From: Michael Hanke Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2010 19:30:28 +0000 (-0500) Subject: SfN2010 booth report X-Git-Url: https://git.donarmstrong.com/?a=commitdiff_plain;h=16078069d34b479fca2f88bb0b91c60903df268a;p=neurodebian.git SfN2010 booth report --- diff --git a/sphinx/booth_sfn2010.rst b/sphinx/booth_sfn2010.rst new file mode 100644 index 0000000..00c2378 --- /dev/null +++ b/sphinx/booth_sfn2010.rst @@ -0,0 +1,178 @@ +.. _chap_debian_booth_sfn2010: + +Debian booth at SfN2010 in San Diego +==================================== + +.. image:: pics/sfn2010/SanDiegoConferenceCenter.jpg + :width: 100% + +From November 13-17, 2010 the NeuroDebian team ran its first Debian booth at the +annual meeting of the `Society for Neuroscience`_ (SfN2010_) in San +Diego, USA. We presented the upcoming release Debian 6.0 Squeeze and +demonstrated its utility as a robust and versatile research environment for +neuroscience. Booth visitors had the opportunity to meet with developers +of neuroscience research software, and to get information on available software +and recommendations for deployment strategies in research laboratories. + +.. image:: pics/sfn2010/PosterSession.jpg + +The `annual meeting`_ of the Society for Neuroscience is one of the largest +neuroscience conferences in the world, with over 30,000 attendees. Researchers, +clinicians, and leading experts discuss the latest findings about the brain, +nervous system, and related disorders. + + +Booth setup +----------- + +`Don Armstrong`_ kindly provided us with Debian banners to decorate the +booth and some Debian T-shirts to give away. Moreover, we were equipped with +laptops running Debian squeeze and sid, as well as two additional laptops each +running a Debian squeeze virtual machine on top of Mac OS X and Windows, +respectively (CDs with the VM image were also available for visitors to take +home). To demonstrate Debian's versatility, we had a complete Debian +archive mirror that was used to show the full selection of available software +and the simplicity of installation and upgrade procedures. All of this was +powered by a small router box with attached external harddrive running DebWrt_. +All machines were connected to our own local wired network to avoid problems +with conference center's free wireless network (poor at best). Finally, we had +several hundred `tri-fold flyers`_ with general Debian facts on one side, and +NeuroDebian facts on the other (`sources are available`_). + + +.. figure:: pics/sfn2010/BoothReady.jpg + + Final booth setup with staff (left to right): Michael Hanke, Yaroslav + Halchenko and Swaroop Guntupali. + + +Booth visitors +-------------- + +The booth was well attended on all days of the conference. Many people were +somewhat surprised, but also pleased to see Debian represented. The visitors +comprised the whole range from long-term Debian users to people who were not +aware of an operating system other than Windows and Mac OS. + +A number of visitors were involved in free software development -- at various +levels. We talked to a Debian ftpmaster, a Gentoo developer, various developers +of neuroscience-related software that is already packaged for Debian and many +more whose work still needs to be packaged. This included representatives of +companies looking for support to get their open-source products into Debian. +The vast majority, however, were scientists looking for a better research +platform for their labs. That included the struggling Phd-student, as well as +lab heads sharing their experience managing a computing infrastructure for +neuroscience research. + +The Debian booth also served as a platform for upstream developers to meet with +Debian users of their software. + +.. image:: pics/sfn2010/BusyBooth.jpg + + + +Debian-based systems are the preferred Linux environment +-------------------------------------------------------- + +The overwhelming majority of visitors running any Linux flavor used a +Debian-based operating system -- including Debian_ itself, Ubuntu_ and +sidux/apttosid_. Especially people using Python for research purposes seem to +prefer the comprehensive support of Python modules in Debian, whereas e.g. R_ +users are more uniformly distributed across GNU/Linux distributions. This +assessment is, of course, biased by the fact that Debian was the only +distribution that was present at this conference. + +In general, we had the impression that Linux users employ a larger variety of +tools in their research activities, whereas users of proprietary operating +systems tended to limit themselves to a more restricted set, or use an +intermediate platform, such as Matlab. + +.. figure:: pics/sfn2010/NeuroDebianPosterSession.jpg + + During the conference's poster session we explained the Debian system and + community processes to many interested visitors (`download the poster`_). + + +Take-home messages +------------------ + +While there was a large variety of topics that were brought up by visitors there +we some common patterns. + +Visibility + + For a Debian developer it may be surprising, but many people still do not + know that Debian exists -- even despite the fact that Debian is often a + perfect match of their particular requirements. People who got introduced to + Debian at the booth often couldn't believe what they were hearing: so much + software, runs on any hardware, all for free. + + We believe it would be very beneficial for Debian to reach out beyond the IT + sector and present itself in all fields of applications that it already + supports today. + +Debian and Ubuntu + + Apparently it is still a largely unknown fact that Ubuntu is based on Debian. + +Live-CD + + There was a significant demand for (customized) Live-CDs. On one hand, people + were asking for a way to quickly try out Debian (and we believe that this + doesn't necessarily have to be a live-cd). On the other hand, for example, + teachers were asking for means to temporarily deploy Debian on, e.g. + university computer pool machines and use Debian-packaged software for + teaching courses (e.g. on brain-imaging data analysis). + +Electrophysiology tools + + Of all subfields of neuroscience, electrophysiology researchers expressed the + greatest demand for better tools in Debian -- or basically at least some + specialized tools at all. We started a `new Debian Science Blend task`_ to + collect information about existing software and to eventually package it. + +Realtime capabilities + + Apparently, numerous research groups utilize Debian-based equipment to perform + various flavors of real-time data acquisition and processing. They expressed + their demand for real-time capabilities of (some) Debian kernel images. + +Cloud-computing + + Cloud-computing seems to be an increasingly interesting topic for neuroscience + data analysis. We got the impression that there is a tendency to look for + alternatives to Matlab to be able to run analyses in the cloud cheaper (or at + all). We pointed people to ongoing efforts in Debian to enable Debian-based + cloud computing (see e.g. the `Debian wiki`_). + + +Many Thanks +----------- + +Throughout the conference many people stopped by to express their gratitude to +Debian for developing their operating system of choice. We want to affirm this +and relay it to the larger Debian community. Thanks for Debian. + + +Acknowledgements +---------------- + +This booth has been made possible by the generous support of Prof. James V. +Haxby (Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, USA) and other donations to the Debian +project. + + +.. _annual meeting: http://www.sfn.org/am2010/ +.. _SfN2010: http://www.sfn.org/am2010/ +.. _Society for Neuroscience: http://www.sfn.org/ +.. _Don Armstrong: http://www.donarmstrong.org +.. _DebWrt: http://www.debwrt.net +.. _Debian: http://www.debian.org +.. _Ubuntu: http://www.ubuntu.com +.. _apttosid: http://aptosid.com +.. _R: http://www.r-project.org +.. _tri-fold flyers: http://neuro.debian.net/_files/brochure_debian-neurodebian.pdf +.. _sources are available: http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-exppsy/neurodebian.git;a=tree;hb=HEAD;f=artwork/brochure +.. _Debian wiki: http://wiki.debian.org/Cloud +.. _new Debian Science Blend task: http://blends.alioth.debian.org/science/tasks/neuroscience-electrophysiology +.. _download the poster: http://neuro.debian.net/_files/NeuroDebian_SfN2010.png diff --git a/sphinx/pics/sfn2010/BoothReady.jpg b/sphinx/pics/sfn2010/BoothReady.jpg new file mode 100644 index 0000000..00d4cc3 Binary files /dev/null and b/sphinx/pics/sfn2010/BoothReady.jpg differ diff --git a/sphinx/pics/sfn2010/BusyBooth.jpg b/sphinx/pics/sfn2010/BusyBooth.jpg new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8aba9ee Binary files /dev/null and b/sphinx/pics/sfn2010/BusyBooth.jpg differ diff --git a/sphinx/pics/sfn2010/NeuroDebianPosterSession.jpg b/sphinx/pics/sfn2010/NeuroDebianPosterSession.jpg new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3fe866b Binary files /dev/null and b/sphinx/pics/sfn2010/NeuroDebianPosterSession.jpg differ diff --git a/sphinx/pics/sfn2010/PosterSession.jpg b/sphinx/pics/sfn2010/PosterSession.jpg new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a403ae7 Binary files /dev/null and b/sphinx/pics/sfn2010/PosterSession.jpg differ diff --git a/sphinx/pics/sfn2010/SanDiegoConferenceCenter.jpg b/sphinx/pics/sfn2010/SanDiegoConferenceCenter.jpg new file mode 100644 index 0000000..acb7798 Binary files /dev/null and b/sphinx/pics/sfn2010/SanDiegoConferenceCenter.jpg differ