[TriLUG] Do Linux User groups still serve a useful purpose? was: Palmer for another SC term; proposed amendment to the bylaws

[Steve Litt]

On Fri, 26 Apr 2013 17:27:08 -0400
Chris Knowles <cknowles2112 at gmail.com> wrote:
 
> Of course, this leads me in my current direction - Do Linux User
> groups still serve a useful purpose?

The *definitely* do for me. From 1984-1998 I was a pretty darn good
programmer, but I'm no admin, and I'm no network guru, and yet I run my
entire business on Linux (plus a little BSD). The *only* way I could do
that is to be a member of a darn smart LUG.

Here's a list of just some of the things I use every day, which I
learned by watching a presentation at GoLUG:

* djbdns
* Backup via rsync complete with incrementals
* OpenBSD/pf firewalling
* SSH keys

I got my intro to Lua programming and Socket programming at GoLUG
meeting presentations. I've gotten detailed assistance on many
Linux problems in the GoLUG IRC channel at GoLUG.

My second level support is LUG participation (first level is RTFM via
search engine). GoLUG, TriLUG, and occasionally SvLUG can always be
counted on for great ideas to get me off dead center when I'm stumped.

But what about people a whole lot more Linux-skilled than I? What do
they get from a LUG? All I can say is that the GoLUG IRC channel is
rocking 24/7, and most of the people there know 10 times more than I.

> In the old world, where getting X to run was
> a triumph, and rpm dependency hell and compiling from source were
> *every* day occurrences, it was *very* useful, but in the modern
> world where my eight year old has installed and used linux with no
> problems, and the googs have so much information, are they useful?
> (When was the last time we did a *real* installfest?  You know, where
> people installed new systems?)

The answer to that is that people are doing much more with Linux than
back in the day when you bragged about getting X to work on a random
laptop or getting PPP to reliably dial. I kid you not, in 1999 I gave a
presentation on making a Linux DHCP server, and several people charged
the stage and took over (with me taking over the role of announcer,
telling the audience what they were doing). One of them later admitted
that he didn't know Linux could do that, and was very excited. He was a
major author of Wifi drivers.

Today people routinely run businesses on Linux, and often use Linux
capabilities in scripts to do things unique to their businesses. If you
think getting X to work in the old days was hard, just buy a random
laptop today, find out it has a free-software hostile Wifi nic, and try
to get it working. Ever have to use ndiswrapper or install the Broadcom
43xx firmware? What a treat THAT is!

What are other people doing to fulfill the roll of Visio on their Linux
boxes? Of Quickbooks? Of MSWord (and think twice before saying
Open/LibreOffice). What about how to get TuxGuitar to sound like a
guitar instead of a 1982 video game?

1999 is long gone. Linux is no longer a political movement. But it's
also not the Geek hobby it was for a lot of people. Now it's a
foundational part of a lot of peoples' business.

LUGs are more relevant than ever, in my opinion.

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt                *  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance