LFNW14 Wrapup

Welcome to LFNW!

April 26 and 27, Bellingham, WA turned its nerd factor up to 11, and openSUSE was there, sponsoring, presenting, and to make sure everyone had a lot of fun!

This was the 15th anniversary of LinuxFest Northwest, and the both the organizers and attendees made it clear why this event keeps growing every year.  At last count, there were 1500 attendees; and for the first time openSUSE had a wealth of enthusiasts volunteering in the booth to make sure we could help everyone get in touch with their inner Geeko.

Big Geeko

Adrian Klaver and Caleb Gebhart, local advocates, were on hand in the booth most of the weekend, showing two very different sides of openSUSE: Adrian is an avid Python and Qt developer, and has no problem walking anyone through a problem. Caleb brought his gaming laptop, and made the point that gaming on openSUSE, especially through Steam, is as fun as it is easy to setup. Carl Symons, of Community Tech NW stepped in when we needed an extra smiling face in the booth.

Hangin' with Jon 'Maddog' Hall

Taking a more professional turn, Peter Linnell, Technical Specialist for SUSE, and Bryan Lunduke, SUSE's social media manager (and all around ridiculous guy), fielded questions, shared swag, and made sure 'Big Geeko' got lots of love. Bryan and I collaborated on "10 things you'd love about SUSE if you only knew..." which drew an audience of about 150! Peter was able to attend as well, and help out with Q&A, and Michael Miller, SUSE's VP of Marketing and Global Alliances joined the audience as well. Michael hung out at the booth after for a while, where we all got so spend a little quality time with Jon 'Maddog' Hall, Executive Director of Linux International (and grumpy grandpa to all of us Linux users). Peter Linnel wrapped up our presentation track with a deep dive into OBS on Sunday, to another full room.

Presenting with Bryan

Speaking of the "booth", that just really doesn't do it justice.  The openSUSE Lounge was a  popular place, what with the comfy chairs, lots of friendly people, and free Lime JeOS for everyone! When it came time for Jakob Perry, long time LFNW organizer, to give an interview to Slashdot, they couldn't find a more comfy spot to hang out!

Even Ubuntu folks get hugs here.

When it was all said and done, we handed out 100 openSUSE 13.1 promo DVDs, gave away a dozen SUSE USB sticks to the World Famous Raffle, and made countless origami penguins and chameleons (including special orange, blue and red ones for those other distro booths ;-)

We're already looking forward to LFNW2015, where we're sure to have even more fun than before!

Everybody loves openSUSE!