We kicked off Friday night with a welcome party at the hotel. I had some great conversations with fellow speakers and attendees, sharing the cool things we are working on as well as a few drinks and some appetisers.opinions

Richard Weait, one of the event organisers, introduced himself to me and did a fine job of making me feel welcome and appreciated, as he did throughout the event. Hell, he even helped me load-in on Saturday morning!

Many attendees flocked to our OpenSolaris booth, where we were handing out the brand new ZFS Administration Guide, which went like hotcakes, OpenSolaris CDs and Getting Started Guide. Thanks to Teresa Giacomini and the great team at Sun. A number of people came by whom I helped with installs (bare metal & virtualbox). Questions abounded from both noobs and Solaris veterans. Of course the ubiquitous "How is the Oracle/Sun deal going to affect OpenSolaris?" came up many times .. too bad I didn't have a copy of this FAQ: http://www.oracle.com/us/sun/038563.pdf to elaborate, though my opinions answered similarly.

Later in the afternoon I gave my presentation "Why OpenSolaris?" to a full room (about 70 people). After my slides we engaged in a Q & A session, followed by some door prizes (provided by our great event organisers) for two questions I culled from my talk. They were both answered correctly and quickly. Glad to see everyone was paying attention! For those that came by our booth after, I gave the remaining OpenSolaris t-shirts.

A great dinner was put on for the speakers Saturday evening, with the Google sponsored party following (thanks for the GoogleBooze!), where we all had a chance to continue some great conversations.

This was an excellent experience and highly recommended .. can't wait for Ontario LinuxFest 2010!