1. KDE at Linux Expo 2003

See ["DebianExpoList2003"] for dates, links, Debian-people, .org section layout, LPI registration, reminder to bring GPG keys and a passport, suggestions of places to stay.

2. People

3. Things on the stall

• A (preferably non-laptop) demonstration machine with CVS KDE (I should be able to get one but open to suggestions - jr)
• Jonathan has 6 polo shirts (a snip at 20UKP each) and badges ('pins', £1.50 ) to sell and stickers to give away
• Jono will bring his stuff from previous expos
• Setting up on the Tuesday should not take long, maybe we can arrange a time to do it
• We need leaflets to give out, with general KDE info and KDE 3.2 features on it. See kde-promo in (non-anonymous) CVS for inspiration. (I'll try and make something up - jr)

• I have one KDE t-shirt to wear, Jono can you bring yours? Sure.

• Lee, did you get anything useful made with the SVG logos?

Also:

• Please bring 4 way power adaptors and extension leads (if possible with surge protection)
• There will be wireless internet on the stand (but not fast)

4. Other things

• LONIX will be organising a social event (drinking in a pub) on the Wednesday night:Leaving the expo at 5pm and heading for the Lowlander pub in Covent Garden. Following Lowlander if you are still standing a table has been booked at Spice of London indian restaurant (http://www.spiceoflondon.com/) at 22 Drury Lane for some high quality cuisine. Or alternatively you can stay at Lowlander where they also serve food. Directions to Lowlander Exit Covent Garden Tube station and on your left you'll see a road (for cars!) alled Long Acre. Take a right down this road, go straight over the roundabout and carry on straight until you see Drury Lane on your left (it's also on the right). Take a left and you will see Lowlander on your left.

• Car parking limited, pre book spaces by credit card in the multi storey (P3) car park or other venue parking areas by logging onto www.eco.co.uk or by calling the new dedicated telephone booking line on 0871 871 9809

5. Timetable

• Tuesday 7th October 12:00 - 21:00 Exhibitors only Setup
• Wednesday 8th October 08:00 - 10:30 Exhibitors only, 10:30 - 17:00 Show Open, LONIX pub meeting
• Thursday 9th October 08:00 - 10:30 Exhibitors only, 10:30 - 16:00 Show Open, 17:00 - 20:00 Exhibitors only Break down

6. KDE dot news article draft

Linux Expo UK 2003 took place in London last week. KDE took part in the .org village along with a dozen other Free Software projects ( <a href="http://jriddell.org/photos/2003-10-linux-expo-kde-stall.jpg">photo from front</a>, <a href="http://jriddell.org/photos/2003-10-linux-expo-kde-stall-back.jpg">photo from back</a>). We demonstrated KDE 3.2 alpha to a constant stream of visitors (over 5,500 were at the show, most of them seemed to be at the .org village stand) and handed out several hundered leaflets. Read on for some of their comments.

Several KDE developers including Jono Bacon, Chris Howells and Jonathan Riddell were joined by Debian packager David Pashley (<a href="http://jriddell.org/photos/2003-10-linux-expo-kde-stall-jonathan-david.jpg">photo</a>) and salesman extraordinaire Ben Lamb (<a href="http://jriddell.org/photos/2003-10-linux-expo-kde-stall-ben-and-punters.jpg">photo</a>) to demonstrate the forthcoming KDE 3.2 release and solicit feedback from existing users. We met several companies looking to deploy GNU/Linux on the desktop and talked to journalists from all the major UK Linux magazines.

The users have decreed KDE 3.2 looks "beautiful". Our demo machine was using the Plastik theme with the Crystal icons.

Besides the beautiful new look visitors were very impressed with Kontact; for people who knew about KDE 3.2 it was the first thing they asked to see. However, confusion abounded about it only working with Kroupware/Kolab. We emphasised that even when running it as a standalone application you can exchange appointments via email and publish calendars to the web.

Everyone had their own wishes, some needed LDAP connectivity and another was very pleased to discover KGPG had all the functionality he needed. Smaller features such as the new system tray applet for changing the screen resolution and TrueType font previews were universally appaulded.

Almost everyone wanted to know if/when their distribution would be shipping KDE 3.2, how they could upgrade and whether we had the code available on CD. It’s clear that many users do not know how to upgrade to the latest release and some are still running KDE 2. The difficulty of software upgrades and installation was one of the general GNU/Linux grumbles people kept mentioning. The others were drivers for some hardware (caused by manufacturers who do not work with the open source development process) and the integration issues which <a href="http://pdx.freedesktop.org/Software/hal">HAL</a> aims to fix.

KOffice 1.3 was also demonstrated although most of the people were already using OpenOffice. Several people were unaware of KOffice altogether and many did not realize that the applications have improved considerably since its first release. Kexi is generating a lot of interest but sadly we weren't able to demo it. A number of people asked after Umbrello UML Modeller which pleased Jonathan.

Criticism flowed as well, ranging from “the application names are confusing” to "the logo’s rubbish". More constructively a plea, from a large corporate, for better documentation about locking down KDE desktops and possibly a GUI front-end. It’s a shame when KDE has the features but they go unused for lack of documentation or publicity.

An almost continuous stream of people visited the stand on both days. Mostly existing KDE users and by my guess at least a quarter had been following the progress of KDE 3.2 and would have upgraded anyway. After seeing a demo nearly everyone was convinced that it would be a worthwhile upgrade.

Our stock of polo shirts and badges sold out and almost 500 flyers and stickers were handed out. Next year we will take more.

Article by Ben Lamb and Jonathan Riddell, photos by Chris Howells and UK Linux