linux.conf.au 2004
I’ve backdated this post to when this event occured. Why write this now? An old friend reach out and got in touch in August 2026, which led to me thinking about what we did all those years ago, and the realisation that there is no good record remaining of lca2004, which meant I wanted to write down a few thoughts.
The linux.conf.au 2004 conference was held at the University of Adelaide between January 12 and 17, 2004. That’s such a long time ago, but there’s so many good memories of that time. We produced a conference CD that contained a snapshot of what happened, and there’s also the wayback machine’s preservation of the conference website.
We also had some kind converage by LWN.net: G’Day from Linux.Conf.AU and Linux.Conf.Au trip report.
There was an amazing team of volunteers that came together to make it all happen, but I’m especially thankful for my core team partners in crime: Geoffrey and Lindy Bennett, Dan Shearer, Glen Turner, David Lloyd, Ryan Verner, and Phil Hutton.
But just a few thoughts:
- We raised over AUD6200 for the Cystic Fibrosis Association, another AUD5500 for ITShare, and AUD2800 for Reachout and Canteen
- We gave away an IBM pSeries server worth AUD39000, one of the first Apple MacBook G4’s running Linux signed by open-source luminaries, and a bunch of other cool tech gadgetry
- And the main event was a pretty amazing conference program
Another quite memorable thing was the dunking.