Daniel Cody - “Left on the Lake”

The presentation this weekend I gave for the Milwaukee LUG (linux users group) went pretty well! There were about 27 people who showed up for the presentation on Saturday, one of which was Jenny, who was a trooper for sitting through all the Unix in-jokes and showing her support. It was nice to have her there, so she could see a little bit of what I actually do for a living instead of just hearing about it, and she says she learned a few things about Linux by being at the presentation.

For those interested, a PDF copy of my presentation on recompiling the Linux kernel is here.

One other person of interest in attendance at Saturdays meeting was Rick Miller, one of the original Linux kernel developers. When he said who he was during the beginning introductions, I have to admit I felt a bit nervous about giving a presentation on the Linux kernel to one of the original kernel developers.

It’s a bit like teaching a Greek literature class where on the first day, Aristotle himself shows up and lets you know he’ll be auditing your class. Well, maybe Linus Torvalds showing up for the presentation would be like Aristotle or Plato, but you get the point. I was giving a talk on something this guy had a part in creating, and that’s a bit daunting to say the least.

However, the presentation rolled on and out of the corner of my eye I found him nodding in agreement with me on most of the points I was making, and he jumped in a few times to clarify or provide some back story on certain other points which was interesting and educational.

At the end of the two hour talk, everyone seemed to have enjoyed the presentation, Rick included. He said he learned a few things about the 2.6 series Linux kernel which he wasn’t that familiar with from my presentation. That was a nice compliment to say the least.

Overall it felt pretty nice to get back up in front of a group of people and talk about something I’m familiar with, we’ll have to see if I can find other opportunities to continue doing it…

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