Socratic Thinking

Today is World Password Day. Stop by the Fedora booth B5 at Linux Fest North West, make a diceware passphrase and get a Fedora dice. Check out the Fedora Security Lab, an open source test and education platform for security auditing, forensics, and penetration testing. Or talk to us about Fedora Loves Python and the Fedora Python Classroom Lab to be released in with Fedora 26. See you in Bellingham, Washington this weekend.

Freedom, Friends, Features, First. The theme of this years LinuxFest NorthWest is ‘The Mechanics of Freedom’.

Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things are becoming even more integrated in the lives of regular citizens. Along with these changes comes concern over the trade-offs between convenience and privacy. For example: Privacy in the age of relentless online tracking, How bots can help you onboard new community members, Training driverless vehicles, How the Internet of Things took down DNS.

LFNW wants presentations that bring together pieces of this larger puzzle, 60 or 90 minute talks. The theme is not mandatory but highly encouraged. The Tracks are:

• Security – Keeping your personal data secure, e.g. Privacy in the age of relentless online tracking


• Infrastructure – Latest testing, automation tools, and databases, e.g. How the Internet of Things took down DNS


• Humans – Community, education, licensing, legal, e.g. How bots can help you on-board new community members


• Code – Frameworks, content management systems, and programming languages, e.g. Training driverless vehicles


• General Interest – Not covered by the tracks above? That’s okay! e.g. Beginners guide to the Linux desktop

Each track will have simultaneously sub-tracks for expert and newcomers, 10 tracks total.

• Newcomer (30%) – No prior knowledge or prerequisites, e.g. Introduction to Ubuntu


• Learner (20%) – Some prior knowledge in topic, e.g. Introduction to ZFS


• Expert (50%) – In depth experience around the topic, e.g. Deep dive into MongoDB sharding

LFNW is expanding the tutorium to hold in depth, hands on sessions of all topics and difficulties, 90 minutes or 2.5 hours in length.

Submit your proposal here.

If you are a Fedora contributor and submit a session or want to help work the booth let me know on the Fedora Wiki page. Fedora make have travel money for booth workers or speakers giving a Fedora presentations.

The Seattle GNU/Linux conference, SeaGL, intentionally attracts a variety of attendees, students from Seattle Central College, local Linux enthusiasts, curious neighbors, and programmers from big software companies, indies and start-ups. About 500 people attended the exhibits and talks on the two days. The exhibit area was closed for the keynotes so I saw Corey Quinn tell us the Art of Personal Failure and Allison Randal presented Free as in Freedom. Bill Wright received the Cascadia Community Builder Award for his efforts building LinuxFest NorthWest.



With Laura Abbott and John Dulaney, we staffed a table featuring Fedora loves Python. We showed Pippy, the Python learning environment on the One Laptop Per Child, and a Raspberry PI 3 running Fedora 25 with beefy-connection, a Python Flask application created by Scott Williams. The RPI arrived the day before the conference, Fedora 25 was easy to install, John Dulaney got beefy-connection (a kiosk to connect with guests) running smoothly, then he installed Xonsh to show me a Python shell.

We talked to guests about Python and Fedora, many were just learning Python and many were experienced users. I asked guests, ‘What IDE do you use?’ One guest, a web developer, said a multi-line editor (Sublime?) that we talked about. Then they had some technical questions. I’m thankful that Laura Abbott answered her questions and many others. I ran Jupyter with some of Peter Norvig’s notebooks open, like the Monty Hall probability simulation and Regex Golf problems. Peter Norvig is such an elegant programmer, his notebooks are fun to discuss. And the drawings for the Fedora Loves Python tee-shirts were popular.

At Flock I gave a presentation, Spin Your Exhibit, and applied those ideas to the Fedora Loves Python theme. We showed tools for beginner, experienced, and specialized users by talking about IDEs. The OLPC always attracts guests and is a story of Python success. Swag included the Fedora Loves Python trifold, cool buttons and Tee-shirts. Specialized hardware was the Raspberry PI. But I didn’t have a hands on challenge. What sort of quick and easy Python challenge could you set up? I thought of a list comprehension quiz, what ideas do you have? Beefy-connection was hands on but not very challenging or memorable.

This is the fourth year for SeaGL and it is growing. Exhibiting is great to make new friends and discuss new ideas. I met the organizer for Puppy (Puget Sound Programming Python) meet-up and will attend with some swag. Talked to Bill Wright about LinuxFest NorthWest (May 6 & 7, 2017), I want to add a QRcode reader to beefy-connection. The Free Software Foundation invited members to a Friday night meet up, our table discussed rights and freedom between web frameworks and tug boats. Thanks to Fedora for sponsoring this exhibit.

SeaGL conference in Seattle in November is still looking for speakers and today is the last day to submit talks.  This is an all inclusive conference, featuring Allison Randal, President of the Open Source Initiative as the keynote speaker.  They would like to see more submissions from:

• newer speakers, local speakers


• proposals from women


• Intro topics for students and younger folks


• Web frameworks and tools


• Language (Python) Tips and Tricks


• Latest automation tweaks for experienced users


• Privacy and Policy topics

We will be featuring Fedora Love Python at the exhibit table.  If you have a Python talk, either beginner, tips and tricks, or Fedora Infrastructure, please submit it today.  We could use some help staffing the exhibit table so please sign up on the Fedora Wiki event page.

Proposals for talks at the Seattle GNU Linux Conference are due by August 1st. SeaGL is a grassroots technical conference dedicated to spreading awareness and knowledge about the GNU/Linux community and free/libre/open-source software/hardware. Our goal for SeaGL is to produce an event which is as enjoyable and informative for those who spend their days maintaining hundreds of servers as it is for a student who has only just started exploring technology options. SeaGL welcomes speakers of all backgrounds and levels of experience—even if you've never spoken at a technical conference. If you're excited about GNU/Linux technologies or free and open source software, we want to hear your ideas. Submit your talk

The SeaGL conference is November 11th and 12th at Seattle Central College. Fedora will have a booth and will be showing off Fedora loves Python. If you can help out representing Fedora please enter your name on the Fedora SeaGL event page. Also I am looking for Fedora loves Python tee-shirts and trifolds, if you know where I can find these please get in touch with me on the event page.

-- Jeff Sandys

LinuxFest NorthWest is quieter on Sunday, many guests come Saturday from Seattle or Vancouver for the world famous raffle and some of the participants extended the after party in the 24 hour Geek Room at the hotel. I used the opportunity to renew my Electronic Frontier Foundation and Free Software Foundation memberships.

Many Linux curious local families visit on Sunday, they engaged with the games and the convert your XP computer exhibit. The volunteer staff at the fest give all the exhibitors, speakers and participants a great family like experience. The Bellingham Technical College students streamed many of the talks live and had ALL the talks on-line before we were packed up to leave. Volunteers had some time to play SuperTuxKart.

For me the best experience is interacting with the guests and other exhibitors. The Seattle Sysadmin group exhibitor needed a live usb to fix a computer so I gave them a Live Fedora Workstation 23 usb that I had and some Fedora case badges. When I stopped by they expressed gratitude and showed off the newly applied case badge. A guest stopped by to thank us, they had downloaded Fedora Jam after visiting our music exhibit last year, saying that Fedora with Guitarx is now part of their live act. These interactions are the rewards for spending a weekend in the booth.

We had fewer SuperTuxKart contestants on Sunday, Victor Lopez (right) really wanted the gold medal but met his match with Robert Cochran (left) who won the final race. I have to thank Fedora for sponsoring the booth, Jeff Fitzmaurice and Adam Williamson for staffing, and all the guests who stopped by to play SuperTuxKart and other games. If you are in the Northwest April next year, come to Bellingham for the best LinuxFest.

The booth was set up on Friday before Fedora Game Night but the large TV didn't arrive until Saturday morning, so we had a little work to do Saturday morning. We were showing games in Fedora featuring the Fedora Labs Game Spin.

On the OLPC we showed two games, Implode and Maze, always a draw. To demonstrate “convert your XP computer to a Fedora Workstation and still play your games”, we ran some of the games from the Games Spin on my little atom processor computer with WineHQ. To appeal to the serious gamer we showed STEAM, the client is part of the Fedora repository. The large TV was for the SuperTuxKart tournament.

Guests had questions about all of these systems, the OLPC, XP replacement, STEAM gaming and game-pad interfaces. Many of them tried out the SuperTuxKart game, receiving an entry card for the elimination tournament in the afternoon. The elimination races were close but Roko Spain (middle) eliminated Shivek Bnonote and Tyson Van Dyke for the gold medal.

The Saturday exhibits ended with the world famous auction, followed by the after party featuring the Alpha Geek Trivia Contest.

We had about 250 at Fedora Game Night, gave away shirts to table winners and ran out of early sign-in badges.

If you live in the Northwest come an join all the Linux enthusiast this weekend at LinuxFest NorthWest. Seminars and Exhibits are at Bellingham Technical Collage Saturday and Sunday, and the Fedora sponsored Game Night is Friday from 6-10 at Fox Hall at the Hampton Inn. If you join us at Game Night you can get your pass early, play some board games and try out the SuperTuxKart races. At the exhibit on Saturday and Sunday you can participate in the SuperTuxKart Tournament at the Fedora booth. We could also use some help staffing the booth, contact me if you can help.

Fedora will have a presence at LinuxFest NorthWest, April 23-24 in Bellingham, Washington, and can use your help. If you would like to help out with a few hours in the booth or at the Friday game night, add your name to the list on the Fedora Wiki page. You can earn a LFNW shirt or lunch for a few hours of service.
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/LinuxFest_Northwest_(LFNW)_2016

We will be featuring games with Fedora at the exhibit and running a Super Tux Kart tournament, so if you have Linux gaming experience your help would be greatly appreciated. LFNW is alot of fun and we can help help with the room if you sign up right away.

Do you have a topic you would like to present at LFNW? Presentation proposals are due by February 10th. Tracks cover topics from DevOps and Open Hardware to Navigating Linux and Geek Lifestyle, with talks for beginner through experts. Submit your session proposal at the link below and include it on the wiki page above.
http://linuxfestnorthwest.org/2016/present