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Linux.com Relaunched Under New Management

Posted by timothy on from the things-change-almost-always dept.

mikesd81 writes "Linux.com has been relaunched under the direction of the Linux Foundation. The goal of the site is supposed to be a community hub that lets the Linux community participate and contribute their knowledge. An initial look as the site is today makes it look like a news site. Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin insists that the plan wasn't for Linux.com to be a breaking news organization but rather as a resource for the Linux community as a whole."

70 comments

  1. Nice design/colors... by Zapotek · · Score: 1

    ...where's the Ubuntu logo? Just kidding hold your horses...

  2. Great business plan! by eln · · Score: 4, Funny

    Look everyone, a tech news aggregator! What an original idea...this will be revolutionary. Can the year of Linux on the desktop be far behind now?

    1. Re:Great business plan! by mr_mischief · · Score: 2, Informative

      It was the year of the Linux desktop five years ago. It's just that 95% of the users are behind the trend.

    2. Re:Great business plan! by skeeto · · Score: 4, Informative

      And it messes up your browser (Firefox in my case) too. Check this out:

      http://linux.com/distrocentral/download-linux

      Right now it continually refreshes the page while asking for authentication, spawning a new window each second. I managed to escape from it with some careful mouse wrangling.

    3. Re:Great business plan! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Look everyone, a tech news aggregator! What an original idea...this will be revolutionary. Can the year of Linux on the desktop be far behind now?

      Hey - it's a much demanded feature. There's a lot of people who say they have no idea where to go to get Linux information. Apparently they can't use Google; mostly Microsoft users.

    4. Re:Great business plan! by Darundal · · Score: 2, Funny

      Wow! Almost like a Slashdot 2.0...oh, wait...

    5. Re:Great business plan! by tsalmark · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well that was fun, glad I'm not epileptic. From now on I'm reading the rest of the post before clicking on the link.

    6. Re:Great business plan! by AliasMarlowe · · Score: 3, Funny

      That page also screws up in Opera and Epiphany. It keeps generating a login popup. Bad, bad linux.com!

      --
      Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
    7. Re:Great business plan! by jc42 · · Score: 1

      Funny, I don't see it refreshing at all. I get a pop-down saying:

      Authentication Required

      A username and password are being requested by http://beta.linux.com./ The site says: "Linux.com is under maintenance. Please check www.linux.com shortly"

      This has username and password input widgets, plus Cancel and OK buttons. It doesn't seem to have any way of setting up an account, so I tried a couple of dummy loging, hit OK -- and got back exactly the same pop-down windowlet. So I hit Cancel -- and got the same pop-down windowlet.

      I notice that the button to close the window is greyed out ...

      I'll check them occasionally and see if anything works. At least they're not soaking up all my cpu while they wait for me.

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
    8. Re:Great business plan! by jonnycando · · Score: 2, Informative

      Does it to me too....logins one after another unless you can click cancel fast enough to dismiss them. Using Firefox 3.0.1 with Ubuntu 8.04 netbook remix on Dell Mini 9. Guess my Mac would do the same since the website appears to be ahem, faulty.

    9. Re:Great business plan! by John+Hasler · · Score: 1

      The popup goes away after you click "Cancel" ten times.

      --
      Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
    10. Re:Great business plan! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Too bad my Firefox didnt do it, because i use noscript and adblock+. Keeps shit like that away.

    11. Re:Great business plan! by skeeto · · Score: 1

      I used NoScript up until the recent events where it became malware and obscured its code. It can no longer be trusted. I'll look into using a fork when one comes along.

    12. Re:Great business plan! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Bad linux.com? Yes, but more importantly: BAD Browser for letting websites create modal dialogs.

  3. Thumbs up by mc1138 · · Score: 2

    I like the look, I like the layout, now lets just hope that it follows through as intended. If so, this could be a great resource for both experienced pros as well as new users.

    --
    The musings of just another geek and his junk.
    1. Re:Thumbs up by techwizrd · · Score: 0

      I like the look, I like the layout, now lets just hope that it follows through as intended. If so, this could be a great resource for both experienced pros as well as new users.

      I like the new look too.

      Hopefully Linux.com amounts to something more useful than a news aggregator.

      Maybe it could host video and image tutorials on how to use popular Linux distributions. That would be helpful for new users as I often have to sit down with them and explain Linux and how to use it. Then I start getting calls at odd hours of the night on how to install programs or why a certain program isn't working.

    2. Re:Thumbs up by Randle_Revar · · Score: 1

      They are already encouraging people to write tutorials, and of course they have the forums and the Facebook-esque social networking thing.

      --
      Climate Progress - Hell and High Water
  4. So slashdotted... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    What is it running on? Windows?

    1. Re:So slashdotted... by jonbryce · · Score: 1

      Linux / Apache according to netcraft.

    2. Re:So slashdotted... by Nesman64 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Server: Apache X-Powered-By: PHP/5.2.4-2ubuntu5.6

      According to: curl -I linux.com

      --
      coffee | nose > keyboard
  5. It's about time... by Stachybotris · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I had just purged the RSS feed for their site from Firefox last night since I got sick of seeing nothing change since January 1st.

    I'm glad to see that they're back up an running, and even more so now that they're providing more than just news. Here's to hoping that the site flourishes and maintains what I've come to expect so far plus more.

    1. Re:It's about time... by Krneki · · Score: 4, Funny

      ... probably they couldn't return from Sleep mode.

      --
      Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
  6. Re:this is it! linux is on the verge of going unde by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    no. you're just annoying by missing the point. but what else should we expect?

  7. DistroWatch has them beat for now by mr_mischief · · Score: 1

    They have a section called "DistributionCentral" that's supposed to give lists of popular, desktop, embedded, server, etc. distros and then descriptions of those. All the links want authentication credentials. Screw that. Publish your site or don't. Don't stick up a bunch of publicly available info on the public portion of your site and then set it to require authentication because you don't have the code or markup templates ready just yet.

  8. For newbies? by hkz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When I first became interested in Linux around 2005 or so and wanted to find out more about it, one of the first sites I tried was linux.com. (Hey, why not, I learnt about distros a little while later.) What a mess it was. The new site is a lot better, but I still don't think it has the portal quality that a site with the standing of "linux.com" needs. Where is the elevator pitch about what Linux is, where is the explanation of the ways it's similar to Windows and the ways it's not? Instead we get press releases from the Linux Foundation. Think of the other 95% of the world when you're scaping linux.com, guys.

    1. Re:For newbies? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's a lot better than what you remember in 2005 but not so much compared to the previous version.
      It looks ok for a community website but fades away to the grander scope it was supposed to accomplish.

    2. Re:For newbies? by skeeto · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If you think that was bad, check out linux.org right now. It's probably one of the most worthless websites out there, yet it gets to sit at #1 in search results for "linux" because too many people foolishly link to it.

    3. Re:For newbies? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you have a blog and want to link to the "official" linux site, what site would that be?

    4. Re:For newbies? by elrous0 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sadly, and all-too-typical problem with OSS sites. An opening page full of bug fixes, version numbers, etc. and not a single paragraph explaining what the OSS app actually *IS* and *DOES*. Too many of these pages (and apps) are written by code monkeys who think they don't need to bring in actual writers or graphic designers.

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    5. Re:For newbies? by XanC · · Score: 1

      If we're talking about the kernel, kernel.org.

      If we're talking about a full system, debian.org.

      Done!

    6. Re:For newbies? by eiMichael · · Score: 1

      http://www.kernel.org/

    7. Re:For newbies? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You just haven't seen linux.org.ru. They even speak Russian!

    8. Re:For newbies? by kimvette · · Score: 3, Insightful

      kernel.org looks horrible though, and does not represent what a (complete) Linux system is capable site.

      kernel.org is designed by geeks, for geeks. What is needed is a central site which is designed by designers, with marketing types' input, for regular people. THAT and getting the "RTFM" and "it's open source, fix it yourself" folks out of positions where they respond to user questions on project mailing lists and messageboards.

      --
      The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
    9. Re:For newbies? by westlake · · Score: 1
      Sadly, and all-too-typical problem with OSS sites.

      Try extracting anything useful from Sourceforge - and did I mention that you have to register before you can take a look around, poke the tires?

    10. Re:For newbies? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What is needed is a central site which is designed by designers, with marketing types' input, for regular people.

      Oh you want the Ubuntu website.

    11. Re:For newbies? by rastos1 · · Score: 1

      Try extracting anything useful from Sourceforge - and did I mention that you have to register before you can take a look around, poke the tires?

      What do you mean? This is a link to Scribus project. The description and download link is right there. Screenshots just a click away. No registration required.

    12. Re:For newbies? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And the top left menu button reads "Distribution" and takes you to the registration page - brilliant !!! A work of pure genius....

  9. Fail by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    X-Powered-By: PHP/5.2.4-2ubuntu5.6

  10. Re:Troll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    HURR DURR DURR

    I think I summarized your post in 3 words, now excuse me while I hibernate my machine and go watch some TV.

  11. Re:Troll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    'Works for me' is not a valid response.

  12. After seeing this by just_another_sean · · Score: 4, Informative

    and having a soft spot in my heart for them since I discovered Linux in 1995 I still think linux.org and The LDP are way better then this...

    --
    Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
    1. Re:After seeing this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you serious? Is that really how you want to see Linux represented? You must really hate Linux.

    2. Re:After seeing this by drijen · · Score: 1

      Fail.

      This site commits the sin of "click here to read the story -> "oh wait, click here again please, to be sent to the actual story".

      Further fail, for being flash driven, and having those ridiculous cnet buttons plastered everywhere. Even worse, the comments system looks like it has been ripped straight from some of those craptacular "PC for morons" sites.

      Way to take a great idea and garbage it.

    3. Re:After seeing this by just_another_sean · · Score: 1

      I'm totally serious and I love Linux or wouldn't be sitting here talking about it 13 years after I found the aforementioned sites.

      What's wrong with linux.org? You don't like red? There is no flash, no ani-crap of any kind. There are a few discreet ads to the
      side that actually offer products I may be interested in buying. (books ftw!)

      The page is neatly laid out to provide you links to news about Linux, documentation for Linux, applications for Linux, etc. Glancing
      at it for a quick minute shows a wealth of useful starting points for both new users and experienced gurus.

      IMHO there is still room on the web for pages that don't dance in your face and just provide useful information.

      The LDP? Yes, it's pretty messy. But it is also a mountain of documentation on the use and history of Linux and other free software.
      To me it's warts are a lot easier to handle then this chaotic soup.

      --
      Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
    4. Re:After seeing this by plasticsquirrel · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Since at least 1998 they have had that same ugly, ugly layout and worthless lists of Linux distros. It's like a crystallization of what was wrong with the OSS community in the 90's. Want to use Linux? No problem, here's a big list of distros that will be completely meaningless to you. Ubuntu is in there, but it's down at the bottom, way below Slackware and MkLinux, which (for all you know) are more popular and easier to use than it. This site was an epic failure in the 90's, and it still is, unfortunately. It's a shame, too, because it could be much better if they just threw out all the old stuff and started from scratch with something simple.

      --
      Systemd: the PulseAudio of init systems
    5. Re:After seeing this by adolf · · Score: 1

      Oh, but they're both oh so very...1996! That's the problem! Yeah! They need more AJAX Web 2.0 Javascripted-to-death bullshit, or nobody will respect them. Haven't they ever heard of Ruby? On Rails? Sheesh. Why don't they just get with the program already? Why aren't there Flash games built into the advertisements, for fuck's sake? Everyone knows you need a Flash game built into your banner ads before the crowds will come.

      (This post is extremely tongue-in-cheek, since the first useful web page I ever found about Linux was http://sunsite.unc.edu/~mdw. This was the page of Matt Welsh, then dictator of the Linux Documentation Project. Before that, everything I learned came from actually reading Usenet, and digging around with FTP. Aside from Matt's book, Running Linux, that is. After I found Matt's page, replete with well-written and complete HOWTOs along with news, I didn't need any more help. And then Slashdot and Freshmeat happened, and I stopped caring about Matt's efforts. And then, sadly, both of the latter were bought out and it's been downhill since.)

      --
      Kid-proof tablet..
    6. Re:After seeing this by tolan-b · · Score: 1

      They certainly don't need any AJAX or JS in general, but linux.org in particular could look a little less like a Geocities page.

  13. Re:Troll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    'Works for me' is not a valid response.

    But it's sufficient to close the bugreport. Guess I'll just go hibernate my box again.

  14. Looks a lot like ZDNet.com! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=4211

    </sarcasm>

  15. Re:Troll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And this is why Linux on the desktop sucks. I know, I have been trolled.

    Back on topic, it would make more sense for these guys to put their time and money into fixing some of the problems us desktop Linux users have to face on a daily basis, than create yet another tech news aggregator site.

  16. Re:Troll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    I'm pretty sure the people running Linux.com aren't the same people who are hacking on the Linux kernel. So your statement is a false dichotomy.

  17. Re:this is it! linux is on the verge of going unde by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    keep hoping for your .1% market gain every year, freetard.

    You'd think this .1% market gain wouldn't be all that threatening. Somehow it is - must be because some people know what's going on while others just have it pop up in front of them like magic mushrooms. I suppose IT is full of surprises for you folks. Must be a scarry place. I can understand the hostility.

    -Freetard

  18. Re:Troll by Krneki · · Score: 1

    I didn't know I was a troll before becoming funny.

    Thanks for the support and yeah I was ironic. I mean we all love penguins, right?

    --
    Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
  19. Oooh, ooh, be a guru, earn guru points by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Earn enough guru points and win a laptop signed by Linus.

    And then install FreeBSD on it.

    That'd be ironic.

  20. Re:Troll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's just as valid as "Doesn't work for me."

  21. Flash vs.substance by NemoinSpace · · Score: 1
    WTF is it with web designers that insist on stealing my bandwith with their incessant flash crap. Maybe I'll just start linking to your !@#$%! crap with every spambot on the planet till your server melts!

    Hey! take that gleeful smile off your face.

    /fires up lynx/

  22. Re:Troll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    No it isn't.

    Yes it is. Kernel hacking and running Linux.com aren't mutually exclusive activities are done by different people.

    Let me make it plain: the money spent on Linux.com would have advanced the interests of Linux better (which is the Linux Foundation's remit) had it been spent on getting suspend/hibernate working properly.

    How do you know they aren't doing that already? Again, you are setting up some dichotomy that doesn't exist.

    Even if it only helped a little. This is the biggest problem facing Linux adoption today, not a lack of discussion about Linux on the Internet.

    BWAHAHAHA. Biggest problem? Exaggerate much?

  23. Off to a GREAT START! by ipX · · Score: 1

    Registered on Linux.com, never got an email confirmation, yet I can retrieve my username with the 'forgot username' form (confirmation that I didn't have a typo), but my account is locked out because it was never activated. Rock on, linux.com.

    1. Re:Off to a GREAT START! by jzemlin · · Score: 1

      What is your user name? We'll fix it.

    2. Re:Off to a GREAT START! by ipX · · Score: 1

      The email came an hour later, LOL. My patience is too thin apparently?

  24. Re:Troll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yes it is. Kernel hacking and running Linux.com aren't mutually exclusive activities are done by different people.

    No it isn't. I'm referring to the money spent on employing people to build the new Linux.com. It would have been better spent on paying people to work on fixing suspend and hibernate. Even if that money wasn't enough to fix the problem entirely, we do not need another tech aggregator site, but we do need sleep/hibernate working properly.

    How do you know they aren't doing that already?

    Because the pointless site at Linux.com exists, and cost money.

    BWAHAHAHA. Biggest problem? Exaggerate much?

    See: http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/most_popular_ever/ the biggest issue there is a tool to manage network connections, this has been pretty-much fixed by NetworkManager. So, the biggest issue facing GNU/Linux adoption today is: 'Fix Suspend and Hibernate'.

    It is impossible to underestimate how important it is that this shit 'just works' for the average user. It's not a false dichotomy to say that we're all wasting our time, waving our dicks in the wind, with this Linux.com rubbish while basic functionality of the OS we're evangelising doesn't even work.

  25. Rest of the world ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...may not speak English, but the designers didn't think of any internationalisation in their design either. So very myopic and terribly sad to "lead" the linux online presence with such a useless, unfriendly scabby techo hack-job.
    That top menu bar (div id="linux-header-left") is virtually invisible.
    "Register" is so obscure, small and hidden you'd think they didn't want anyone to join.
    What's with those links at the bottom with all that empty space at the top? Just to make the search box look sexy?
    The download page, http://linux.com/distrocentral/download-linux, doesn't even explain what a distro is, and that menu text on the right in faded red ? ... illegible.
    Why would any Joe Blow bother with Linux after visiting this site?