09:00:36PM +0200, Wolfgang Jaehrling wrote: > GNU/Hurd at LinuxTag 2003 in Karlsruhe > =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- > > We had a machine running Debian GNU/Hurd at the FSF Europe booth > (where one could meet me most of the time) and another one at the > Debian booth. There have been surprisingly many people asking about > the Hurd. Usually I was giving a short demonstration of the new > console, adding and removing user-ids to tell what that is good for, > showing the process list to explain a few of the servers (especially > file systems and the password server) and telling them about file > change notifications, often also mentioning ftpfs and the `run' > translator. > > The system crashed a few times during my demonstrations (it was not a > very recent GNU/Hurd system), but usually all went fine and people > were quite impressed. People asked many questions, but the typical > ones were ``How well does it work?'', ``What about driver support?'', > ``What about other hardware architectures?'', ``What about L4?'' and > ``Does X11 work?''; of course I answered the latter question just by > smiling and entering `startx'. > > On sunday afternoon, I was giving a presentation about the Hurd, which > was scheduled to take one hour, of which I used only 35 minutes (plus > a few for answering questions from people coming to me after the > talk), This time, I decided to not go much into the details, but > explaining what makes the Hurd cool and how it differs from POSIX-only > systems, not forgetting to mention that the biggest advantage of > GNU/Hurd is that it combines high compatiblity with a lot of > additional flexibility. For obvious reasons I tried to focus on > saying what we already have achieved, rather than what we might do in > the future. Three people told me that the talk was great (and one > said it was ``exciting''), and I hope there is some truth in that. ;-) > However, since the talk was not in the official program, but merely in > the (somewhat hidden) ``free workshop'' track, less than twenty people > have been there. We almost managed to have me give the presentation > on a GNU/Hurd system itself, but unfortunatly we had a problem with > the fonts in X11, and we failed to get it working before the talk, so > I had to use GNU/Linux. > > Two minor t-shirt-related points: 1. During the presentation, I was > wearing a nice OpenBSD t-shirt, and I made clear that the goal of > GNU/Hurd is not to replace GNU/Linux or other free operating systems; > instead, all free systems should aim at replacing proprietary systems > together. 2. Like last year, we sold Hurd t-shirts at the FSF Europe > booth, which again sold well; Hans Reiser (developer of ReiserFS) also > bought one (well, actually two) and I had the opportunity to speak > with him a bit about our projects - It seems he likes the Hurd, but I > guess it is now important for him to finish ReiserFS version 4, so > don't even ask when ReiserFS will be ported to the Hurd. > > In conclusion, the LinuxTag was certainly a success for us. Many > thanks to Volker Dormeyer for providing a GNU/Hurd machine and for > helping in explaining the Hurd to visitors; just as many thanks to > Michael Banck for supporting me with various aspects of the talk and > also for bringing a GNU/Hurd machine. > > Cheers, > GNU/Wolfgang > > PS: You can find the slides of my talk (only in german, sorry) at > <http://www.8ung.at/shell/lt2003-hurd.tgz> > > -- > "A good programming language should have features that make the kind > of people who use the phrase `software engineering' shake their heads > disapprovingly." -- Paul Graham > > > _______________________________________________ > Help-hurd mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-hurd -- Robert Millan _______________________________________________ Help-hurd mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-hurd
