"How did that ever work"? Hard-won lessons on root causing failures

Speaker: Adam Williamson

Room: CC 236

Time: Sat 10:30 am – 11:00 am

Format: Lecture (30 Min + Q&A)

Difficulty: Introductory

Track: Development & Dev Tools

Presenter Location: In-person

Experience: umpteenth time speaking

At: anywhere

Description:

It started crashing! Why?

One of the best things about open source is that you can answer that question yourself. Sometimes it’s surprisingly easy. Sometimes it’s hard. But you can almost always figure it out — and learn a lot along the way.

Adam Williamson has been doing this for over 20 years, both as a hobby and professionally, for Mandrake and then Fedora. This talk covers his approach, techniques, tips, and tricks for root‑causing failures, with real‑world examples.

Also, every time he gives a talk like this, someone in the audience points out a simple command he should have been using for 20 years — so come watch that happen live.

Target Audience:

Interested end users

Somewhat experienced developers