Episode 007 - We are family.
Today we talk about something that means more to the Linux community than the kernel.
Community, This is one of the biggest driving force for desktop Linux. This comes if all forms, from Telegram groups, IRC channels, Discord, forums, podcasts, GitHub, YouTube the lost goes on.
These are ways for people in the community to share their knowledge, enjoyment, news about Linux and all things tech. It’s these channels of communication that keeps me in Linux. I truly believe without the Linux community I would be back on Windows.
I chose Linux because I had my last straw with Windows. But it’s not been an easy ride, it’s not been without issues. Windows was a pain , and along with privacy and security issues , the big thing was, for me at least, it just worked. I would come to use my computer, whenever I wanted and it worked, no tweaks no, troubleshooting no, asking how to do something. The same can’t be said about Linux , I have had crashes, and have constantly had to Google ( have recently converted to using duckduckgo but for the sake of understand I will use Google as a term for searching on internet) pretty much everything.
This however is one of the easiest ways to get help on your specific distribution and it also highlights the awesomeness of the Linux community.
For example when I first started I tried to do something, can’t remember what, so I just opened a browser ( Firefox ) and typed ” XYZ linux mint ” and hundreds of results and got the answer in the first couple of results.
Sometimes it’s a forum post with someone asking the same question, sometimes someone has kindly made a video tutorial on YouTube on how to fix said issue.
On the other hand, if I needed an answer fairly urgently and my Google-fu was turning up nothing of use then I turned to Telegram, at this point I was only a member of a few groups Destination Linux, Ubuntu Podcast and Late Night Linux and I always got an answer and it was normally very helpful and quick in response even of half or more of the members were the other side of the world. The enthusiasm and helpfulness towards helping a ‘noob’ out was unheard of in the Windows world.
I have been a Windows user for about 20 years and never hear of a Windows user groups , In the Linux community, Linux user groups or LUGs are a great way to meet, talk to, share with other Linux users in person, there are loads about but they some are not as local as your closet town.
Luckily I have a couple with in a hour drive from me so will have to try attend one someday.
There are other ways to find the linux community in festivals/conventions such as SELF ( South East Linux Fest ) in somewhere USA , mainly focused on enterprise and new technology.
There’s also OGG Camp , a small UK meet-up in Manchester which I will be attending in October 2019.
And finally we get round to podcasts, these are a great way to get news, information, and discussion about Linux and distributions. It’s not just the podcasters that make the podcast its also the followers in the telegram and discord groups of the Podcasts.
Take Big Daddy Linux and his new spotlight series , this just highlights some amazing people surrounding the Linux community , from distro other podcasters and community members.
Now there are definitely a couple of communities I have felt more than just another follower and actually like a member of the crewe, BDLL and mintCast communities come to mind and in fact I got a guest appearance on a mintCast Episode 312 , and have also attended one of the BDLL Europe.
It’s these communities that help Linux grow and what keeps me here. If you want to join in the amazing community which is more like a family then follow along, come join some of these amazing groups in telegram for some amazing conversation and technical knowledge.
I will also be writing about when you’re in the community, how you can give back to help grow the community and make it better.
And as my way of giving back next post will be a special one so keep an eye out.