We are participating in BITA (Baroda IT Association) Exhibition 25 -27 January 2008, putting up one and only GNU/Linux and Free Software stall amongst over 100 stalls displaying hardware and software that is targeted towards M$’ OS.

When we participated last year, there was a huge interest in what ‘Linux’ is all about, visitors couldn’t believe that there is something available for free with no strings attached, it even does most of the jobs much better than paid counterparts.

To introduce visitors to Linux we had distributed Kanotix(Imprvoised Knoppix) and Sabayon Linux live CDs. This year too we will be distributing Sabayon Live CD. Here are the reasons why not PCLinuxOS, openSUSE or any other distro.

1. I wanted the distro to run Compiz Fusion out of box, PCLinuxOS did not do that, Kanotix can do it but only on Intel hardware. Sabayon is the only distro that can handle ATI/nvidia hardware and offer AIGLX or XGL as choice on booting. openSUSE live, created by KIWI, too can run compiz with Xgl but only on Intel hardware, the process is not as simple as it is on Sabayon.

2. Play multimedia- openSUSE was limited to playing MP3 only.

3. Sabayon provides the glimpse of what Linux distros could be if they are not crippled by legalities.

Once users ’see’ what a great thing GNU/Linux OS is, I am sure they would want it installed on their machines, installation of openSUSE is free, all they need to do is bring their box at our office , multimedia, drivers etc. are just 1-click away on installed system

Hopefully this year we will see open source drivers for ATI and openSUSE 11 with all the bling enabled by default.