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Is the LUG a thing of the past?
tinahdee writes "Linux User Groups dying out? LUG leaders report that attendance is down — but mailing list traffic is still good. Do we still need LUGs, given the ease of installation and ubiquitousness of online information about Linux? Lots of people say, yes, we still need LUGs (and some disagree)."
I must be at a LUG.
It isn't 1997 anymore. We don't need to meet up in shopping malls to trade 1.44M discs. LUG over the net makes sense as having a community to rely on for troubleshooting is what makes or breaks a distro.
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
No, as stated by Netcraft, only BSD User Groups are dying.
Installing Linux is easier and there's lots of online help. LUGs also have the use for a social community and can let people meet face to face and discuss things. I find that real life is a much higher data rate and can save me hours of time online.
It also never hurts to brush up on inter-personal skills at the same time.
...consultants. Time for Ubuntu to move into the enterprise.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
User groups are made by users, that is people.
And people still need to meet each other for brinstorming, experience exchanges and, of course, a good cup of your favourite beverage!
Try doing this on a mailing list!
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
Netcraft confirms: Linux (user groups) are dying?
My wife didn't want me going anymore because of all the babes that were there.
Yes. The majority of LUGs I know disappeared in 2004, only leaving the larger ones behind. The quality on the remaining LUGs are top notch, so I guess this is a natural phenomenon that occurs after every hype.
I know this is probably a troll, but funnily enough I met my first boyfriend at a LUG. Ah, happy times.
That's how I met my man!!!!!
We do need LUGs !!!
/Linux bug has just started in a true sense, therefore this calls fore enthusiastic people to common under single roof.
LUG is not only about solving or troubleshooting other user's Linux problems, but also about knowing and meeting with people who share the same mindset(mostly). Email is good but effectively in person conversation prevails over emails.
Definitely its not the end of LUGs, but we need more awareness among people and students alike about LUGs. The FOSS
-- "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration" - TAE --
...at least at Wellesley.
Besides, trademark issues and politics by "vested interests" - namely, agents from proprietary s/w firms who poison these groups and get them dissolved.
It's now "foss.in" in India, and numerous JUGs (JBoss User Groups), PHP Programmers Group and even Ruby on Rails Groups have sprung up recently in cities like Pune.
Besides, it is questionable whether even Linus is interested in the ideals which made the Linux kernel successful - and I for one, welcome the declining use of this trademarked name in Free Software and Open Source forums.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Ha! That's truer than most people might think. There were at least two gay couples at my local LUG back when I used to go at University.
Some people use it as a reason to get out on the weekend. They do barbecues and cookouts, they play network games and otherwise just hang out... and occasionally address a Linux issue or two.
If you go there to pick up chicks... uh no.
Some people, I have seen, take their LUGs very seriously... they attend them as if they were attending church! For those people, it's a traditionally religious experience... in the most literal sense possible. (inside joke)
I find most of these LUGs to be rather annoying. The ones that are little more than an excuse to get out of the house on a Saturday are pretty good though... burgers 'n beer are always good and a LUG is as good a reason as any.
...I get my fill of "STFU n00B!!!1" on Barrens chat these days...
"Are automobile associations dying out? Leaders report that attendance is down but mailing list and show traffic is still good. Do we still need automobile associations, given the ease of driving and ubiquitousness of online information about automobiles? Lots of people say, yes, we still need automobile associations (and some disagree)."
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Of course we still need LUG's
I always thought LUG was an acronym for Lesbians Until Graduation, one of the best forms of birth control in high school/college I've ever seen.
I'm sure you were his first boyfriend as well.
Most of the LUG's I've attended are too general and needed to specialize if they were to move into more advanced material.
'How to use the command line' or 'how to use VI' or 'how to compile the kernel'. It's been done already for the past 15 years.
How to install distros? This isn't 1995 and you're trying to get Slackware to run from stuff dl'ed from usenet.
Move into programming topics? (Gnome, Java, Lisp) Many won't be interested in that. And there are many existing groups, especially for Java.
Move into administration/IT topics? (Security, Web) That's also an entirely different topic from programming.
I think we've evolved beyond the need for general purpose LUGs
I would have to say "Yes, LUGs are dying out". They served a purpose before the days of cheap, high reliability servers, which lead to "Wiki technology". Before this happened the way to get "how to" tips was to go to LUGs or take a chance on a number of uncollected sources like boards and Usenet. I suspect LUGs will still be popular in academic settings but will go away for the public in general.
The UG is not a thing of the past. The problem with a LUG is that it's balkanized. Make it a cross between a Windows User Group, a Linux User Group, a general computer hobbyist club and a programmer's hobbyist group, like 2600 or PerlMongers, and you'll be able to draw in anyone who wants to use a computer. This in turn will benefit Linux as it will show it as a competitive and viable option that is easy to install and use. The specific UG is dead; long live the generalized UG.
technical writing / development
Do we really need any of them anymore?
Yeah, it's not 1997 anymore and practially anybody can install Linux on their chosen piece of hardware. However, there are so many facets to linux and so many people are focused on doing different things with linux, it's great to interact with other Linux enthusiests and broaden your horizons.
One of the things that our LUG has been doing forever is inviting our members to do presentations on things their working on or give talks in areas of their interest/expertise. These presentations have run the gambit from WiFi Security to modeling objects with PovRay to FUSE. We've have distribution comparisions (with proponents for each distribution explaining the pros/cons).
What's cool about a LUG is that your likely to have people who are experts in extremely diverse areas who are all Linux nerds getting together and hanging out.
It's not everyday you get to see a hardware engineer, an English teacher, a chiropractor and a pharamcologist comparing notes on what's the best window manager!
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
I am in a nice sized LUG. Would guess over 200 people if not a lot more. Yet I admit I never go to meetings. The mailing lists is really where all of the action is. Need an answer quick? Email the list, rather than wait till the once a month meeting. Also a lot of us tech types are stereotypically introverted, so we dont need to attend a meeting and are more likely to participate via an online method (mailing list, irc, etc).
Our LUG works well because we foster several associated social activities, including dinner before or after meetings, bowling gatherings, dinner parties, an adjunct weekly Hacking Society where we network and help each other with each other's issues, and even a regular geek camping trip!
Back in the 'golden age' of personal computing there were UGs galore. MacUGs, Commodore UGs, Atari UGs, and just plain ol' UGs.
Being a Mac kind of a guy, I was very active in the local Mac UG here in East Texas TAMU. The death of UGs can be directly traced to the advent of the internet, especially broadband. Two of the main attractions of UGs were BBS, which the internet just flat out killed, and file swapping, which the internet also killed, especially broadband.
PS
...sometimes they run into the issue that crops up with many clubs - keeping new people engaged.
I speak from bitter experience. When I first encountered our local LUG, they were willing and able to help me get Mandrake loaded on an old laptop machine... and one of them was willing to let me -- some nobody that they'd just met that night -- take home a PCMCIA-connected portable CD-ROM drive, because once things were finally set up, it was closing time at the library.
Unfortunately, my schedule was such that I was unable to stay active with this group.
A few years later, I went back to one of the group meetings. There I discovered that, although most of the same people were there, all of them were involved in running the call-in net-radio show (ironically enough, it was designed to help new people use Linux). There was nobody there to help any newbies, nobody there to find out if there were new people... the latest shiny toy was the net-radio broadcast.
After about half an hour, when I found that there were, indeed, other new members who were also seeking help, and not getting any, we pretty much decided it was time to leave. I haven't been back since.
User groups, as long as the members don't lose sight of their purpose, can be invaluable. When they turn into the equivalent of a stereotypical fraternity, then they run the risk of running off potential new users.
Strike while the irony is hot! -- The Freethinker
Most of the LUGS in my area are pretty piss poor tbh.
The one for our area is run by some company owner who requires payments to go to the lug, in advance, and the activities are to welcome new users and install linux several times in one session, interesting enough, only the linux distro his company makes and is trying to sell. What's funny is it's based off the 2.2 kernel.
Yeah, having "install fests" yeah, exciting, I'd pay $26 a session to do that! OH BOY.
I'd rather just have something like a get together where people discuss stuff, order pizza, have drinks, etc. might not sound productive, but it would be more fun than installing an OS over and over again for the sake of doing it.
The problem I have with most LUGs is it's - well - what it says it is, a user group.
:)
There's been a movement lately to create ELUGs - Enterprise Linux User Groups. I know the one I'm involved with in my city just had a long discussion about creating an enterprise group. The problem is one of need. Users need very different things then those of us involved in day-to-day management of an enterprise Linux base.
I know I for one enjoyed being in the different LUGs I was in, but I gave more then I got for the most part. As an admin, I want to be better at what I do, so it's not just that I'm a jackass, it's that I want to continually expand my abilities through others misfortune.
I've been an attendee of both BaltoLUG and BaltoMSDN; two technology groups based North of Baltimore in the Towson and Hunt Valley areas respectively. While I subscribe to both mailing lists, I only regularly attend BaltoMSDN.
The BaltoLUG community has been great for helping me figure out newbie questions regarding Linux, but more often than not the topics were not applicable to my job or even hobby interest. It almost seemed as if there was too much diversity in interests; and overall very little emphasis on programming. The people who attended to learn more about being an effective system administrator seemed to get the most out of the meetings. (At least back when I attended.)
Ironically, I know of 4 people (besides myself) who began regularly attending BaltoMSDN (the Baltimore Microsoft Developer's Network group). These meetings are highly developer centric, both from individuals sharing from work experience and from outside experts coming in to educate us on the latest MS technologies. Most surprising between the two though, is that I have witnessed a strong community of friends existing outside of the meetings which has directly resulted in informal coffee gatherings, jobs, and social events. The same sense of "community" doesn't seem to exist at BaltoLUG.
So from my perspective I'd say that LUGs are still relevant, but ones that have a model similar to Baltimore may not be relevant to developers. (Both groups seem to consistently pull about a dozen+ participants a month.)
I still like LUGs and attend regularly, if for no other reason than talking with like-minded people... Get a great dinner (it's always at a restaurant), walk into a room, and discuss the most elegant way to set up a backup cron job over a Chai latte. No, LUGs aren't dead at all.
If there's anyone I hate more than stupid people, it's intellectuals.
The linux user group in my area (Sioux City, IA) changed its name to something more general in hopes of raising attendance. Even with a more general name and audience, I think the group is all but dead now. Some people tried to get meetings back to monthly, but it never quite worked out. I did enjoy the few meetings I did go to though.
I find two issues have been eating away at my local LUG. First is the leadership issue. In the last three years the LUG's leaders seem to be growing increasingly lazy. Four years ago we had a great leader, fun meetings, good attendance. The next year we had a leader who put in a lot of effort, but chose some lousy meeting topics. The year after that it picked up again at first, but towards the end our president stopped putting effort into the club and meetings started disappearing. This year there were so few members left that our current president ran unchallenged. We've had one installfest, and no meetings (understand the turnover point is in April). The second issue is the topics. I think the face of Linux is changing and that's causing some issues with the meetings. It's great to have some newbie meetings to get people up and running. But I miss the days when the LUG was specifically geared towards the hobbyist. When we all went out, found some new, cool, weird way to use Linux. When I was first attending Linux meetings as a newbie, there was little I understood. I was there because I wanted to learn no matter what. I recognized that the things my fellow members were doing were incredible. Recently in my Operating Systems class we were allowed to pick a personal final project. The presentations given were amazing. My MythTV box was one of the more pathetic works. I remember thinking, "This is what we're missing in LUG!" The creativity to adapt Linux to suit our zanny nerdy needs. The projects included booting Linux (and Windows) from USB drives, a Linux OS customized for digital sound manipulation, a router with OpenWRT and text-to-voice software. The users could log in, type a message, and the router would talk. One classmate used Puppy Linux and customized it to run all his normal applications with little to no load delay. LUGs aren't having fun with Linux anymore. But that can change. We need good leaders who can find these projects and good member to present on them. I hope that Linux users haven't forgotten how to have fun with Linux.
Try going online to ask about how to fix your broken X11 settings.
What a horrible mess. I was on #linuxhelp on freenode.net and those guys just ignored this noob who waited and asked twice about this in several minutes, he had all kinds of details on what was going wrong. I told him to use the "system-config-display" command and voila, problem solved. Everyone else sent him on a wild goose chase.
I've not seen that kind of incompetence or snobbery in a local LUG.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
We had a college intern who worked for the same company I did each summer. Every year he seemed to get better and better at IT/Tech. Then he got a gf, and all his progress calm to a halt.
Once you get a gf, your tech progress stops, and you will be at that level for the rest of your life. Just make sure it is high enough to earn a living. Yeah, I could have been an uber-geek, but I traded it all away for some sex. *wink*
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
And how could we go for beers after a LUG meeting, if it's all on-line?
I think the word you're looking for is "ubiquity."
Hey, the link to the story doesn't work.
Apparently that didn't stop all the above people
from posting...
It's interesting.. Our local LUG (FLUX in S. Florida) has been wrestling with declining (still respectable, but declining) attendance for a couple years. We've batted around ideas, but I guess part of the reason is that the novelty of Linux has worn out. It's somewhat pedestrian now, considering how many suits use it without even knowing.
The interesting thing is that I see a lot more Linux usage in corporate environments than ever before. There are lots of requests for administration and setup from SMBs, and in my 9-to-5 corporate IT employer, there are Linux servers running production loads.
Running Linux is no big deal anymore, so has lost some of its attraction. But I noticed the Mac groups have had a resurgence.. Maybe it's in cycles.. I was in a Mac user group a long time ago (about the time of the Centris and Quadra machines), and they faded for a while, but came back. With the Dell offerings, more corporate deployments, "good enough" improvements of Linux in corporate loads, etc.., I think the groups will grow again. The demographics will be different, but people will come.
Plus the Internet has made the community a lot larger. Before it was hard to find like-minded folks.
they should (in addition to general linux advocacy) help train people in the ways of linux development. we always respond to 'linux doesn't have X' with 'well then you should make X'. A LUG should openly help train people in some of those areas. A lot of LUGs i know are all about how to configure some service or the new features of the latest release of a distro. We (the community) need some meat - not just installfests and meet-and-greets.
Power to the Penguin!
I can only speak from personal experience, but I definitely think that LUGs are still relevant. There's a great group that gets together weekly in Ohio on an IRC channel, and this coming school year we're starting a LUG on campus (University of Cincinnati). Aside from putting you in touch with more people who may be able to help you solve a problem, LUGs are great for general discussion about FOSS and and all kinds of things. It's a great venue for people to share new discoveries and have active dialogue about current topics in the field.
In school LUGs were Lesbians Until Graduation
The game.
Maybe LUGs should virtualize their meetings on Second Life or similar virtual spaces. That would give most of the benefits of the live meetings (interactive troubleshooting, a decent-sized audience for presentations), but allow for geographically dispersed groups to interact or consolidate if that makes sense.
We are the 198 proof..
As a mac user, I remember the days of the MUG, the Mac User Group. We were a strange collection of people all with the fiery zeal for the Macintosh. We met together because it wasn't uncommon to be the only Mac user at school, at work, sometimes at home. There wasn't anyone to associate with who felt how we felt. We were the advocates for the Mac, we supported each other, we traded software, we helped each other out.
The internet came along, and for a brief time, the MUGs represented themselves online. It was a great way to distribute software, arrange meetings, etc. The MUGs didn't seem to make it though. It just made more sense to people that they all come together of their own accord. And several Mac sites made that possible.
Sometime around 2000 or 2001, people who were part of the online Mac Advocacy group received a letter from Guy Kawasaki who led the group, saying that Advocacy of the Mac wasn't really necessary, that the mac had made it and wasn't going to die away. I think that was really the end of the MUG. No longer was the Mac a dying machine, nor Apple a dying company. The need to group together was gone, and over the past 5 years or so the platform has become robust enough that you're not hard pressed to find a Mac user around.
If you've read this far, you likely wonder what my point is. I didn't even know there were LUGs to be honest. I imagine they were as invisible to me as MUGs were to the populace back in the day. The internet, in it's current form solves all the problems that UGs were used for. Support, both technical and social, and demonstration.
It's a little bit like the World Fair, back in the 19th and 20th centuries. Everyone got together to show off inventions, ideas, and concepts. When telecommunications took off, there stopped being a reason to hold the Fair.
No only do I think LUGs are useful, I want to start one. If anyone in the San Fernando Valley (CA) is interested, please stop by the LASFS clubhouse on Thursday Night (07/26/07) and ask for Ed Hooper.
As always, just my $0.02 worth.
I would like to see more variety of LUGs. Most seem to be home enthusiasts with more desktop type things discussed. What I'm looking for is more a sysadmin oriented LUG where more obscure topics are discussed.
The other way round has happened much more often: on more than one occasion, I've installed Firefox and Thunderbird after a hot steamy mandate... Once, we even "did it again" right after the install. Indeed, the time of the download allowed my "batteries" to resplenish themselves of plenty of fresh chantilly for a juicy second shot :)
A different way to advocate free software, hehe...
Unfortunately, one time I got short-changed, and got crabs. I would have understood it if I had installed Internet Exploder and Outlook on the guy's box, but for Firefox and Thunderbird?!? Thankless bastard!
The UCLALUG is alive and well, with a large number of active members. Most of us use it as a place to hang out between or after class, but it can be a great resource. Some of the most talented programmers and Linux users I've ever met hang out there, so it's a great place to bounce around ideas and see where they go.
We hold talks about topics such as writing Firefox extensions and building simple web applications. We also get plenty of people stopping by with Linux questions, from hardware issues to ``what Linux software does XYZ?'' I don't even have to mention the quarterly install-fest, which is having a greater turn out than ever.
Recently, it's becoming more of a Unix user's group, anyway, as I've managed to turn some of the members on to *BSD and even OpenSolaris [we have piles of Sun hardware dragged out from the trash]. Where else can you go with an esoteric question about NetBSD?
In short, the LUG has evolved into a great resource. Sure, most people can get their hands on a Linux install CD these days, but I'm sure many people feel more comfortable knowing there's a room in the engineering building filled with guys more than willing to help out with any of their problems.
how does it even matter? Linux can hardly gain, say more that 10% market share ever!!!
LUGs, though superficially about technology and not people, provide a great source for professionals to network and get to know each other. Here on Long Island, LILUG's Security/Infrastructure SIG has more or less turned into an unofficial recruiting venue for Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and I'm sure numerous other professional (SAGE, etc.) and non-professional user groups are the same way around the world.
Besides, it's a bunch of nerds who finally get out of their parents' basements. How often do you see that happening?
So you don't need a LUG -- you can get all help you need online.
It follows that there is at least one technical situation where you'd need help from a LUG -- when you can't set up your net connection on Linux :-)
Seriously, though, technical utility isn't the only reason for the existence of LUGs.My LUG gives me a sense of community and belonging. Nowadays I go there more to chat with like-minded folks and to exchange anecdotes over coffee than to get any real technical help. It's a form of socialising that I can't get elsewhere.
But I may be an exception in that I'm a Linux enthusiast (not in the sense of being a fanatic), and not a professional. Computer professionals may have no use for LUGs because they can get all the Linux help they need (if any) in their professional environment or online, and they have so much talk about it at work that they don't want to talk about it at other times. But how many LUG members are Linux professionals? Or even computer professionals?
I don't know. Seems to me that in my area (Kolkata, India) at least, LUGgers are a pretty heterogeneous cross section of society, most of them not in computer-centred professions. And yes, we have a need for LUGs. It gives us a warm, fuzzy feeling to be part of a community oriented around a (relatively) obscure operating system. Of course, it isn't as warm or as fuzzy any more as it was in 1995, when very few people had even heard of Linux. But it's still a good feeling.
I predict that the LUG will truly vanish when (if ever) GNU/Linux becomes mainstream on the desktop.
First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win. -Gandhi
Are fat bearded BSD admins a thing of the past?
In Ithaca New York we have what we call the "Ithaca Free Software Association," which is a computer user's group which is focused on promoting and supporting free software in general, rather than any particular operating system. We welcome anyone who wants to use free software, whether they run GNU/Linux, *BSD, Windows, or MacOS. Meeting face-to-face each month is a great way to meet new members, though most of our communication is done over the email list.
:)
Meeting face-to-face is also how conduct our events in the local community. GNU/Linux installfests, "Vendor" booths at local technology events (we have three higher-ed institutions in the area, as well as numerous K-12 schools), as well as Software Freedom Day, and a few other events we stage each year.
So, essentially, we're a group of folks who like computers, software, etc. But we're also a community service organization, intent on helping people solve technological problems with free software. Whether that's someone's grandma, or a local school district.
I'd post the URL, but I don't want to break my Web server...
Essentially, LUGs were often a grassroots advertising and lobbying campaign.
I think the population LUGs are trying to reach no longer needs to be told that Linux exists and that you can browse the web on it. Lobbying never was an activity of face-to-face meetings, because we didn't have much need to lobby each other.
Now, most of the people who should be using linux and who aren't are being held back because they can't figure out something technical, or they have no time to figure it out, not because they don't know what linux is or that it can do what they need. They need actual help, the kind where they can bring their computer to a meeting and have someone look at it or someone to come to their home or business.
The LUG I am most active in, ALE (not to be confused with the Atlanta group with the same initials), is an all hands on workshop type format. We meet at a place where we have power and internet, courtesy of TekRepublik, and attendance has been growing. There are no scheduled presentations, people just bring their stuff and work on it. Sometimes someone brings something cool as show-and-tell, for example recently someone brought in one of the Dell Ubuntu machines and we examined it pretty thoroughly.
The other linux group (the first and larger one -- ALG) in Austin is also very active, but I attend it less regularly.
One thing LUGs often did and sometimes still do, that I always thought was totally pointless, was the vendor presentation. I guess it isn't totally useless, when the MySQL guys came to the ALE group, probably the only such event we ever had, it was definitely interesting converstation. However, most of the time that is a complete waste of both the vendor's and the group's time.
The university and college LUGs are often run by someone ambitious who is just networking and resume-building. The vendors come essentially because they are shopping for fresh employees.
In the non-academic LUGs, there is often a cadre of older fellows who cut their teeth during times when large corporations were much more socially dominant, and they remember the format of groups such as the Homebrew Computer Club and HAL-PC in Houston.
These guys seem to believe that large corporations should be lobbied to use linux, and that we have to work to make sure that HR departments know what linux means on a resume, that managers know that their organization alreay uses linux in some places, etc etc. This is largely unnecessary, because careers and the direction of technology just doesn't depend as much on large corporations any more.
HAL-PC and the Homebrew Club and similar groups were features of a time when it cost a lot to have computing as a hobby, and the members of those clubs spent lots of money. It made sense for a vendor to court them, and it made sense for those guys to comparison shop and examine all the options and debate PC versus Clone or whatever as they prepared to spend the price of a new car on something they would use as a glorified typewriter. It's not like that any more though. Computing and Linux is one of the cheapest hobbies you can have. Everytime the city garbage collection has a large-item-di
What we really need are more hygiene tips for current LUG members.
How many people have actually been to a LUG? Raise your hand.
If so then you know what I'm talking about, the distinct odor of penguin love.
Anonymous Coward, where have you been?! Why don't you return my phone calls anymore? :-( :-( :-(
Whatever an "automobile association" is, we don't need it. Next?
(please reply with your own, and why you like it).
:)
My favorite lug is the KWLug at kwlug.org
This lug was created several years ago, and has a large number of very bright people in it. The topics are always well researched, and members are encouraged to do presentations themselves. Some people never present, others present often, but it's always interesting. We've even had some minor celebrities giving talks there.
In addition we've started a fund where people can (voluntarily) contribute to free software, as a way of saying thank you. The funds get collected and are given to the particular project of the month.
After news, topics and questions are done, people usually head over to a local restaurant/bar for food and beer. A good time is had by all, and as a bonus, a bunch of business seems to happen as well. The business is not always Linux related, but it usually involves people who are know how to plug a computer in.
I am a fairly recent convert to linux, thanks to Ubuntu.
We have our monthly LUG meet and once you get to know everyone it really is just a get together for a few beers and to talk about developments in general as well as chit chat. Occasionally there may be someone needs help with an issue but its the exception rather than the rule.
It may as well be called the linux social because thats what it is. Try it and I bet you don't see a gentoo install disk, but lots of beer and beardies, as well as a whole range of different people. Some just normal users, some who have super geek status, such as PHDs in arcane parts of computing theory and everything inbetween, but there is plenty of common ground and plenty of general jokes and chit chat.
http://www.writeitfor.us - Writing IT for the IT generation.
I visited a LUG once because someone famous was coming by to speak (Stallman? Raymond?) and was so turned off by the whole experience I would never want to go back. The speaker was fine but hearing about upcoming meetings felt like going over to digg and reading one of those stories like '8 tips for using Bash' where they tell you obvious shit like how to turn on color in ls.
I mean this was at a world class research university (caltech) and when I had trouble getting X to compile I would ask the guy down the hall who would then execute some totally crazy command line using four pipes awk and sed which magically fixed the problem. But instead of being the experts the people at the LUG where the linux equivalents of old school Mac users, trading little tips without any real knowledge. I liked the idea of a LUG but only if it has presentations of the sort of shit on kerneltrap and it's the best users not the worst who attend.
Basically I got the sense that LUGs ware a lot like groups like MENSA (supposedly for smart people). Namely that the best people (most knowledgeable, most savy, smartest) weren't going to come because they were all in universities, or working at tech corporations that provided them with more than enough technological/intellectual stimulation. In the beginning it might have been different but once linux adoption was wide enough in academia and the business world it seems inevitable that LUGs would sink to the lowest common denominator.
Maybe the proximity of caltech really biased my experience and LUGs in other areas are different but somehow I think the internet has worked as a great leveler giving the experts even in the most rural places better options and leaving for LUGs people who can't decipher the man pages
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
If there weren't a LUG, I'd have to make real friends to go out drinking with.
LUGs are a good way to be social with fellow Linux geeks.
I go for the social interaction, as there is always an after-party at our monthly LUG meetings (sgvlug.org)
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
Yeah! What he said!
Since when did Linux users co-op this time honored three letter acronym?
It wont be good saying that the LUGs are dying out but we may say its growing over the internet.
My university's LUG used to be a real organization, with regular meetings, semi-annual installfests, a lab on campus, a mailing list, and an IRC channel.
Now, it's pretty much just the IRC channel. We ceased to exist as an organization about a year ago. We still have the lab and mailing list (because our uni's bureaucracy has forgotten about us), but no one uses them anymore. We haven't had any new members since 2005, and the vast majority of us have graduated. There are maybe three members who are still affiliated with the university (not including myself). But they technically aren't members, because we haven't cared enough to renew our group's registration. We let it lapse at the beginning of Fall 2006, and no one's cared enough to re-register (but we don't have enough eligible members anymore to re-register, since almost everyone graduated this May).
We still hang out on IRC, but that's it.
I am, I'm afraid to say, an XP addict because of my gaming needs. If my local LUG (Bristol, UK) was still around (webby last updated 2002/2004 depending upon which site one reads) I would use their skills to help me set up a decent linux/wine rig. Unfortunately without a local LUG I will have to remain with winblows until I can find a local geek to help.
I really want to use LINUX but the published stories I have seen about driver issues and hardware/gaming incompatibilities really put me off - as do the number of distros and what they do/do not do.
TDyl
Todd: I hope it proves as delicious as the farmers that grew them
The actual deciding factor in my not attending any more local LUG's was honestly the fact that several of the guys weren't really into personal hygiene... I mean fat guys sweat I understand, but I just couldn't stomach another session of holding my breath whenever someone leaned in to look at my screen, or came near to offer advise. I even tried handing out gum, but to no avail(there really is no tactful way to offer deoderant) Sadly I decided that I would just use the internet for my info, and stay in my climate controlled office, where I can control the odour.
I just found out about a crazy LUG community that probably overlaps with the old LUG community: Lego User Groups-
http://www.lugnet.com/
Or for the Lego train enthusiasts, they have separate Lego Train Club Organizations:
http://www.iltco.org/
Narcissism for the win! Or autosexuality, depending on the type of relationship...
Free beer is never free as in speech. Free speech is always free as in beer.
I've been a member of a Linux User's Group here in SoCal since 2001 but I've never attended a meeting. From the LUG's emails, the meetings sounded interesting at first: "Install Debian on a Sony Laptop" and the like, but never enough for me to give up one Saturday morning a month to attend. I'm still subscribed but the traffic now is mostly posts for upcoming meetings. I find the web as a much more apropo place for "Linux Users".
"Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you?" --Yoda {whips out green light saber}
It depends on what you're looking to get out of a LUG (or any other group). Back in the day, the LUG played a more important role as far as educating Linux users and spreading the word (and the code). With nearly ubiquitous high-speed connections, info on the web is easy to get, and often more specific on any particular topic than you'll get from a local group.
But there are other reasons for user groups:
- Learning. Different people learn in different ways. Some people learn well from watching and listening. So a formal presentation works well for them. Others learn by doing. Others learn by reading. Online resources only cater to the last type of learning. (Although screencasts are changing that some, I suppose.)
- Socializing. Often times, the informal gatherings after the meetings are more fun than the meetings themselves. I know a lot of us could stand to be more social. If it takes a geeky group to do so, fine. We get to talk to people with similar as well as diverse interests.
- Networking. I've gotten quite a few consulting gigs through the user groups. I never believed in the importance of networking when I was younger, but it really does pay off.
- Giving back. I volunteered to chair the local LUG so I could give something back to the community. This is especially important in the Free Software / Open Source community. So I enjoy getting to stand up in front of a group of people and share some knowledge with them. It also helps me learn more about the subject. And I learned how to be a better
public speaker in the process.
- Trusted opinions. One thing that's hard to find online is opinions you can trust. Meeting someone in person gives a feeling of comfort that some people need. Also, it's more appropriate to ask some questions in a small group. Like what's the consensus of opinion on a certain thing. Or getting help on where to look for more information on a topic when you don't know the right keywords to use.
- Overview of what's out there. It's impossible to keep up with everything going on in the world of technology. And even harder to get a detailed overview of things. So it's nice to be able to sit down and have someone show you what's out there, so you can investigate more thoroughly later if you find something to be of interest.
My opinion on the value of user groups is more of quality than quantity. If it meets the needs of the people there, then it's worth doing. Like with Free Software, the main value in having larger numbers is to spread the work in order to keep the quality high.
I think a lot of the drop in attendance is due to the fact that it's now quite easy to find help with Linux, either online, or though friends, classmates, or co-workers. We also do a relatively poor job of marketing ourselves. We probably also suffer from a lack of diversity in our topic choices and presenters.
[Adapted from the SLUUG.org discussion list.]
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
Yes. The majority of LUGs I know disappeared in 2004, only leaving the larger ones behind.
Ah, gee whiz, it figures I'd go start a LUG just as they're going out of style.
The quality on the remaining LUGs are top notch, so I guess this is a natural phenomenon that occurs after every hype.
Seriously though, what we have is called a LUG but it's a group of computing enthusiasts and professionals who happen to use open source technologies. Every once in a while we have a linux-specific presentation, but we also have, e.g. opensolaris-specific presentations. We do mostly education on stuff that's not available through traditional methods (not until next year, anyhow) and feature the talents of local folks. And most important may be the networking, as humans are still too hard to FAX.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I've noticed a recent increase in the mailing list traffic of my favorite LUG (and no, it's not an increase in spam to the list). If anything I'd say they're just as useful as ever. I don't think the need LUGs will go away until Linux reaches at least 50% of the home computer market share (not saying it *will* happen).
The incredible amount of outdated Linux information on the internet is one reason LUGs probably won't decline. Because small details change between each release and "large" changes accumulate gradually it's difficult to associate a piece of advice with a specific Linux "version" as one might with Windows (95, NT. 98, 2k, XP, Vista, etc). So, unless you're an experienced Linux user, chances are you won't be able to recognize when some information is outdated. This is where LUGs come in. LUGs help emphasize what's current in a wide spectrum of Linux distributions and software. They also allow advice to "cross pollinate" between users of different distros.
.. is that they double as a homosexual nerd dating club. If you don't swing that way, there's no point. Shit, and all this time I've been going to LUG meetings to pick up girls. I wondered what I was doing wrong. Thanks!I've found that one of the best LUGs I've ever participated in is not geographically isolated, but rather it's an online LUG called USALUG. Despite its name, there are members from all over the globe but most notably the U.S. and the U.K.
The senior members are very knowledgeable, it has sections for all major Linux distributions, and the moderators and admins take great care in protecting newbies and offering help instead of harsh "RTFM" type "help". The community is quite closely woven with many members having met in real life and it's a generally fun place to hang out and swap information. The community section is where most of the chatter happens and there's an IRC channel for more real-time chatting if you can find that magical hour of the day when people are online.
I don't care for my local LUG to be quite honest, but the USALUG is the group I wish my local group was.
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
We had a branch of ACS (Australian Computer Society) here, and it was abandoned after there were no nominations for the Executive positions two years running.
...
The idea of a micro-lug was brought up in the Linux Australia mailing list, and I suspect if I try anything here in the distant coastal city I live in (on the coast of Queensland), it will be that.
I've already got a "gmail address" for it! But that email address might be all there ever is to prove it's existence.
If push comes to shove, and I actually get a response, I guess I can demo with a laptop, or hold a meeting in my living room. I've been talking about Linux for a couple of years now, to anyone who'll listen, and I've actually got the attention of four people
Don't blame me, it's usually 2 in the morning when I post
What slowed me way down was the need to actually pay rent. Working crappy jobs will just destroy your mind. You go from spending all your time learning and creating to doing the bidding of some PHB. Usually this involves going from creating wonderful new things to creating yet another iteration of some existing thing.
The gf/wife/family makes you less likely to work on your own projects but doesn't really impact your learning. You just no longer have any spare time or money to work on your own stuff with. Between the family and the job you just can't sit and bash out code or make cool electronics from 30 hours at a time anymore. With what I know now, as an adult, of technology, business, and human behavior I could probably make a fortune if I had the time and money to actually work on stuff like I did when I was a teenager. A good week or two of coding and I could probably make something worth several million dollars at least. But that probably isn't going to happen because even if I could get my family to leave me alone for that long I'd still end up going to find them. Creating wonderful things is no longer my first love.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.