Linuxfest Northwest is a non-commercial, one-day conference and exhibition of open-source technology, with an emphasis on Linux. It is held once a year, is free of charge and is hosted at the Bellingham Technical College (BTC) in Bellingham, WA. This year, Linuxfest runs from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM on Saturday, April 29, 2006.

Linuxfest Northwest is produced by user groups, for users. It is more fun and less commercial than other computer shows I have attended. This year, seven user groups have collaborated to produce Linuxfest:

About 1,200 people attend Linuxfest Northwest each year. For 2006, 45 presentations are scheduled and more than 40 exhibitors will be in the exhibits room. Exhibitors include user groups, book vendors, computer vendors, ISPs and representatives from free software projects.

As usual, the official Linuxfest booth will be selling tickets for the "World Famous Raffle" at the end of the day. The raffle always has great prizes and is worth sticking around for. In addition, Google once again will have a booth in the exhibitors area, and representatives will be giving out tickets to the Brew Fest.

The schedule of presentations for this year is impressive. They will be held in 12 different classrooms, during four different time slots. Once again, I wish I could be in several places at once in order to attend presentations scheduled for the same time. The schedule also indicates that there is something for everyone. Some talks are suitable for complete beginners, such as "Linux for Dummies" by Dee-Ann LeBlanc. For more experienced users familiar with development, system administration and audio/video, the schedule offers "OSS Network Management Tools", by Francois Caen; "Persistent NUMA Threads ++", by Elaine Tsiang; and "Digital Photos and Image Editing", by Adrian Klaver. In addition, speakers from the following companies will be present: Novell, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, Red Hat, IBM and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Once again Linuxfest will sponsor a geek trivia contest called "Alpha Geek", hosted by Chuck Wolber. I went to the Alpha Geek contest last year and enjoyed it tremendously. And after Linuxfest, you can debate trivia answers while attending the April Brew's Day party from 4-9 PM.

At the show, the traditional grilled salmon lunch served by BTC culinary students will be available, along with espresso drinks.

Directions explaining how to get to Linuxfest are available here. BTC has plenty of parking and there is no charge for it.

If you'd rather not drive, Pogo Linux is chartering buses to take people from Seattle to the show. If you are in the Seattle area and wish to "buspool" with dozens of other Linux fans, sign up here. Sign-ups will end no later than Thursday, April 27, so if you want to ride the bus, sign up today!

If you would like to help promote Linuxfest Northwest, you can download this full-color poster that shows a Pacific Northwest totem pole with Tux the penguin on top.

Linuxfest Northwest 2006 is going to be a lot of fun. I hope to see you there!