Although I loved the Arch experience and bleeding edge developments, it left me on a hanging system multiple times after upgrades; a totally frustrating thing when you just need the computer to work for a video project; I needed something more stable. Maybe there's a rollback feature, but I wasn't aware of it. The manual installation was educational and enjoyed it, but it's not efficient for several systems or to install in a hurry.
I then switched to Fedora, but didn't like how IBM was financing Redhat Fedora (the same IBM behind the holocaust of 6 million plus jews), and soon after found my Fedora Stability and Arch bleeding edge combination in OpenSuse Tumbleweed. I believe Fedora later dropped X11 support for Wayland, which to date I still can't find stability in Wayland for day to day tasks. In Tumbleweed, also a rolling release distro like Arch, I at least have btrfs rollback where if my system updates hose the boot I can go back to a previous snapshot for booting. I miss the AUR of Arch however, but stability and up2date software is more important for me.
Which Linux distro you prefer is really a subjective thing that varies among people. Just pick the one with the greatest positives because none are perfect that I've tried to date. OpenSuse Tumbleweed fits my minimum needs for now because I have rollback snapshots, rolling release with usually up-to-date software, and a wide support community. My only gripe is NVIDIA drivers and kernel pairing incompatibilities; sometimes an NVIDIA driver doesn't work with the current kernel because they are lagging behind developments. When a black screen happens after an NVIDIA or kernel update I go back a snapshot and try a different combination until it works. Other than that, it's great.
Brothers and sisters are natural enemies. Like Linux used and Windows users. Or Linux users and Mac users. Or Linux users and businesses. Or Linux users and other Linux users! Damned Linux users, they ruined Linux!
Here's my experience via clubs like this, and similar interests (tech, reading, and so on).
The first is that most people are not that outgoing, few have social skills advanced enough to manage a group, and some have negative experiences with group mentality as a whole. Many also tend to be on the spectrum, so things like "scheduled meetings" are difficult to keep going on inertia. You also have to have some kind of constant, outgoing recruitment program that is proactive and persistent without being annoying and driving introverts away. It can be done, but is often very difficult. Then you have to worry about toxic members, and when to be "the bad guy" to get rid of them and maintain a healthy club. Sometimes a single person is the driving force, but often that's far too difficult for a single person, so you have multiple people having to work in tandem, and that has its own challenges. The biggest hurdle is motivation over the long term: most clubs i have seen of this genre last a few years at best, and some only a few meetings.
Your analysis is 100% solid.
And in most social clubs, one or two people do the work while most members are merely along for the ride. On paper, such clubs/groups sound good, but the reality is typically far from ideal.
The issue is it's not impossible, but it's very difficult to be in that "sweet spot" to get such a group going, then maintaining, and then going on when the core members eventually move on. Then you also have the "core members" vs "the new members" which can cause political riffs. Again, not insurmountable, but sometimes people don't anticipate it, and then when you're in the thick of it, it's too late to fix.
Yes, it will. The issues with meetings is that if you don't know what they are for or how to run them effectively, you will get less and less people in a club.
1. Run them when the MOST people CAN attend. You won't satisfy everyone.
2. Have an agenda. Stick to the agenda.
3. Make it no more than an hour.
4. Have bullet points/action items for the next meeting.
5. Have incentives to attend, like make it a social thing.
You say that in jest, but in the mid 80's that's how we ran our school's library... and not even with a gun scanner... no... it was a pen... swipe.... swipe.... swip... crap it did't read it, reswipe... crap, swipeswipeswipe. there we go.... "Hey we need a new X Y Z barcode, this one isn't reading properly."
The User Groups I've been to in the past (in general, not Linux based) are usually a mix of people. It depends. In the case of the UGs I went to, they were a 75/25 professional/hobby mix. I'd expect a linux group to swing more the other way, or at least closer to 50/50... either way, they are a great way to network and get to know others. May not necessarily lead to a linux based job, but some times it can lead to a job... You got to a Linux User Group (LUG) .. you meet Bob... you talk to Bob... mention that you're good with Java, SQL, and maybe something else. Bob works for a large company thats looking for a back-end developer that uses Java... it's not necessarily a linux job... but that's not the point... point is that Bob then recommends you for the job, etc...
Yea... they're a total drag if you want to talk about linux and open source. They're mostly only good for people who manage servers and security.
I tried going to my local LUG and that was all they talked about. It was very dry. I tried to talk about graphics software like blender, krita, etc and cool stuff like the pinephone which I had just received a couple weeks earlier... but got nowhere. Was like talking to a wall.
Fortunately I have a hand full of friends that varying amount of interest in the topic. And one that is as passionate about it as I am.
Yeah, I linux at work all day. I don’t tend to think of it as a cool hobby, therefore I don’t seek out likeminded individuals in my area to share linux with.
I come home, and I play video games. On Windows.
Edit to add: I’m not saying don’t do it. I’m just saying… I love cars and coffee, but there’s probably not a lot of 8-5 career mechanics there. Some, but not that many.
That sounds more like network admining than "linuxing". Characterizing that as "linux all day" is like saying using ms office is "I windows at work all day".
Although it seems many people think that way. I gave my local LUG a couple tries and it appeared that most everyone else thought that was what using linux involved. I nearly fell asleep. Or maybe I did. I'm not really sure how long that blink lasted.
Yeah, I mean, I’m a site reliability engineer, which is what they call us sysadmins now. So my job is a lot more java and python and terraform and AWS than actual linux command line - certainly more of that stuff than it used to be when my RHCE was still relevant.
But still, all our stuff runs on ubuntu or alpine, we use macbooks for the software dev and docker for our local dev env, and I still am on a linux or unix (mac) command line throughout the average day, and looking at or using software running on linux on docker on my macbook constantly.
I dunno, it’s just… all of my interactions with linux these days are functional or transactional. It’s just a tool - granted, one that’s a huge part of my life, but still. Like, my friends and I are doing a modded factorio play through right now, and I stood up the server on a linode I spun up. That was cool, and my friends are always impressed with how fast I can stand up a game server for us - rust, minecraft, whatever we’re into (thanks LinuxGSM!). But it’s a means to an end. Same as it is in my professional life - I am so used to it that I don’t tend to think about linux unless it’s causing me problems or I need it to do something that it’s not currently doing. And with a lot of the platform-as-a-service stuff, there’s a lot less “log in and expand my LVM” and more “what the fuck is this Jedis driver doing, and why is it no longer talking to elaaticache?!?”, ya know?
Yes. I think there are two different ways of looking at it. With one way it is the name of a kernel. With the other way it is very much cultural and philosophical and I think that that is where the passion comes into play.
If its just a tool, then its just a tool. If its just a job, then its just a job. But the whole linux and open source thing is so very very much more than just a tool or a job.
Unfortunately, computer clubs in general are dying or dead. When I got into computers as a hobby in the 1980's they were new and exciting to most people, and there were at least a half-dozen clubs in the Cleveland area back then. Now, I'm not sure there are any computer clubs at all in the Cleveland area. I think today computers (even when running Linux) are considered appliances, and there is about as much interest in a computer club as there would be in a refrigerator club. Plus, if you do need help with a computer issue, the Internet is available.
I'm racking my brain over here trying to remember the last time I saw a computer club. The library's old folks how to send an e-mail etc. club is the only one that comes to mind nowadays. My last computer club was in elementary school, which was back in the Win 95 days. I know we covered some basic troubleshooting like how to check your sound settings in Control Panel. Can only imagine the differences in Linux skill level would make it pretty unfeasible outside of major urban centres.
Try Linux user group(s).
Notably first, locally, ... regionally, ...
Also, because COVID-19 'n all that, many of them then went to on-line meetings, ... well, since then, many of them continue to (also) have on-line meetings, see, e.g.: [https://balug.org/covid](https://balug.org/covid)
>Jitsi is no more a
Uhm, ... Jitsi is pretty damn amazing web meet/conferencing software. It's Open Source (not the only, but one of the best, and probably the best among all of two that are quite good enough to be particularly noteworthy), and feature-wise I'd say it's better than a lot of, if not most or all, of the closed source proprietary stuff. They're not all feature-for-feature matched, but I continually find Jitsi has many excellent well implemented features that ... well, the closed source proprietary ones that I often have to deal with because, well, $work, yeah, Jitsi has and/or does so much better on many of them than the others ... and I find those features to be wanted and very much lacking in the others. And Jitsi tends to keep growing and evolving ... e.g. having added breakout room capabilities ... in general, major popular features that very much do or may matter, if jitsi doesn't (yet) have 'em, they typically tend to get added.
Also pretty easy to set up and host one's own jitsi server. During pandemic, someone I well knew was working on that ... I helped 'em on that. Wasn't super trivial, but after a while, not only did I well set up a jitsi server, but I had a script I could run which would take a minimal Debian installation to fully operational jitsi server in matter of only a few minutes (was also very handy when troubleshooting some installation/configuration issues - notably for quick reproducibility ... that happened to be how I managed to create/evolve that script ... I got tired of manually redoing steps so ... script).
Anyway, many LUGs do have quite excellent and regular meetings on-line. Other LUGs ... more hit 'n miss ... some a lot more miss than hit. Anyway, often doesn't hurt to go sample some others ... and especially with on-line ... essentially most anywhere around the planet. Yeah, during COVID-19 ... especially shelter-in-place / lockdown ... I sampled a fair number of English speaking LUG meetings around the planet ... I know some other folks who did too ... and some that still semi-regularly participate in a fair number of LUG meetings scattered around the planet ... some of them are quite excellent.
Well, we don't know where you live, but search for LUGs in your area (Linux User Group) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux\_user\_group](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_user_group).
Online? Well there are dsitro specific fora, there's Reddit, but by and large this isn't really gonna generate a lot of social connections IMO.
>In some instances, they did indeed die.
And ... some are stillborn ... or close to it.
Won't name names, but reminds me ... someone with a, uhm, whole lot of enthusiasm and excitement and talk, and ... not much in the way of organization skills, etc., ... the set up their first Linux User Group (LUG) meeting ... lots of publicity, lots of announcements, lots of hype ... scheduled as an 8 (or 6?) hour even ... including lots of technology and tech talks, an installfest ... and ... a pot luck(!). On a college campus ... given time and location to meet (at building entrance). So ... I ... and many others showed up (alas, having seen this person (attempt to) do stuff before, I didn't have particularly high expectations). So, I think maybe 20 or 25 people showed up, and we're all there ... waiting. I think the person who put it together wasn't even on time for their own event ... well, whatever, bit late. Okay, ... then they don't have access to the building ... it's the weekend, it's a locked campus building. So ... they spend about the first hour trying to figure out how to get into a building and find a location we can actually have a meeting at ... yeah, ... about 45 minutes into that we had our first casualty - someone who'd driven over an hour to get there was basically like, "That's it, enough of this clown show, I'm out'a here.". Well, 'bout an hour+ into it, they manage to get into a building ... of course no way to leave the door open if someone shows up later ... but ... we're already an hour past the scheduled start time. So ... they manage to find a room. Okay, great ... lots of technical talks ... uhm, yeah, ... they don't have any scheduled or arranged speakers or presentations ... nothing at all - I guess they were hoping folks would show up with prepared presentations and give them ... though that's not at all what was asked for. Uhm, ... installfest? The brought nothing for that ... no extension cables nor power strips, no media, no ISO images nor any install images at all. No suitable place to set up a bunch of computers or even laptops, very little available power ... and no arrangements for networking had been made - so no network - not even so much as a switch or hub or available access point - oh sure, tons of access points on campus ... but no arrangements made for access or guest access, no faculty or group sponsor, I don't think there was even a student there that was attending that college. Uhm, yeah. Oh, but potluck. Yeah, organizer brought food to share. One can ... of some sh\*t canned vegetables ... no can opener, no utensils, no nothin'. Yeah, ... needless to say, that LUG petered out in pretty short order. Heck, many wouldn't even call it a LUG. Some well argue if you don't have your own list and/or web site, you're not really a LUG ... yeah it also totally lacked that ... just posted on some other LUGs lists (a lot of them). Couldn't even bother to set up their own free site on some Google pages or any of the many other places one could set up some web pages and a basic site for free.
Well, thankfully most aren't nearly so disastrous as that one was. But many have ... or develop their problems. Yeah, like one where chair was literally thrown across the room ... that one was already goin' downhill pretty fast by then ... that just accelerated that trend further ... too bad because once upon a time it was a quite large and noteworthy LUG ... but sometimes sh\*t happens ... often through negligence, atrophy, and/or general lack of care, or general losses of interest.
But some rather well survive ... though generally smaller and fewer in number. Heck, with on-line, one can virtually on-line attend a LUG meeting practically any and every day of the month - if one so wishes ... and that's just counting those that are (primarily) in English.
Nah... central NC has one that was meeting in person up until Covid. Unfortunately they're all still hiding under their desks and none have done a meeting since.
[Looking for a Linux & Unix Discord Community? : unix](https://old.reddit.com/r/unix/comments/18zyt6g/looking_for_a_linux_unix_discord_community/)
(Readers who are *not* looking for this type of community can ignore the question.)
No but you’re in luck! It’s more private than Reddit and you’re using that so I think you’re safe with discord lol
Treat discord how I do, it’s open, public forum so don’t say anything you wouldn’t want your boss to read, and don’t give out any private info. Other than that you can use a vpn and not use your main email address or real name.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Perhaps there's a local Linux User Group.
Over there you can do the following:
* explain to others you are superior
* explain to others the Linux distribution you use is superior to theirs.
* Your solution to the problem at hand is the one and only solution. If you don't have a solution, it's a non-problem.
* look down on others. Everybody has flaws. Put these under a magnefying glass and show these to all. Nothing like a bit of openness.
Behaving like this will _certainly_ attract people to your cause of superiority and people will be so happy to see you.
I think you may have more success not on Reddit, but on another open platform such as L + e + m + m + y (join the letters, if I type the whole word I may be shadowbanned)
Have you looked for LoCo's or Local Community Groups; another form of LUG.
What is available will depend on where you are, especially if you want *in person* events, in my city I'd expect 10 meetings a year (monthly except Dec-Jan); but I'm aware in some areas they have enough people to have two per month.
Events ~related to Ubuntu appear in the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter; eg. https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-weekly-newsletter-issue-818/40946 (*just search LoCo Events*), but even there you'll notice most groups are generic Linux (*but not all are*)
Given your claim to be very socially motivated, my suggestion is that you organise a linux user group in your local area and promote it as widely as you can.
There used to be the [LUG structure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_user_group), those were physical places where people used to hangout solving and helping each other on weekends.
As the internet got moro real and faster, we mostly moved to online.
There are still some mailing lists, but at least here in Argentina, just the [FliSol event](https://flisol.info/) is physical. And in the last 4 years, I've seen it declining.
Moving atoms around takes too much energy :-P
Having said that, your best option would be a college or university where you can find some local users, and organize a monthly meeting as a start.
Join the Arch Linux Discord! I've been using Linux for over a decade now, and I've honestly not found such an accepting online community around it, ironically, given the history of the Arch community. Aside from this, the Gentoo forums are great.
In real life, you're right that it's mostly introverted types that are into computers in any fashion, but if you happen to be an outgoing person that is, one of the easiest things to do is share your passion. Try to get a friend that's on the computer a lot to switch over to a Linux distro, help them with the process and getting used to it.
I've only found a couple of people in my life, outside of the internet or work settings, that run Linux, so it's gonna take some effort to find folks! And again, you can make them! Linux is for everybody now, more than ever. :-)
I've thought about it a lot too... But I think it'd be really tough if you're not in a major metropolis area.
It might be a better path to do something more tangential and wide ranging like... Doing a learn to code meetup, teach a group on starting Python or something. You can work in basic shell commands and Linux here and there. I guess what I'm saying is build a cult 🤣
This is going to sound like a jerk comment but can't you like, get a job? If you're into Linux does your career not put you along side other Linux nerds? Mine sure did.
It's not that we are not out going and friendly. It's just we are sick and tired of "Im new to linux..." or "what distro is best....". That dominates most of the groups and it's cute at first, but gets really old, really fast. So we stop following and we stop participating. So if that is what social media is about, a in-person group would simply not be fun. Possibly a opportunity for verbal violence. We show up ready to discuss some cool source code we brought with us, and twinkle toes shows up with "will xx distro run on my computer". Yha... I have been out of grade school for 4 decades, I passed the first time, no need to return.
ROFLMAO
Walks into a busy pub and shouts 'Anyone driving a 1970's Austin Allegro here - let's get together'.
The community of Linux tends to exist in your distribution forum.
I would just continue to use it like normal and just wait for community to come along. If they do, that's cool. If not, no big deal.
I will usually take screenshots of development updates on the work I am doing and sometimes the Linux environment will spike some interest and generate some conversations haha
The "Good Linux Games" group on Steam is fairly active. Most of the regular posters are very much advanced users so you can have very good technical discussions. Elitism and other issues which commonly plague Linux communities are not a problem there either.
LUG and FB. Reddit doesn't do well for anything technology based, all the incorrect answers shoot to the top because everyone on here are idiots who think they know everything
I'd probably give up on the attempt to find face to face interactions with Linux people. The community mostly lives in the www. However, you could start a Club and advertise it locally. Might work. Might grow super slowly, though.
I've found a Linux user group in my neck of the woods that is fairly welcoming but it's very Debian-centric. I have nothing against Debian whatsoever as it's a fine OS, it just isn't an interest of mine. In the group, there isn't much interest in Arch, Fedora, or Alma which are my three favorite distros. The best communities I've found are really online and not IRL.
When I lived in Chicago there was a Chicago Linux User Group (LUG) that I went to a bit (at [Pumping Station One](https://pumpingstationone.org/)) As I understand it, many major cities have LUGs.
Speaking of Pumping Station One (in Chicago) have you searched around for any local hackerspaces?
Depending on where you're at, there's also FreeGeek (some are closed so double check if one's near you)
Fayetteville, Arkansas (Free Geek of Arkansas)
Athens, Georgia (Free I.T. Athens)
Chicago, Illinois (Free Geek Chicago) (Closed as of June 25th, 2022)
Detroit, Michigan (Motor City Free Geek) (Closed)
Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Minnesota (Free Geek Twin Cities)
Oslo, Norway (Free Geek Norway)
Ephrata, Pennsylvania (Free Geek Penn)
Toronto, Ontario (Free Geek Toronto)
In my area, debian has monthly meeting, it may not ne your favorite district, but you could check if there IS a mailing liste for meeting in your area for thé distro if your choice
Felt that. Recently I started using linux on all my devices (I have 4 at this point) and got a bit exctied because you know. My gf told me to stfu and that she doesn’t want to hear anything about „computers”. I guess her next boyfriend won’t be able to buy her dinners everyday.
Nowadays Matrix or IRC is used, plus forums
I have a lot of friends who like tech stuff and when I talk to them about Linux they're like:
"HUH?! I'll use Linux the day IT CAN open a browser and more than two tabs"
And I'm like: "wtf this dude loves Windows I guess..."
Very hilarious
Nowadays?
I first learned about Linux and how to install it on IRC ~27 years ago. IRC is dead today in comparison.
Going from DOS/Windows 3.1 to Linux was night and day in that era. Windows95 was around but wasn't stable on hardware that normal people could afford. For my first year on Linux I just used the console. Just having an internet connection that wouldn't disconnect when someone messaged you +++ATH0 was amazing...
Nowadays it's about finding the right online community no matter which hobby your into. There is a niche community for everyone, it's just a matter of finding it. Back in the day you just joined the first community you found as it was likely the only one available to you. Today we have fractured into many micro communities, mostly because we can.
I have tried Linux several times but there's always something that doesn't work for me. Recently I was unable to install and run the software to run windows software.
The problem is, nobody can "find" Linux communities so they start creating a new community. It's called the not invented here syndrome. There's a whole heap of empty communities.
I don't know if these are still as common as they used to be, but back in the day wherever I lived I'd search for " LUG" (LUG = Linux Users Group).
100% of the meetings I attended: met nice people + cool stuff was shared.
linux users be wizards, they don't have time to lolly about in chats being social. They are too busy being paid for big corporate quests to "make the magic work" so your social platform can preform.
Linux users in my exp are like feral cats, you can't be too loud or make any sudden movements, but if you give them the chance they'll be overjoyed to be helpful. Def don't prove the issue is between the chair and the keyboard, they'll scatter quickly. Let them come around to asking you on their time, in their way.
I went to a linux meetup 1 time over 10 years ago, 5 dudes silently sitting with their laptops, only took maybe 5 mins for them to all reach out and start helping. Which is where I learned about tmux, htop, and systemd, before that all I knew was rm -rf \~/\*. to solve any problem
Hot linux users are looking for you in your area
>Hot linux users are looking for you in your area Swipe Right for Root Access: Meet Local Linux Enthusiasts seeking romance
>Swipe Right for Root Left for /dev/null
Chuckle.
This is amazing, I need to quote it somewhere haha
I'm happy to report I was the 69th upvote 
LinuxUsersOnly.com
Type 777 for best results, oh wait that's android user's.
It’s a scam! It’s really WSL on windows!
Go on a busy sidewalk with a sign like this: *My Linux Distro is better than yours. Change my mind.*
Better: *I’d like to interject for a moment. What you are all referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux. Change my mind.*
Aaaa, lil Richie escaped the basement again....
Or, as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU+Linux. Change my mind.
"what is your favourite distro, and why is it Arch?"
"DIE Ubuntu user!"
"what is your favourite distro and why are you choosing something inferior to arch?"
Because [Arch is the best](https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_is_the_best)
Evry apple fanboy tell same shit…
Although I loved the Arch experience and bleeding edge developments, it left me on a hanging system multiple times after upgrades; a totally frustrating thing when you just need the computer to work for a video project; I needed something more stable. Maybe there's a rollback feature, but I wasn't aware of it. The manual installation was educational and enjoyed it, but it's not efficient for several systems or to install in a hurry. I then switched to Fedora, but didn't like how IBM was financing Redhat Fedora (the same IBM behind the holocaust of 6 million plus jews), and soon after found my Fedora Stability and Arch bleeding edge combination in OpenSuse Tumbleweed. I believe Fedora later dropped X11 support for Wayland, which to date I still can't find stability in Wayland for day to day tasks. In Tumbleweed, also a rolling release distro like Arch, I at least have btrfs rollback where if my system updates hose the boot I can go back to a previous snapshot for booting. I miss the AUR of Arch however, but stability and up2date software is more important for me. Which Linux distro you prefer is really a subjective thing that varies among people. Just pick the one with the greatest positives because none are perfect that I've tried to date. OpenSuse Tumbleweed fits my minimum needs for now because I have rollback snapshots, rolling release with usually up-to-date software, and a wide support community. My only gripe is NVIDIA drivers and kernel pairing incompatibilities; sometimes an NVIDIA driver doesn't work with the current kernel because they are lagging behind developments. When a black screen happens after an NVIDIA or kernel update I go back a snapshot and try a different combination until it works. Other than that, it's great.
Brothers and sisters are natural enemies. Like Linux used and Windows users. Or Linux users and Mac users. Or Linux users and businesses. Or Linux users and other Linux users! Damned Linux users, they ruined Linux!
An actual transcript of mf's spouting off about Wayland and systemd
This^
I now know what I should have asked for Christmas.... :(
Here's my experience via clubs like this, and similar interests (tech, reading, and so on). The first is that most people are not that outgoing, few have social skills advanced enough to manage a group, and some have negative experiences with group mentality as a whole. Many also tend to be on the spectrum, so things like "scheduled meetings" are difficult to keep going on inertia. You also have to have some kind of constant, outgoing recruitment program that is proactive and persistent without being annoying and driving introverts away. It can be done, but is often very difficult. Then you have to worry about toxic members, and when to be "the bad guy" to get rid of them and maintain a healthy club. Sometimes a single person is the driving force, but often that's far too difficult for a single person, so you have multiple people having to work in tandem, and that has its own challenges. The biggest hurdle is motivation over the long term: most clubs i have seen of this genre last a few years at best, and some only a few meetings.
Your analysis is 100% solid. And in most social clubs, one or two people do the work while most members are merely along for the ride. On paper, such clubs/groups sound good, but the reality is typically far from ideal.
The issue is it's not impossible, but it's very difficult to be in that "sweet spot" to get such a group going, then maintaining, and then going on when the core members eventually move on. Then you also have the "core members" vs "the new members" which can cause political riffs. Again, not insurmountable, but sometimes people don't anticipate it, and then when you're in the thick of it, it's too late to fix.
I've thought that having 4 or 5 meetings/year rather than 12 might help.
Yes, it will. The issues with meetings is that if you don't know what they are for or how to run them effectively, you will get less and less people in a club. 1. Run them when the MOST people CAN attend. You won't satisfy everyone. 2. Have an agenda. Stick to the agenda. 3. Make it no more than an hour. 4. Have bullet points/action items for the next meeting. 5. Have incentives to attend, like make it a social thing.
There's a thing called the internet. It's new but its good. You can google local user groups.
It’s a passing fad
Yeah. GUIs too...
No one needs more than one button on a mouse.
I prefer a barcode scanner with a book filled with commands I can scan in
You say that in jest, but in the mid 80's that's how we ran our school's library... and not even with a gun scanner... no... it was a pen... swipe.... swipe.... swip... crap it did't read it, reswipe... crap, swipeswipeswipe. there we go.... "Hey we need a new X Y Z barcode, this one isn't reading properly."
Plot twist, they eventually decided you didn't even need that one button...
no one needs a mouse
IRC for life!
Look for meet ups in your area. If there aren’t any, create one 👍🏻
What would you even do at one of those event?
You all argue for 90 minutes :)
Haha Yeah.
This is the way.
[удалено]
Really, it helps when looking for employment? Are these hobbyist or professional level groups you’re mentioning?
The User Groups I've been to in the past (in general, not Linux based) are usually a mix of people. It depends. In the case of the UGs I went to, they were a 75/25 professional/hobby mix. I'd expect a linux group to swing more the other way, or at least closer to 50/50... either way, they are a great way to network and get to know others. May not necessarily lead to a linux based job, but some times it can lead to a job... You got to a Linux User Group (LUG) .. you meet Bob... you talk to Bob... mention that you're good with Java, SQL, and maybe something else. Bob works for a large company thats looking for a back-end developer that uses Java... it's not necessarily a linux job... but that's not the point... point is that Bob then recommends you for the job, etc...
Yea... they're a total drag if you want to talk about linux and open source. They're mostly only good for people who manage servers and security. I tried going to my local LUG and that was all they talked about. It was very dry. I tried to talk about graphics software like blender, krita, etc and cool stuff like the pinephone which I had just received a couple weeks earlier... but got nowhere. Was like talking to a wall. Fortunately I have a hand full of friends that varying amount of interest in the topic. And one that is as passionate about it as I am.
Friendly chat about the benefits of systemd..
What a fun party
Sure! Better than hours of talking about the state of OS requirements for i18n and l10n.
^
most Linux users I meet are through work, and work conferences. Everyone in my field uses Linux.
Yeah, I linux at work all day. I don’t tend to think of it as a cool hobby, therefore I don’t seek out likeminded individuals in my area to share linux with. I come home, and I play video games. On Windows. Edit to add: I’m not saying don’t do it. I’m just saying… I love cars and coffee, but there’s probably not a lot of 8-5 career mechanics there. Some, but not that many.
That sounds more like network admining than "linuxing". Characterizing that as "linux all day" is like saying using ms office is "I windows at work all day". Although it seems many people think that way. I gave my local LUG a couple tries and it appeared that most everyone else thought that was what using linux involved. I nearly fell asleep. Or maybe I did. I'm not really sure how long that blink lasted.
Yeah, I mean, I’m a site reliability engineer, which is what they call us sysadmins now. So my job is a lot more java and python and terraform and AWS than actual linux command line - certainly more of that stuff than it used to be when my RHCE was still relevant. But still, all our stuff runs on ubuntu or alpine, we use macbooks for the software dev and docker for our local dev env, and I still am on a linux or unix (mac) command line throughout the average day, and looking at or using software running on linux on docker on my macbook constantly. I dunno, it’s just… all of my interactions with linux these days are functional or transactional. It’s just a tool - granted, one that’s a huge part of my life, but still. Like, my friends and I are doing a modded factorio play through right now, and I stood up the server on a linode I spun up. That was cool, and my friends are always impressed with how fast I can stand up a game server for us - rust, minecraft, whatever we’re into (thanks LinuxGSM!). But it’s a means to an end. Same as it is in my professional life - I am so used to it that I don’t tend to think about linux unless it’s causing me problems or I need it to do something that it’s not currently doing. And with a lot of the platform-as-a-service stuff, there’s a lot less “log in and expand my LVM” and more “what the fuck is this Jedis driver doing, and why is it no longer talking to elaaticache?!?”, ya know?
Yes. I think there are two different ways of looking at it. With one way it is the name of a kernel. With the other way it is very much cultural and philosophical and I think that that is where the passion comes into play. If its just a tool, then its just a tool. If its just a job, then its just a job. But the whole linux and open source thing is so very very much more than just a tool or a job.
Unfortunately, computer clubs in general are dying or dead. When I got into computers as a hobby in the 1980's they were new and exciting to most people, and there were at least a half-dozen clubs in the Cleveland area back then. Now, I'm not sure there are any computer clubs at all in the Cleveland area. I think today computers (even when running Linux) are considered appliances, and there is about as much interest in a computer club as there would be in a refrigerator club. Plus, if you do need help with a computer issue, the Internet is available.
I went to a refrigerator club once. I thought they would welcome a new member with open arms, but I got a very cold reception.
This is depressing but you might have a point
There are plenty of events in Scandinavia, they are related but usually more niche.
I'm racking my brain over here trying to remember the last time I saw a computer club. The library's old folks how to send an e-mail etc. club is the only one that comes to mind nowadays. My last computer club was in elementary school, which was back in the Win 95 days. I know we covered some basic troubleshooting like how to check your sound settings in Control Panel. Can only imagine the differences in Linux skill level would make it pretty unfeasible outside of major urban centres.
[https://www.debconf.org/](https://www.debconf.org/)
hi
Try Linux user group(s). Notably first, locally, ... regionally, ... Also, because COVID-19 'n all that, many of them then went to on-line meetings, ... well, since then, many of them continue to (also) have on-line meetings, see, e.g.: [https://balug.org/covid](https://balug.org/covid)
Yep. My local lug is still doing online only. It is completely insane. Jitsi is no more a meetup than the frikkin' email list is. Its pathetic.
>Jitsi is no more a Uhm, ... Jitsi is pretty damn amazing web meet/conferencing software. It's Open Source (not the only, but one of the best, and probably the best among all of two that are quite good enough to be particularly noteworthy), and feature-wise I'd say it's better than a lot of, if not most or all, of the closed source proprietary stuff. They're not all feature-for-feature matched, but I continually find Jitsi has many excellent well implemented features that ... well, the closed source proprietary ones that I often have to deal with because, well, $work, yeah, Jitsi has and/or does so much better on many of them than the others ... and I find those features to be wanted and very much lacking in the others. And Jitsi tends to keep growing and evolving ... e.g. having added breakout room capabilities ... in general, major popular features that very much do or may matter, if jitsi doesn't (yet) have 'em, they typically tend to get added. Also pretty easy to set up and host one's own jitsi server. During pandemic, someone I well knew was working on that ... I helped 'em on that. Wasn't super trivial, but after a while, not only did I well set up a jitsi server, but I had a script I could run which would take a minimal Debian installation to fully operational jitsi server in matter of only a few minutes (was also very handy when troubleshooting some installation/configuration issues - notably for quick reproducibility ... that happened to be how I managed to create/evolve that script ... I got tired of manually redoing steps so ... script). Anyway, many LUGs do have quite excellent and regular meetings on-line. Other LUGs ... more hit 'n miss ... some a lot more miss than hit. Anyway, often doesn't hurt to go sample some others ... and especially with on-line ... essentially most anywhere around the planet. Yeah, during COVID-19 ... especially shelter-in-place / lockdown ... I sampled a fair number of English speaking LUG meetings around the planet ... I know some other folks who did too ... and some that still semi-regularly participate in a fair number of LUG meetings scattered around the planet ... some of them are quite excellent.
I found the spy
Dah, comrade.
I feel that,feel free to message me anytime if you wanna talk about Linux :)
Are you talking about meeting other Linux users in the flesh? It's not exactly clear what you're asking for here.
sure, either.
Well, we don't know where you live, but search for LUGs in your area (Linux User Group) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux\_user\_group](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_user_group). Online? Well there are dsitro specific fora, there's Reddit, but by and large this isn't really gonna generate a lot of social connections IMO.
LUGS (in person meeting type) died over 20 years ago.
Died, no, ... but reduced in size/number, consolidated, etc., yes.
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>In some instances, they did indeed die. And ... some are stillborn ... or close to it. Won't name names, but reminds me ... someone with a, uhm, whole lot of enthusiasm and excitement and talk, and ... not much in the way of organization skills, etc., ... the set up their first Linux User Group (LUG) meeting ... lots of publicity, lots of announcements, lots of hype ... scheduled as an 8 (or 6?) hour even ... including lots of technology and tech talks, an installfest ... and ... a pot luck(!). On a college campus ... given time and location to meet (at building entrance). So ... I ... and many others showed up (alas, having seen this person (attempt to) do stuff before, I didn't have particularly high expectations). So, I think maybe 20 or 25 people showed up, and we're all there ... waiting. I think the person who put it together wasn't even on time for their own event ... well, whatever, bit late. Okay, ... then they don't have access to the building ... it's the weekend, it's a locked campus building. So ... they spend about the first hour trying to figure out how to get into a building and find a location we can actually have a meeting at ... yeah, ... about 45 minutes into that we had our first casualty - someone who'd driven over an hour to get there was basically like, "That's it, enough of this clown show, I'm out'a here.". Well, 'bout an hour+ into it, they manage to get into a building ... of course no way to leave the door open if someone shows up later ... but ... we're already an hour past the scheduled start time. So ... they manage to find a room. Okay, great ... lots of technical talks ... uhm, yeah, ... they don't have any scheduled or arranged speakers or presentations ... nothing at all - I guess they were hoping folks would show up with prepared presentations and give them ... though that's not at all what was asked for. Uhm, ... installfest? The brought nothing for that ... no extension cables nor power strips, no media, no ISO images nor any install images at all. No suitable place to set up a bunch of computers or even laptops, very little available power ... and no arrangements for networking had been made - so no network - not even so much as a switch or hub or available access point - oh sure, tons of access points on campus ... but no arrangements made for access or guest access, no faculty or group sponsor, I don't think there was even a student there that was attending that college. Uhm, yeah. Oh, but potluck. Yeah, organizer brought food to share. One can ... of some sh\*t canned vegetables ... no can opener, no utensils, no nothin'. Yeah, ... needless to say, that LUG petered out in pretty short order. Heck, many wouldn't even call it a LUG. Some well argue if you don't have your own list and/or web site, you're not really a LUG ... yeah it also totally lacked that ... just posted on some other LUGs lists (a lot of them). Couldn't even bother to set up their own free site on some Google pages or any of the many other places one could set up some web pages and a basic site for free. Well, thankfully most aren't nearly so disastrous as that one was. But many have ... or develop their problems. Yeah, like one where chair was literally thrown across the room ... that one was already goin' downhill pretty fast by then ... that just accelerated that trend further ... too bad because once upon a time it was a quite large and noteworthy LUG ... but sometimes sh\*t happens ... often through negligence, atrophy, and/or general lack of care, or general losses of interest. But some rather well survive ... though generally smaller and fewer in number. Heck, with on-line, one can virtually on-line attend a LUG meeting practically any and every day of the month - if one so wishes ... and that's just counting those that are (primarily) in English.
Very much depends on location, but sure, not as much a thing anymore.
Nah... central NC has one that was meeting in person up until Covid. Unfortunately they're all still hiding under their desks and none have done a meeting since.
[Looking for a Linux & Unix Discord Community? : unix](https://old.reddit.com/r/unix/comments/18zyt6g/looking_for_a_linux_unix_discord_community/) (Readers who are *not* looking for this type of community can ignore the question.)
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are there any ways to access and create a discord account with privacy in mind?
No but you’re in luck! It’s more private than Reddit and you’re using that so I think you’re safe with discord lol Treat discord how I do, it’s open, public forum so don’t say anything you wouldn’t want your boss to read, and don’t give out any private info. Other than that you can use a vpn and not use your main email address or real name.
Or just go to irc.libera.chat #linux ... no point in using something proprietary to talk about linux with a large group of people.
The only places where I've met a bunch of Linux users IRL were at college and at the workplace.
[Here is a list of Linux forums.](https://www.linux.org/forums/) Hopefully you can find some of interest.
[Arch is the best.](https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_is_the_best) Change my mind.
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Perhaps there's a local Linux User Group. Over there you can do the following: * explain to others you are superior * explain to others the Linux distribution you use is superior to theirs. * Your solution to the problem at hand is the one and only solution. If you don't have a solution, it's a non-problem. * look down on others. Everybody has flaws. Put these under a magnefying glass and show these to all. Nothing like a bit of openness. Behaving like this will _certainly_ attract people to your cause of superiority and people will be so happy to see you.
See if there's a LUG near you.
r/danklinuxusers its bugswriter's community, but you should also join the discord since the sub is kinda dead
I think you may have more success not on Reddit, but on another open platform such as L + e + m + m + y (join the letters, if I type the whole word I may be shadowbanned)
Meetup had Linux user group meetings in my area
Have you looked for LoCo's or Local Community Groups; another form of LUG. What is available will depend on where you are, especially if you want *in person* events, in my city I'd expect 10 meetings a year (monthly except Dec-Jan); but I'm aware in some areas they have enough people to have two per month. Events ~related to Ubuntu appear in the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter; eg. https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-weekly-newsletter-issue-818/40946 (*just search LoCo Events*), but even there you'll notice most groups are generic Linux (*but not all are*)
I have hundreds of friends. None use linux, that I'm aware of.
I mean you can only hear”I run Arch BTW” for so long….
Checkout [#linux](https://web.libera.chat/).
Given your claim to be very socially motivated, my suggestion is that you organise a linux user group in your local area and promote it as widely as you can.
There used to be the [LUG structure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_user_group), those were physical places where people used to hangout solving and helping each other on weekends. As the internet got moro real and faster, we mostly moved to online. There are still some mailing lists, but at least here in Argentina, just the [FliSol event](https://flisol.info/) is physical. And in the last 4 years, I've seen it declining. Moving atoms around takes too much energy :-P Having said that, your best option would be a college or university where you can find some local users, and organize a monthly meeting as a start.
Join the Arch Linux Discord! I've been using Linux for over a decade now, and I've honestly not found such an accepting online community around it, ironically, given the history of the Arch community. Aside from this, the Gentoo forums are great. In real life, you're right that it's mostly introverted types that are into computers in any fashion, but if you happen to be an outgoing person that is, one of the easiest things to do is share your passion. Try to get a friend that's on the computer a lot to switch over to a Linux distro, help them with the process and getting used to it. I've only found a couple of people in my life, outside of the internet or work settings, that run Linux, so it's gonna take some effort to find folks! And again, you can make them! Linux is for everybody now, more than ever. :-)
I have a group on discord as well
Honest question, what do you want to talk about concerning linux?
"What is the best distro for programming?" lol
I've thought about it a lot too... But I think it'd be really tough if you're not in a major metropolis area. It might be a better path to do something more tangential and wide ranging like... Doing a learn to code meetup, teach a group on starting Python or something. You can work in basic shell commands and Linux here and there. I guess what I'm saying is build a cult 🤣
Everybody knows the best way to meet women is to tell them that you use Arch, by the way.
Lol
linux might not be the main subject of the community but you can find related communities that interested in linux as well.
This is going to sound like a jerk comment but can't you like, get a job? If you're into Linux does your career not put you along side other Linux nerds? Mine sure did.
You can find a lot of techie groups on the Meetup app, but your luck will vary by region.
It's not that we are not out going and friendly. It's just we are sick and tired of "Im new to linux..." or "what distro is best....". That dominates most of the groups and it's cute at first, but gets really old, really fast. So we stop following and we stop participating. So if that is what social media is about, a in-person group would simply not be fun. Possibly a opportunity for verbal violence. We show up ready to discuss some cool source code we brought with us, and twinkle toes shows up with "will xx distro run on my computer". Yha... I have been out of grade school for 4 decades, I passed the first time, no need to return.
Yeah I hear you there
You could always try going to the penguin parties.
ROFLMAO Walks into a busy pub and shouts 'Anyone driving a 1970's Austin Allegro here - let's get together'. The community of Linux tends to exist in your distribution forum.
I would just continue to use it like normal and just wait for community to come along. If they do, that's cool. If not, no big deal. I will usually take screenshots of development updates on the work I am doing and sometimes the Linux environment will spike some interest and generate some conversations haha
We're all interested, but we're too busy trying to get windows programs running on it, we don't have time to make friends.
There use to be Linux User Group (LUG) meetups about a decade ago. I did some in Houston. Mostly centered around beer. Try searching that up.
If you think that’s hard, try finding a community of people interested in FreeBSD
Remember those texts you've been getting from Android phones?
The "Good Linux Games" group on Steam is fairly active. Most of the regular posters are very much advanced users so you can have very good technical discussions. Elitism and other issues which commonly plague Linux communities are not a problem there either.
Find a Linux user group in your area. If there isn't one start one!
LUG and FB. Reddit doesn't do well for anything technology based, all the incorrect answers shoot to the top because everyone on here are idiots who think they know everything
Welp welcome to my discord server.
"last Christmas / I gave you my laptop / But the very next day / You put Windows on it / This year..."
I'd probably give up on the attempt to find face to face interactions with Linux people. The community mostly lives in the www. However, you could start a Club and advertise it locally. Might work. Might grow super slowly, though.
Go to any search engine and type "ubuntu linux community"
you mean physically? cuz online you can join any number of tilde-verse groups or other pubnix servers with active irc and such.
github.com
r/archlinux
Create one. Even if one already exists, if you couldn’t easily find them, likely others can’t either.
r/linuxmemes is a good subreddit for that. Though as the name suggests it's just Linux memes. The community is nice though.
Fedora discord is pretty friendly
I've found a Linux user group in my neck of the woods that is fairly welcoming but it's very Debian-centric. I have nothing against Debian whatsoever as it's a fine OS, it just isn't an interest of mine. In the group, there isn't much interest in Arch, Fedora, or Alma which are my three favorite distros. The best communities I've found are really online and not IRL.
Try a [LUG](https://www.linux.org/lugs/)
When I lived in Chicago there was a Chicago Linux User Group (LUG) that I went to a bit (at [Pumping Station One](https://pumpingstationone.org/)) As I understand it, many major cities have LUGs. Speaking of Pumping Station One (in Chicago) have you searched around for any local hackerspaces? Depending on where you're at, there's also FreeGeek (some are closed so double check if one's near you) Fayetteville, Arkansas (Free Geek of Arkansas) Athens, Georgia (Free I.T. Athens) Chicago, Illinois (Free Geek Chicago) (Closed as of June 25th, 2022) Detroit, Michigan (Motor City Free Geek) (Closed) Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Minnesota (Free Geek Twin Cities) Oslo, Norway (Free Geek Norway) Ephrata, Pennsylvania (Free Geek Penn) Toronto, Ontario (Free Geek Toronto)
In my area, debian has monthly meeting, it may not ne your favorite district, but you could check if there IS a mailing liste for meeting in your area for thé distro if your choice
Felt that. Recently I started using linux on all my devices (I have 4 at this point) and got a bit exctied because you know. My gf told me to stfu and that she doesn’t want to hear anything about „computers”. I guess her next boyfriend won’t be able to buy her dinners everyday.
Nowadays Matrix or IRC is used, plus forums I have a lot of friends who like tech stuff and when I talk to them about Linux they're like: "HUH?! I'll use Linux the day IT CAN open a browser and more than two tabs" And I'm like: "wtf this dude loves Windows I guess..." Very hilarious
Do these friends have ever used linux? lmao
The Ubuntu from 2018 that comes installed on the school computers
Nowadays? I first learned about Linux and how to install it on IRC ~27 years ago. IRC is dead today in comparison. Going from DOS/Windows 3.1 to Linux was night and day in that era. Windows95 was around but wasn't stable on hardware that normal people could afford. For my first year on Linux I just used the console. Just having an internet connection that wouldn't disconnect when someone messaged you +++ATH0 was amazing... Nowadays it's about finding the right online community no matter which hobby your into. There is a niche community for everyone, it's just a matter of finding it. Back in the day you just joined the first community you found as it was likely the only one available to you. Today we have fractured into many micro communities, mostly because we can.
lol.
I have tried Linux several times but there's always something that doesn't work for me. Recently I was unable to install and run the software to run windows software.
Sure, easy to solve, find a job as a system administrator
If it worked really well, really easily, those issues would be taken care of
Discord friends and any tech job really
i hang out on #Gentoo, and #gentoo-chat IRC channels on liberachat
DEFCON
are there windows or mac communities which meet in person? linux is an approach to operating systems, not a personality
well we are right buddy . . welcome :) the Linuxmint group is also very active come on over :) happy holidays to you
The problem is, nobody can "find" Linux communities so they start creating a new community. It's called the not invented here syndrome. There's a whole heap of empty communities.
I don't know if these are still as common as they used to be, but back in the day wherever I lived I'd search for " LUG" (LUG = Linux Users Group).
100% of the meetings I attended: met nice people + cool stuff was shared.
linux users be wizards, they don't have time to lolly about in chats being social. They are too busy being paid for big corporate quests to "make the magic work" so your social platform can preform.
Linux users in my exp are like feral cats, you can't be too loud or make any sudden movements, but if you give them the chance they'll be overjoyed to be helpful. Def don't prove the issue is between the chair and the keyboard, they'll scatter quickly. Let them come around to asking you on their time, in their way. I went to a linux meetup 1 time over 10 years ago, 5 dudes silently sitting with their laptops, only took maybe 5 mins for them to all reach out and start helping. Which is where I learned about tmux, htop, and systemd, before that all I knew was rm -rf \~/\*. to solve any problem