CLD2008English
Linux Days Chemnitz 2008 - Innovation thanks to freedom
- Official Website
- BlinkenArea announced in the Linux Days news (in German)
- BlinkenArea mentioned in the Linux Days news about Day 2 (in German)
- Category "Events" of the Blog containing news and information (partially in German only)
Linux Days take place annually at Chemnitz' University of Technology on first weekend in March (this year for the 10th time) and the BlinkenArea contributed this year by showcasting projects and giving lectures.
Lectures
Lectures were given by:
cavac
Embedded Scripting - Flexiblere Software mit eingebautem LUA-Scripting (German language)
In this lecture, I presented a way to make your software more flexible and powerful by embedding the LUA scripting language.
Dauti
ST & Stefan & Juliane
From a shiny idea to a blinking building
The BlinkenArea is a project group of people who developed more than 60 hard- and software projects. Apart from this, money is collected which flows into public welfare. The number of small and big projects rises and especially the pixel room TROIA as well as the display front bluebox are worth mentioning.
We were able to realise these projects only by a free operating system with open interfaces described in detail, the possibility to implement own drivers as well as to define formats and protocols. The lecture shall give an overview of the role Linux plays during the projects.
Projects
We were allowed to showcast a lot of BlinkenArea projects during the event. ArcadeMaxi, LittleLights, TroiCade, the TROIA_Prototype and the PixelCurtain were spread all over the building an the smaller projects could be seen at our stand at Live area (in German).
Report
Friday, Juliane
In the morning, I passed a test about microelectromechanical systems and mechanical engineering design. After that, I met ST, stefan and Berty in the building next door where the Linux Days take place and they had already started to build up the projects. Everything was very well prepared on the part of the organisers. Thus, we were able to focus on the projects and our stand. TroiCade took up most of the time because of the maintenence and we finished at about 2300.
Friday, Stefan
At 1000 we (Charles, Stephan and I) arrived at the building called "Orangerie" of Chemnitz University of Technology where the Linux Days shall take place with three fully laden cars. Immediatly, five to ten people came to help us unpacking the cars. Shortly after that, Juliane get around and we started to build up our projects. The CLD organisers made a big car available to us and we were able to collect the missing material from the Blink-Garage and at a DIY store nearby, Charles and I got some needed roof battens. ArcadeMaxi, LittleLights, PixelCurtain and TROIA Prototype were built up in a little while. The next task was setting up TroiCade: sawing roof battens, drilling roof battens, testing pixel boxes, debugging pixel boxes (as usual, hmmpf!), screwing pixel boxes, aranging and wiring TroiCade piece by piece. In the meanwhile, the network team ran the LAN cables we had asked for and only a few configurations on the server were needed to make everything working. At the end of the day, we equipped our stand with some material and blinking devices. We felt very happy but also shattered when we arrived at Stephan's home (our "CLD2008 hotel") at 2300.
Saturday, Juliane
We arrived at about 1000 and had breakfast in the catering room for people who contribute something to Linux Days. This is a great offer for organisers, stand owner, lecturer and all the other helping hands. After that we met a lot of people at our stand placed near to the entrance which enables us to attract a great deal of attention. At 1300 ST started to moderate the series of lectures concerning law and legal questions. The first one was about the queasy topic online search by the government using a tool called "Bundes-Trojaner". After this lecture, I went back to attend to our stand and took another look-around at all the other stands. Stefan and I had a short break with some cake in the catering room and between two lectures, we brought ST some as well. After that, we made an appointment with a guy from TuxRadio for the next day. In the evening, we were invited to a come-together-party which emerged as a great reception with a tasty five-course-menu.
It is 0146 now and I finished the last slide for our presentation on sunday. Good night.
Samstag, Stefan
Linux Days were in full swing already when we arrived at 1000. The day before, we spend a lot of energy to build up the projects. Da ich aber an diesem Tag keine fixen Termina hatte, ließ ich alles entspannt angehen, sah mir die anderen Stände an, optimierte ein wenig an den Playlisten herum und beantwortete viele Fragen der teilweise sehr Blink-interessierten CLT-Besucher. Ein besonders interessierter Besucher versuchte mir zu erklären, dass unsere Projekte mit Netzwerk-Anschluss so nicht funktionieren dürften - so zumindest kamen seine Ausführungen bei mir an. Nunja, die Gegenbeispiele für die nicht-funktionier-Theorien blinkten ein paar Meter entfernt fröhlich weiter. Nebenbei sah' ich nochmal den Vortrag durch, der fast "schon" komplett war, nur die TROIA-Folien fehlten noch. Diese Folien wurden Abends dann noch von Stephan erstellt, schafften es aber nicht mehr auf den Permanentspeicher, da dieser seinen Dienst zu Beginn des Speichervorgangs einstellte.
Sunday, Juliane
The nights was too short and I am very tired today. We arrived at 1030 and went to the catering room at first to get some breakfast. At 1100, Stefan went down to the RadioTux stand but the internet had broken down and no streaming was possible. Half an hour later, they fixed the error and Stefan and ST gave an interview about the BlinkenArea and blinking projects. At 1230, we looked through our slides together for the first and the last time and gave our lecture at 1330. We got some positiv feedback, some offers and some ideas. We will see where this will take us. Shortly before 1800, we started to clear up and to remove our projects. We finished at 2030 and I am completly worn out now.
Sonntag, Stefan
Morgens wollte ich noch schnell die verlorenen Troia-Folien des Vortrags klicken. Als ich gerade beginnen wollte, kam Stephan und sagte mir, dass Juliane dies bereits in der Nacht getan hatte. Also war alles klar und es ging wieder zu den Linux-Tagen. Unser Interview mit Radio-Tux hatte Startprobleme, fand dann aber gegen 11:20 mit ein wenig Verspätung doch noch statt. Danach habe ich meinen Laptop für den Vortrag präpariert (Links auf Desktop, MPlayer einrichten, Sound-Ausgang testen, Bildschirmauflösung ändern, ...). Als dies getan war, ging es praktisch auch direkt schon los. Insgesamt ist der Vortrag wohl recht gut angekommen, nur bei meinem technischen Teil haben wir einige wenige Zuhörer verloren. Wir haben beschlossen in Zukunft den Unterhaltungsteil und den technischen Teil aufzuteilen, so dass das Publikum sich den gewünschten Vortrag aussuchen kann. Der Abbau lief super: schnell war alles auseinandergschraubt. Die Pixelkisten und die anderen großen Teile wurden wieder in das große Orga-Auto verladen und in die Garage gestapelt. Die kleineren Teile kamen danach in Julianes und in mein Auto. Trotzdem wurden beide Auto noch randvoll und ich fuhr sogar mit den Dachlatten vom TroiCade auf dem Dach angebunden zur Garage. Wir luden einiges aus und legten zur Sicherheit gegen durchtropfenden Regen noch Folie über die Material-Stapel. Dann ging's wieder ab zu Stephan, wo er und ich dann noch schnell (oder auch eher länger) die auf den Linux-Tagen gekaufte Linux-Game-CD testeten.
Conclusion, Juliane
Everything was very well arranged and the organisers were very well equipped. It was a great event and the people enjoyed our projects. Hopefully, we get the possibility to participate again next year.
