Why a Linux festival in West Virginia

Wild & Wired West Virginia is a one day community festival about free software and the machines you already own. It is free to attend, open to the public, and built for people who have never installed Linux.

Most software now arrives as a subscription. You pay monthly, the terms change without you, your files sit on someone else's computer, and the machine on your desk gradually becomes a window into services you rent. Free software is the other option, and it is not a fringe one: it runs most of the internet, and it runs perfectly well on a normal laptop.

West Virginia makes that argument concrete. Rural internet is uneven, so software that works without a constant connection matters here. Money is not evenly spread, so a ten year old laptop that runs well for another five years matters here. And there is a long local habit of fixing what you own rather than replacing it, which is the same instinct that free software runs on.

So the day is built around one measurable outcome: people leaving with Linux running on a machine they brought. The talks make the case, the workshops do the work, the competitions and exhibits give existing users a reason to be in the room, and the pressed discs mean nobody leaves empty handed.

Who runs it

The festival is hosted by the University of Charleston COSC, DASC and MATH Department, which provides the venue, the equipment and the students who staff the floor. The department teaches computer science, data science and mathematics, and this is the public facing version of what it does the rest of the year.

It is a community event rather than a university recruitment day. Nobody will pitch you a degree. Anyone can come and anyone can help run it.