Well, technically, it’s the beginning of day 3.  Anyways, I went to a few more sessions at Ubuntu Live yesterday, and also got to wander around the exhibit hall.  I did manage to get a few pictures, but until I can find a USB cable or SD card reader, I can’t upload them yet.

First, I attended a session by Intel, where I learned two interesting things.  First, Intel has released open source drivers for the e1000n NIC, which is the one found in my board, so I’ll be installing Linux on it very soon.  Second, Intel is working (or has already completed) a daemonless driver for the ipw3945 wireless card, so no more binary blob.

I then attended a session on MythTV and got to see it in action for only the second time.  I’d love to set up a Myth Box, but money is the limiting factor there.  They went over some of the upcoming features in the new MythTV 0.21 release, in particular, the ability to span recordings across multiple hard drives, and also gave a brief overview of Mythbuntu, a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu and Myth.

Lastly, I sat in on a session by Dell about their Ubuntu computers.  If what the guy said here was genuine and not the usual marketing bullshit, it will be very interesting.  First, the rep talked about Dell’s commitment to get good, quality drivers for their hardware.  Dell had already gotten a Linux driver for the built in modem on their laptops, and mentioned that they were trying to get ATI to produce a satisfactory driver before they offered ATI cards in any of their Ubuntu computers.  Even more interesting, Dell has created native a BIOS updater that is available as a deb package and will allow the user to update his or her BIOS from within Ubuntu.  Finally, he mentioned that they had a few new Ubuntu models coming that will be available later this year.

Most of my time outside the sessions was spent at the OpenMoko booth at the exhibit hall.  The Neo1973 is just plain cool.  I got a few photos of it that I’ll upload later, but I’ll definitely be trying to get my hands on one come October.  I’ll go into more detail on it later, but for now, I have to go, my tutorial is about to start here at OSCON.