by
Abhijeet Chavan
April 22, 1999 - Linuxpower
In Chicago's McCormick Place -- a huge exhibition/conference complex -- COMDEX '99 is in full swing. I had a free pass for the exhibit floor and went in on Day 2. After registering I headed straight for the Linux Pavilion - a section of the exhibit floor where Linux-related businesses had set up their booths.
My first stop was the Red Hat booth. They had several workstations with nice big monitors and knowledgeable employees giving demos. I asked a few questions about the upcoming Red Hat 6.0 release and watched a demo of GNOME. I was told that the next release of Red Hat will use the GNOME GUI environment as the default though other graphical environments like KDE will be included also.
I hadn't seen GNOME in action and I was very impressed. The graphics display was beautiful and I really loved the way windows turned translucent when they were being moved across the desktop. I won't go into details here but GNOME looks really good. I wonder how long we will have to put up with media coverage that says "Linux lacks a GUI." Just as I was leaving the Red Hat area a Red Hat representative handed me some official Red Hat "Linux Kernels" -- yes, you guessed it right -- a bag of microwave popcorn!
I noticed a long line of people and I hurried over to the end of the line. People were queuing up to get a free CD of Caldera's OpenLinux2.2. While I was waiting I started talking to the person right behind me. He had never used Linux before but had heard about it and wanted to try it out. He was interested in office productivity applications and I told him about StarOffice, Applixware, and WordPerfect. He couldn't believe it when I told him that StarOffice and WordPerfect 8 were free for personal use. I wrote down some URLs for him. After spending a few minutes in the line I was handed the bright yellow-and-blue Open Linux CD.
Just around the corner I noticed a queue to collect free SUSE CDs. I walked as fast as I could to the end of the line which snaked around the exhibit floor. Snippets of Linux press coverage passed through my mind as I walked by: "thrives in universities", "a cult operating system", "for hackers only." The people standing is this queue were no different than those hanging around the other exhibits. There were men and women of all ages, many in suits with their COMDEX name tags saying "Corporate Buyer." After a short wait I walked away clutching an evaluation version of SUSE in a smartly designed package with instructions in German and English.
I decided to spend some more time at the SUSE booth and started talking with a representative. He said he worked in Technical Support at SUSE. He had a slight German accent. His eyes twinkled as he proudly gave a demo of YaST, SUSE's installation manager. He then showed me how easy it was to configure a SUSE installation and how you could go about setting a firewall.
This guy was not a hired salesman. He knew his stuff and it showed in the way he talked. It made me want to rush home and give SUSE a try. He gave me a white bumper sticker with the word "LINUXGRUVEN" in black. I don't know what it means but it does look cool.
Like R2-D2 in front of a Jawa Sandcrawler, I noticed an iMac amongst all the powerful hardware in the Linux Pavilion and walked over to it. It was running LinuxPPC 4. I was told that the 5.0 release was just weeks away. I also saw a demo of Applixware. The representative said "Applixware is a decent office suite..." when his colleague corrected him and reminded him that he was trying to sell a product so he should use the words "incredible" and "awesome" instead of "decent". We all laughed. I walked away with a complimentary copy of LinuxPPC 4.
Linux Journal was handing out free copies of their April issue on Network Computing. The newcomer Linux Magazine was there too - selling the first issue of the magazine for a special price. The eye-catching cover of the first issue of Linux Magazine has the word "Microscared" across a black cover. "Microscared" t-shirts were on sale. Linux Mall was selling CDs, manuals, stickers, and even little stuffed penguins. In fact I noticed that many of the other Linux booths were using the same penguins as decoration.
In the center of the Linux Pavilion was a presentation area. Cygnus co-founder Michael Tiemann was talking about Open Source and Linux. All the seats were taken and people crowded around the presentation area. At the end of the presentation he encouraged all to scream "Linux" at the top of their voices so that the people over at the "Dark Side" -- the large Microsoft exhibition area on the other side of the exhibit floor -- could hear us. I screamed as hard as I could. It felt surprisingly good to do that. The voices rang out with different pronunciations -- "linn-nucks, lie-nucks, lee-nooks", etc. But they meant the same thing - just like the different distributions of Linux are still Linux.
I moved away from the Linux Pavilion to see the rest of the exhibits. The Microsoft exhibits were the largest with huge TVs playing slick commercials, lights, music, and uniformed representatives. All the salespeople were well-rehearsed and polished but some looked a little bored. Windows 2000 signs were everywhere. There was a line to get in to the Windows 2000 hands-on workshops which appeared to be popular. I went searching for the SGI booth when I suddenly realized that I might have missed Jon "Maddog" Hall's presentation back at the Linux Pavilion. I ran back.
He was there talking with some people after his presentation. I had missed his talk by hanging out at the Microsoft exhibit! The Penguin would never forgive me for this one. I was feeling bad when I noticed a new long and winding line between the Linux booths. It was for free Red Hat CDs. This line was at least as long as the SUSE line if not longer. After a short wait I walked away with a 2-CD set of a full working version of Red Hat 5.2.
I was still feeling bad for missing the presentation by "Maddog" when I saw someone who I recognized immediately. Bob "Ketchup" Young - the CEO of Red Hat. I call him the "The Ketchup Guy" because he always seems to use the ketchup industry as an example while explaining Red Hat's business model.
Bob was being interviewed by the press. For the brief time that I heard him talk he appeared to be soft-spoken but articulate. I got to shake hands with him and tell him that I appreciated the fact that Red Hat releases all their products under the GPL. A reporter continued to interview him while a photographer clicked away. The last thing I saw before I left COMDEX was Bob pulling out a red cap and posing for the photographer.
While I didn't attend any of the big Linux events at COMDEX, just hanging out around the Linux Pavilion was fun. The demos were cool, the representatives were smart and knowledgeable, and the freebies were great. It was interesting to see Linux businesses exhibiting their products. The thing that impressed me the most was the number of people who were interested in Linux. They did not fit the hacker stereotype. They did not look like people belonging to a cult.
Linux businesses are here. And now the Linux customers are arriving. The fun is about to begin. I can't wait to attend COMDEX 2000!
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Abhijeet Chavan is a Research Programmer at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA.