Hello everyone, greetings from Linux Tag in Berlin. I’ve been in Germany all week and I wanted to post updates each day, but to be honest it’s been far too hectic for that. Nevertheless, I figured I should take the chance to fill you in a bit while I sit propped in bed at the hotel. I’ve just returned from a Fedora party tonight in a nearby restaurant, it’s part of the FUDcon event they’ve been having in conjunction with Linux Tag this week. There was free pizza and lots of beers, unfortunately the beers weren’t free but I can’t complain. The Fedora guys throw a hell of a party. We were also hanging out with Ade Bradshaw of LugRadio fame and generally having a lot of laughs. Good times indeed.

Since arriving in Berlin on Tuesday night I’ve had the good fortune to meet many nice folks and record a few interviews for the show. On the first day of Linux Tag we managed to get a long interview with Max Spevak and Paul Frields from Fedora. It was very informative and funny I think. Then we interviewed Máirín Duffy from the design team, she works on all that funky artwork you see in Fedora. I even ended up installing Fedora 11 on my laptop at the event, while sat in a corner of the press room. Extreme distro testing once again. I’m writing this on Fedora 11 at the moment and it seems to be going well. Still a few things to sort out but I’ll be posting a full review next week when I get home and can get things back on track. Later on I interviewed Joe “Zonker” Brockmeier the OpenSuse community manager and had a good chat with him about events in the OpenSuse world.

We also met some podcast listeners while in Berlin and that was amazing. It’s always fun to meet people who listen to the show and get to know them. We even went for dinner and drinks with Ryan (yareckon). An American who recently moved to Berlin, and a really nice guy to boot. We were interviewed by zahnersatz, who’s starting a new Linux podcast in German, something that’s missing at the moment I’ve been told by a few people. So I wish him all the best and when I have details I’ll be sure to share them with you. Finally we interviewed Jan Wilderboer from Red Hat just before the FUDPUB party. He’s an open source evengelist at the company and a really interesting guy as well. Always distinctive wearing his red fedora hat, company issue apparently. All of these interviews will appear in episode 99 of Linux Outlaws, so listen out for them.

There’s so much stuff to try and remember from the last few days that I’m sure I missed some out. To sum up, Linux Tag 2009 has been fantastic. I’m really glad I came and I would encourage anyone else to check it out in future. Hopefully I’ll make it back next year, fingers crossed. So many people we’ve met and they’ve all been very welcoming. I feel a bit like the ignorant Englishman at times not speaking any other languages, but people have been understanding. It’s humbling to see people switch language mid sentence. I’ve always told myself I’ll learn at least one other language one day. I’m sure I have the capacity, I guess I just need the application now.

Tomorrow we’ll nip into the event hall again, catch up with the guys at FUDcon probably and do the final rounds, before hitting the autobahn and making our way back to Bonn. I’ll write my usual weekly update on my own blog then, there was just so much stuff to talk about from Linux Tag it warranted it’s own post.

Bye for now,

Dan