Comdex Fall 1999: The Linux Business Expo

Pretty big Showfloor

Since the tape measurer that I carry around with me isn't exactly suitable for mesuring the number of square feet of exhibits, it's hard to say for sure, but I don't think the showfloor was noticeably smaller than the one at LinuxWorld Expo Summer 99. While it may have been a bit smaller, if you take into account that some big companies like Sun and Compaq didn't have their booths on the Linux Business Expo of Comdex, since they already had a booth elsewhere.

Easy to find

What was nice were the several signs showing where the Showfloor was:

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The usual suspects where there

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Mark Bolzern from LinuxMall has officially beaten me in the linuxcar category

Of course, just like Linuxmall that's been here since the firsts Linux Pavillions, Infomagic was there

The FreeBSD folks had a nice booth

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If you don't know FreeBSD, you should have a look at it, it's still better than linux at some tasks, besides being different it has some interesting ideas like ports.
They also had compelling reasons as to why you should use FreeBSD:

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Here's what happens to you if you don't use FreeBSD

And here's what happens if you do

Eh, they deserve kudos for the idea. Methinks the FreeBSD daemon is cuter than the Linux Penguin

Other booths

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The slashdot folks, hanging out and doing installfests

Would you believe that those Linux Magazine folks actually finished an issue in their hotel room at night? They're completely insane and yet put out a quality magazine every month. Good job guys.

Would you believe it, Carlie Fairchild was too busy to come smile on the picture

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Corel announced their Corel Linux at Comdex and demoed their current ports to linux, including Quatro Pro and CorelDraw

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Why was I so stupid and didn't buy some of that Corel stock before Comdex?

While their legal department managed to piss off a lot of folks with license issues, their install and desktop based on KDE looked really nice. Too bad it's only based on slink and GLIBC 2.0

It's not ready for release yet, but what they showed was already very cool