The Linux/68k meeting (#1) in Solingen

This was a meeting intended to bring more or less active Linux/68k programmers together to learn to know each other, exchange problems and hints, do some programming and discussion on important topics, and of course to have some fun. :-)

Our host, Thorsten Floeck, offered to hold this meeting in his flat. We had two small rooms for the computers, plus some rooms (one of them in their neighbours' flat :-) to sleep.

The meeting was a real success. Due to the much faster turn-around times of voice-talk (contrary to E-Mail on mailing lists) some problems could be solved within minutes. Others took hours (like the attempt of Peter to get the Arcnet driver for Amiga running). Anyway, it was good to "connect the names to faces" of the guys we had been exchanging mails with so often without knowing who's actually the person behind the E-Mail address.

Ok, here's a list of the people who attended the meeting (I took it from the text Thorsten is just writing) :

- Roman Hodek        Roman.Hodek@informatik.uni-erlangen.de
- Martin Schaller    martin_schaller@r.maus.de
- Torsten Scherer    itschere@TechFak.Uni-Bielefeld.DE
- Frank Neumann      Frank.Neumann@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de
- Stefan Hintz       Stefan_Hintz@do.maus.de
- Guenther Kelleter  Guenther_Kelleter@ac3.maus.de
- Andreas Schwab     schwab@issan.informatik.uni-dortmund.de
- Joerg Mayer        jmayer@informatik.uni-kl.de
- Martin Apel        (see Joerg Mayer)
- Michael Engel      engel@numerik.fb6.uni-siegen.de
- Nils Faerber       nils@unix-ag.uni-siegen.de
- Arno Griffioen     arno@marlene.usn.nl
- Geert Uytterhoeven Geert.Uytterhoeven@cs.kuleuven.ac.be
- Peter DeSchrijver  Peter.DeSchrijver@linux.cc.kuleuven.ac.be
- Thorsten Floeck    floeck@wctc6.chemie.uni-wuppertal.de

A word about Claudia: The meals she prepared for us were really great. In fact, I felt this was rather a journey through the Haute Cuisine of Solingen than a programmer's meeting (where I'd been used to Chips, Coke and other junk food :-) Thanks, Claudia!

From left to right: Arno Griffioen, Geert Uytterhoeven, Martin Apel and Peter deSchrijver, all of them obviously pretty busy thinking.

Michael and Nils are working on getting Linux running on a VME bus system which you might be able to see between them. It's an industry standard machine with a couple of 19 inch boards for CPU, RAM and SCSI host adapter. This machine had no graphic board of any kind, so they did all programming via a small notebook on the serial console. During the meeting they tried to get SCSI running (I think so..correct me if I'm wrong).

Peter DeSchrijver, at around 4:30 in the morning. We (or better he) just managed to tweak the Arcnet driver so much as to get a first "ping" running between my machine (colorpot) and Geert's (kassandra). Guess we were both quite happy when this finally worked. :-) Note: The driver is not yet released because of other problems, and also the PC Arcnet driver on which ours is based is currently undergoing some changes we'll have to adapt first, too.

A nice shot of (almost) everyone who attended the meeting; only Michael Engel and Nils Faerber are missing, but unfortunately they already left the day before we took this photo.

Upper row, from left to right:
Joerg Mayer, Andreas Schwab, Martin Apel, Torsten Scherer, Peter deSchrijver, Arno Griffioen, Stefan Hintz, Martin Schaller
Lower row, from left to right:
Thorsten Floeck, Geert Uytterhoeven, Roman Hodek, Guenther Kelleter, Frank Neumann

Sunday afternoon, people are putting their machines back into their cars, going back home. Martin proudly demonstrates his "Uli Stein" T-shirt. Oh, by the way: Almost everything in Thorsten's flat was "UliStein"ified. Uli Stein is a (in Germany) quite famous cartoonist who likes to paint animals and makes them act like humans.

Although most others have already set course for home, Arno still works on something. He stayed until Monday morning if I recall correctly.

Geert and Peter, also going home. Look at the car! Geert told me that earlier this year, Linus Torvalds sat in it, maybe even touched it! I guess Geert will never again wash the spot which Linus touched ;-)

Back to my home page.

Frank Neumann (Franky) / E-Mail: Frank Neumann@informatik.uni-oldenburg.de / November 1995