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Is the LUG a thing of the past?
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Mon Jul 23, 2007 09:40 AM
from the where-else-do-you-get-cds dept.
from the where-else-do-you-get-cds dept.
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)."
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Nothing for you to see here. Please move along. (Score:2, Funny)
local forms yes, (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://libtom.org/)
Re:local forms yes, (Score:4, Insightful)
No (Score:5, Funny)
LUGs not just for information (Score:5, Insightful)
It also never hurts to brush up on inter-personal skills at the same time.
Re:LUGs not just for information (Score:4, Funny)
Instead of LUGS we need... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.dangercollie.com/music/)
...consultants. Time for Ubuntu to move into the enterprise.
Yes, indeed! (Score:3, Insightful)
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!
I left when I got married. (Score:4, Funny)
Yes. (Score:5, Interesting)
We need LUGs (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://psrautela.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday April 10 2007, @08:21AM)
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
The Linux kernel isn't everything (Score:1, Offtopic)
(Last Journal: Monday August 22 2005, @11:02AM)
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.
It depends on what you get from LUG meetings (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://slashdot.org/)
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.
Do we still need automobile associations? (Score:1)
(http://lists.clickers.org/linuxsig/index.html | Last Journal: Friday November 09, @11:00PM)
"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)."
This is the year of Desktop Linux right? (Score:2, Funny)
LUG... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:LUG... (Score:4, Funny)
LUGs, Before the Advent of Wiki and Cheap Server (Score:4, Informative)
(Last Journal: Thursday July 10 2003, @10:13AM)
Hell no, but needs broader focus (Score:2)
(http://technical-writing.dionysius.com/ | Last Journal: Monday November 05, @03:35PM)
How about UG's in general? (Score:1)
LUG's are definitely still important! (Score:3, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Thursday January 11 2007, @06:30PM)
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!
Lugs are good (Score:5, Informative)
LUG as social group (Score:2)
(http://www.i-t-w.com/)
The real question is are UGs a thing of the past? (Score:1)
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
They can be helpful, but... (Score:2)
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.
BaltoLUG vs BaltoMSDN my observations (Score:2)
(http://www.tronster.com/)
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.)
No, they aren't... (Score:1)
(http://realityfactory2.sourceforge.net/)
The history of our local linux user group (Score:1)
Beers! (Score:1)
Ubiquitousness? (Score:2)
(http://paperclips.sourceforge.net/)
Link doesn't work! (Score:2)
Apparently that didn't stop all the above people
from posting...
LUGs (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://www.digitalhermit.com/)
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.
i think they should (Score:1)
(http://www.grandrapids-lug.org/)
LUGs in Ohio (Score:1)
(http://shinoakurui.blogspot.com/)
huh? (Score:1)
The reasons to keep it around are gone. (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Starting a LUG (Score:1)
As always, just my $0.02 worth.
We need more types of LUG's (Score:1)
(http://www.livejournal.com/users/adameros/)
UCLALUG alive and well (Score:2)
(http://www.lacklustre.net/)
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.
Sole Exception (Score:1)
(http://inconsistent-journal.blogspot.com/)
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.
Less Advertising, More Helping (Score:2)
(http://rgr.freeshell.org/)
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 [tekrepublik.com], 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. (Score:1)
(Last Journal: Wednesday April 20 2005, @04:16AM)
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.
My Favorite Lug (Score:2)
(http://code.google.com/p/crylib/wiki/CryLib | Last Journal: Tuesday June 15 2004, @12:55PM)
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.
It can be scary for a newbie, but worthwhile. (Score:1)
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.
LUGs: as Bad as Mensa (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.infiniteinjury.org/)
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
I enjoy my LUG (Score:1)
its growing (Score:1)
(http://elitewarrior.wordpress.com/)
I would still like a local LUG (Score:1)
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
New LUG for the old LUG (Score:2)
(http://www.che.sc.edu/faculty/gatzke/ | Last Journal: Monday May 29 2006, @10:02AM)
I just found out about a crazy LUG community that probably overlaps with the old LUG community: Lego User Groups-
http://www.lugnet.com/ [lugnet.com]
Or for the Lego train enthusiasts, they have separate Lego Train Club Organizations:
http://www.iltco.org/ [iltco.org]
Long time lurker (Score:1)
LUGs still have plenty to offer (Score:2)
(http://craigbuchek.com/)
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 [sluug.org] discussion list.]
Micro-LUG? (Score:1)
(Last Journal: Sunday October 14, @08:45AM)
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
Re:Who cares (Score:2)
What market are you talking about? Linux has significantly more than 10% in quite a few of them.
Re:A better question. (Score:2, Funny)
(http://www.gamerslastwill.com/)
Re:The only good thing about LUGS .. (Score:2)
(http://www.van-steenbeek.net/)
Re:The only good thing about LUGS .. (Score:1)
(Last Journal: Wednesday April 11 2007, @04:43PM)