 | LinuxTag 2001 July 5th - 8th, 2001 Stuttgart, Germany |
Infomail #9 -- Network, Travelling, Social Event, Booth stuff -- June 30th, 2001
- Small stuff for the booth
Please check if you have already scheduled to take adhesive tape, scissors, poster stripes, pens and similar office stuff with you in order to build up the booth. Also check if you have gotton enough power cables, power expanders, network cables and hubs. Please take the size of the booth into account. Taking some thick tape with you to fixate hubs and cables would be a good idea as well.
- Travelling in Stuttgart
The best way to get from A to B in Stuttgart is probably by taking the subway (U) or the trolley-car (S).
To get into the city, use U7 (the exhibition is a the end station, so you can't get the wrong one). To go back to the exhibition, the direction is "Messe/Killesberg".
To get to the gym hall (called "Keltenschanze"), use the U7 to the main station, exchange into S1, S2 or S3 into direction "Vaihingen".
Exhibition - Keltenschanze costs DM 3.70, it's cheaper to purchase poly-tickets (4 tickets in a row). You'll have to type 002 at the ticket box(two zones).
Check the FAQ.
- Hacking Center
I'm proud to be able to provide another general area which could be used to "collect random developers who would crowd the booth otherwise". This will be an open booth with only carpet, tables and chairs as well as power and network.
If you don't want to crowd the booth and have a machine on which you would like to develop software during the booth, feel invited to move to 5.0.225. I haven't ordered power multipliers or hubs for this area, so please to take some of them with you.
This area will be more open than your booths, there will be no side panels, only one on the back, to divide it from the other booths. This area is also meant for visitors to gather what developers are normally doing.
- Exhibition Network
I would love to provide final information with regards to our exhibition network, however, unfortunately I haven't gotton any responses, so I'll better assume the worst case.
As a result, I expect that there will only be very few switches used for the network. Thus I'd like to ask you to take your switches with you, so we can at least have a switched network in each pavillon (for 4 to 8 single booths), and not all inner-booth traffic is distributed through the entire network.
In that case I also expect, that we will have enough addresses for all booth machines and notebooks. However, it will be a masqueraded network with only one official IP number. So if you want to use webcams etc., configure your VPN, IP-forwarding or copy pictures from the cam to a machine on the net via cron every five minutes (preferred).
I hope that there will be a proxy so some of the traffic can be reduced.
- Network Security
Please note that this network will be INSECURE AS HELL. There is no access control and even switches can quite easily be fooled.
Thus please DO NOT use any non-encrypted transmission method that requires a password. This means:
- Do not use POP3 to fetch your mail
- Do not use IMAP to fetch your mail
- Never use telnet or rlogin to log in into another machine
- Do not use non-anonymous FTP to fetch or put files
- Do not use unencrypted UUCP over IP to the outside world
- Do NOT use a http-connection with a password if it isn't encrypted (i.e. https)
Please use »ssh« to access other machines, both within the exhibition network as well as outside of the lan.
To fetch your mail from a server outside of the network, use an ssh tunnel through which fetchmail or your mail client can access the mail server. A sample set up is here.
If you have problems setting this up, please ask the others, the experts at the Linux Networking booth or drop by at the LinuxTag office and ask me.
Please please respect these recommendations. It is NOT nice having to find out after the show that somebody else has misused your account.
- Exhibitors Passes
I was told that we will need exhibitors passports this year. Let's find out if this is true. It is possible that you can't enter the exhibition area befor the show has opened without such a pass. Therefore, I have ordered 250 passes for all of you. You can get them by meeting me at the LinuxTag office at the exhibition (see below).
- Dresscode
(yes, now comes the fun part nobody wants to hear about :))
Please mind that the impression you're making on other people represents your project. A suit would give a professional look. However, T-shirts and plain Jeans are fine and appreciated as some people won't talk to you if you're in a suit - maybe - and you don't own a suit or you just don't like it. For the women (hopefully there will be more appearing and offering help on the booth) a dress is appreciated, at least a skirt and blouse (though that depends on the women's choice anyway, just making sure you look good should do the trick :)).
(This text was written and inspired by Ralf Nolden from KDE.)
- LinuxTag Special Edition
Another computer oriented newspaper has released a special exhibition journal within their regular issue. The current issue of Linux Enterprise contains a couple of pages, dedicated to the projects which will be demonstrated at LinuxTag, even logos are sorted properly.
- Social Event
Some people have asked what the social event will be like. It is a way to meet other exhibitors and talk with them in a relaxed area. We have orderd the "Magic Mushrooms" who will play their famous OpenSource song. There will also be a buffet and something to drink, with and without alcohol. The social event will take place at the main entrance ("Eingang Süd") on friday evening, starting at 6.15pm. A regular ticket costs EUR30, for projects stuff we will provide a reduced fee: DM30. You can purchase the tickets directly from Dennis Daniel or at the LinuxTag office (see below)
- CD Burners
It has been shown on last LinuxTag events that it could be useful to have cd burners around. A couple of booths will have one or more burners at their booth. So if you want to make copies of whatever, don't forget to take enough blank cds with you.
- Contacting Joey
I'm going to travel to Stuttgart on monday morning. I won't be able to get to the net before tuesday and I probably won't have enough spare time to read and answer all mails. So if you want to tell me something or ask me anything, please hurry up and send your mail or irc message before sunday evening.
In Stuttgart I'll be at the LinuxTag office at the lower floor of CCB, at the opposite side to the main entrance "Eingang Süd". The room id is XII. I expect that one or both of our office phone numbers in Kaiserslautern will be routed to the Stuttgart office during LinuxTag. However, this won't happen before tuesday. The numbers are 0631/3109371 and 0631/3109373. You can always drop a message there, which should reach me after some human and technical delay.
Important: DO NOT USE MAIL if you have an urgent question or information for me. I won't be able to react in time. We've exercised this last year. Use the phone in that case, or send a fax (the number is 0631/3109372).
Regards, Joey