The EDEX (creatively abbreviated Education Exhibition), was held last week from the 4th to the 6th. Although the highlight of this exhibition was undoubtedly the various institutions offering a multitude of courses, LKLUG too was able to make an impression.This time around we had some classy machines which included a couple of HP servers, LCD panels as well as an HP notebook donated by Prof computers (honestly I didn't even know they still existed). It was also the debut for my barebone system, which I bought partly to chaperones with during exhibition such as these. The stall was shared and sponsored by OST (Open System Technologies), who also happens to be the local dealers for RedHat. Finally we also managed to have a projector to screen some movies that were made using Linux, adding more class to the stall.
I'm sure that no one will object when I say the highlight of our stall was indeed the talented Mrs. Pradeeper (Thilini) who was showcasing grappix, a remaster knoppix variant developed by our very own Wasantha. Using her voodoo she was able to turnout beautiful wallpapers featuring GNU and Tux, only with the help of a tool called GIMP and her imagination! While this was happening, I was demonstrating the 64bit edition of Gentoo by running some cool 2D/3D applications such as the 3D desktop pager and UT2004 demo edition. Other activities included but were not limited to distributing and selling Linux CDs, T- shirts and handouts.
All though the crowd at this exhibition wasn't our usual target audience, we did manage to create enough interest. Compared to previous exhibitions, one thing that I noticed different about those who visited the stall, was the fact that most had already encountered Linux previously and had come back for more (info, CDs etc.) This I find as encouraging evidence to our ongoing advocacy efforts.
Though unfortunately I couldn't attend the last day of the exhibition, I'm sure it ended in style from what I've heard. Until the next exhibition, this is Bud signing off!