"The Linux Beer Hike or Linuxbierwanderung took place
at Bouillon in Belgium this year. This might not seem like an
obvious place to go to but the local facilities and scenery make
for the kind of location that most people pay lots of money to go
to on a package holiday. Coupled with six days of sun and only two
days of rain it made this years event one of the best so far. A
large crowd of people assembled over at the Archeoscope at
Bouillon. Much beer was consumed and most were doing their level
best to keep up with everyone else. The tenth anniversary of Linux
was celebrated in some style. If only Linus Torvalds could have
been there with us.
The Friday and Saturday at the beginning of the week saw a whole
army of geeks arrive in Bouillon from all over the world. In the
seven days that the Beer Hike took place much of the local area was
covered on foot and much of the local beer was consumed by the beer
crazed fans of da penguin. The author himself was able to find a
leetle more room for ze local Belgian 'ospitalite even after a
whole seven days of partying, mostly with the help of local people
who did not give in even after midnight. At the start of the week
we had to assemble a network which also included the cluster and
the wireless link up to the camp site. The latter proved to be
something of a pain to set up and dragged on into Monday. People
were seen standing around in groups discussing the difficulties and
what to do next. As well as this the cluster kind of clustered on
and the rest of us shoved off for more beer which at 8% by volume
was the kind of thing that shouldn't be missed out on. One of the
first social events was over at the bar next to the camp site. Most
people turned up and the first overly large quantity of beer was
consumed. The Beer Hike isn't only about beer there are also many
events organised for everyone during the seven days that it is
running. Willem Konynberg started this off with his presentation
which asked how do we make Linux better and why does it need to be
so much like a Microsoft product when there's no real need for it.
He says that he wanted to raise a few eyebrows and question current
thinking about computers and software in general. The assembled
crowd loved it and gave him a big round of applause.
On Sunday evening after a successful day of hacking at the
keyboard most of us went to the torch lit tour of the castle. This
was something of a gem from beginning to end. Very touristy but
also well thought out and not to be missed. It was all about how
the crusade was led from the local castle in ancient times and how
the political shape of Europe was changed as a result. It's well
worth going to Bouillon just for this trip alone. The tour was
organised by Juergen Braukman. We would all like to thank him for
his efforts."
