Hallo!

Hier mal ein Preview auf Alexander Schmehls Bericht zum LIT aus der Liste debian-events-eu@lists.debian.org:

Linux-Info-Tage Dresden

One week later, on the 18th of October, there was an other Linux-Event in Germany, on which I maned a booth for the Debian Project. Since I forget to add an entry in the events page, I'll write my small review here:

Joey suggested once, that I shouldn't write so much personal in my reports. I think I filled the quota of allowed personal stuff in the last part, so I only tell you the following:

* I remember, that the guys in Dresden offered me accommodation and to pick me up. * I remember, that I send them a mail, when I'm going to arrive. * I remember, that I asked in this mail for their phone numbers - just in case. * And just when I left the station I remembered, that I neither got a confirmation of the shuttle-service to my accommodation nor any phone numbers.

And to Joey's convenience I won't tell you, what I did between 0:06, when I arrived in Dresden, and 10am, when this event started ;)

I'll leave this for those, who will write my biography.

All though it was the first time the LUG Dresden organised this event, they did a very good job!

They organised some good talks - including talks about shell-tools, Knoppix-remastering and 64-Bit programming - and workshops (including one about LaTeX). They even organised a small barbecue and small snacks.

They did a very good promotion job, too. I guess that more than 650 people visited this event, and most of them come to our booth at least one time. I took a box (~125 each) of the CDs, we gave away at LinuxTag, and around 100 flyers. Additionally I got some Debian pins and stickers from Credativ.

Well, we run out of pins, before the first visitor arrived - they have much Debian fans in the orga-team and on the other project boothes. We run out of CDs at noon, and we hadn't one single flyer left till 4pm: Two hours before this event closed.

You see: We had much visitors and were quite busy.

I think the visitors were a little bit different from those of other events. Normally many visitors know Debian quite well, and have some kind of trouble, while the rest know Linux, and like to know what Debian is. This time, there where many people who didn't even know what Linux is (and therefore hadn't heard of Debian as well). So we had often to explain what Linux and free software in general is, what Debian in special is, and ... well ... what they could try, if they fail to install it.

I think the explanation for this is, that they promoted the LinuxInfoTag very good at the university - I heard in every lecture they invited the students at least one time.

There was even a student, who had a problem to install Debian on his Computer, which had some kind of onboard raid system. IIRC we got in finally done, when he brought his Computer and we googled a little bit.

Sometimes we run in some troubles when showing some things on my notebook (which runs a sarge/sid mix), because I completely forgot that I had a woody-chroot environment prepared.

Of course we had a good time in a student pub after the event, and the morning we had a guided tour through Dresden, too. All in all it was a very nice event, and I'm looking forward to travel there next year, too.

Last not least I would like to thank Erik Tews, who volunteered to man the Debian booth in Dresden. He did a good job, brought his Computer as well as some other useful equipment (including breakfast and thermos of coffee).

Alexander Schmehl

Freundlich grüßend,

Erik