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)."

LUGs not just for information

[auroran]

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.

Yes, indeed!

[VincenzoRomano]

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!

We need LUGs

[b1ufox]

We do need LUGs !!!
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 /Linux bug has just started in a true sense, therefore this calls fore enthusiastic people to common under single roof.

Re:We need LUGs

[DataBroker]

Speaking personally, I have less of a reason to go to a LUG than "back-in-the-day". Before I was so new to it, that any help was great. At that time, I was hacking together leftover, unsupported, often-broken hardware.

Now though, I can afford to buy normal hardware, and the stuff I have is all standardized enough that I'm not looking for help guessing the right X config settings for my particular vid card.

Attendance at LUGs being down may actually be indicative of less hand-holding being needed for installation and configuration. I would rather go to a geek-gathering where we can discuss some sort of RPG and debate dwarves vs. elves than to go to a LUG where we all rally around and cheer how well some package installed without error.

And if all that's left at a LUG is debating distros, I'd probably have more fun debating religions. I'll opt to take the kids out for some fun any time over that.

Re:Yes, indeed!

[Aladrin]

Wait, I get why you can't share beverages over email lists, but brainstorming and experience exchanges? That's almost exactly what they were designed to do.

Brainstorming: Pose a problem and everyone can (after thinking a bit) post a possible attack on the problem. Unlike in-person brainstorming sessions, not everyone has to be there at the same time and everyone can have time to think a bit before screaming answers.

Experience exchanges: As with brainstorming, there's time to think and answer, and no requirement for physical presence. As a bonus, the wisdom is generally cached by the mailing list for future users to benefit from, unlike a LUG which only remembers it if individual members accurately recall it.

The beverage thing is, sadly, insurmountable at this time.

Leaders and topics

[dysplay]

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.

College Intern

[Dareth]

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*

Re:local forms yes,

[MBGMorden]

Yes but some people like to, yannow, make *new* friends, and it's often enjoyable to make friends with people who enjoy the same things as you do. That's kinda the whole POINT behind clubs and organizations.

The reasons to keep it around are gone.

[sircastor]

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.