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Getting involved with Ubuntu

sharms.org — Ubuntu is very easy to get started with. The first step would be to jump on IRC, and join some of the #ubuntu- channels depending what you are looking for. Ubuntu needs you! We are one of the fastest growing distributions, and have a ton of users, and need the development community to grow along with us.

Who dugg this? Made popular Apr 8, 2007

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  • elvenseven, on 10/12/2007, -10/+323. Google Ads
    4. Profit!!!
  • Mootabolife, on 10/12/2007, -13/+34Not everyone can help with everything they use. I don't go engineer for GE just because I like their washing machines at school.
  • utcursch, on 10/12/2007, -3/+24Skip to the Ubuntu website:
    http://www.ubuntu.com/community/participate
  • xruntime, on 10/12/2007, -4/+20Yea well you don't pay for the Linux distro, you pay for the washing machine...
  • WhiteSox, on 10/12/2007, -18/+29Is there anyone else here thats been using Ubuntu and just simply has no will to help?
    well i digged anyways, just hoping this counts as 'getting involved'

    ......on second thought
    shame on me.
    *diggs himself down*
  • silenceHR, on 10/12/2007, -5/+15i am pretty new to Linux, but i have 7.04 and i love it .... still using XP for most of the time, but spending more and more time playing with Ubuntu .. i just love it ...
  • Phocion55, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10What if you use Linux as part of your job?

    Keep that nick - quite fitting.
  • McTendo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10You are correct, you are fairly stupid.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9I absolutely love Kubuntu. I cant say I have much experience with Ubuntu, but the user interface really strikes me as clear cut and clean. I like that a lot. I would definitely use Kubuntu, but my parts seem to be some of the hardest parts to get to interface properly with linux. My sound card sounds horrible, my wireless networking rarely works properly, and things just dont seem to work properly. I would love to use linux, but after experimentation, I just don't think its right for my computer or my current computer skill level.
  • troymcdavis, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9edit: xruntime beat me to it...

    @mootabolife

    There's a difference. GE got paid for those washing machines. Linux developers don't demand payment before handing over software.
  • treehead, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Mod me down for commenting on Digg business, but please, PLEASE... if you are going to submit a blog entry, make sure it has something to *add* to the topic. If not, follow the links down the winding path to the original article:

    http://digg.com/linux_unix/Get_Involved_Participate_in_the_Ubuntu_Community



    No digg.
  • EmxBA, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9Hanging in #ubuntu can result in learning something, and you can also help solving someone else's problems. By that, community gets bigger, and you're making Ubuntu better. More people involved means less bugs and greater number of satisfied users.
  • Hervard, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5It's a refresh rate problem, and I'm not the only one suffering from it :(

    Detailed description of the problem: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=2375240

    Any solutions would be appreciated!
  • Hervard, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8I'd use Ubuntu if it worked with my 24" LCD monitor :/
  • Peepsalot, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7It is user-friendly and easy enough for someone that has never touched Linux to make the switch. It has an attractive graphical install, and a very active community of support(documentation, forums, and irc to name a few). The regular release cycle is every six months, which is nice for those that like to have the latest apps available from the repositories. I personally haven't tried Debian or Arch , but last time I installed Gentoo(was a few years ago, so maybe things are better now), it took me about two weeks of fiddling with it to get all the graphics drivers, sound drivers, usb devices, etc working, and there were still a couple things(hardware issues) I never figured out how to configure. One of Ubuntu's mottos is "Linux for human beings"... your average human being is not interested in waiting a couple days to compile their desktop environment. I have recommended Ubuntu to a couple friends that were tired of windows. Both of them had never touched linux before and are not particularly computer savvy. They were able to install Ubuntu themselves, with some minimal help from me(getting non-free codecs up and runnning).
  • AnteChronos, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5@1jaxstate1
    "I installed Ubuntu about a month ago, and have used it once. I don't see what the big frickin deal is, nor do I see why it's on digg's front page 20 times a day."

    Well, why did you install it in the first place? It's clearly not something that you needed or wanted, based on your comment. So why install an OS that is of no use to you and then complain about how it's of no use to you?
  • theOster, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6...famous linux developers...

  • EminNew, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6You do realize that all you did with this useless post, is shared the fact that you can't get laid with millions worldwide?
  • jasonmacari, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4While I prefer Tiger for my main OS, Ubuntu offers great value to my company in the form of Xubuntu. We've brought several old PCs back to life that had no chance of running XP or Vista.

    We're able to run Zend Development Environment, MySQL Query Browser, Firefox, and a host of other development tools at once without performance issues on a P3 w/ 256MB RAM.
  • McTendo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4@ EminNew

    I don't think his grade school taught him about sex-ed yet.
  • michaelb1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3can you put ubuntu on a bootcamp partition?
  • ajifans, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Fedora has some nice features but it's package management system is a joke.
  • gr3yn3t, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4@venuspcs

    lay off the shrooms man..
  • DoubtfulSalmon, on 10/12/2007, -12/+15Oh Please god NOOOOO!

    If you say no to just one thing in your life, say no to the cult of ubuntianity!

    Ubuntianity is teh evil! I spent a month straight helping people on #ubuntu-* IRC channels, I handed out CDs to my students, I devoted an entire lecture to Ubuntu in my classes every semester... the whole bit...

    You know what I got for my trouble? Slapped down. Slapped down big time. I ended up in a bizarre situation where two teenaged girls, two teen-aged female ubuntians from Sydney, Australia set up some bizarre situation where they teamed up with a Danish ubuntian guy in a three-way tag-team baiting session, slinging all kinds of abuse at me, trying to get me to give them an excuse to kickban me from their IRC channels. In the end they got tired of me being perfectly polite and continuing to help out ubuntu users between tags, and just banned me for the sport of it. That on its own should come as no particular surprise... IRC is like that all the time, and if Theo de Raadt has taught us one thing, it's that open source can be a lot like that from time to time, but THESE ARE PEOPLE WHO SIGNED PEICES OF PAPER PROMISING TO BE GOOD KIND UBUNTIANS.

    Ubuntianity is a cult, a cult filled with hypocrites. There is not so much as a HINT of *actual* ubuntu in this group. They hijacked an African term, 'ubuntu', and devalued it beyond belief.

    Just say no to ubuntu. Fork it, do whatever you have to do with it, there's some good code there for sure. Just stay the heck away from the public face of ubuntu, and for gods sake don't waste your time trying to help.
  • DracoFlameus, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7Hehe ubuntu is nice... didn't convince me though... but I digg it, hoping that some day it will convince me :)
  • 1jaxstate1, on 10/12/2007, -7/+9I installed Ubuntu about a month ago, and have used it once. I don't see what the big frickin deal is, nor do I see why it's on digg's front page 20 times a day.
  • digitalghost1, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Ubuntu is a good Linux distro, OK I will accept that. But stop the over-hyping of it and daily barrage of useless Ubuntu articles. People have better things to do.

    I used Ubuntu for everyday home use, it's a good alternative for me if I can't run Vista but still want the eye candy on my old Athlon 2200 with 512MB RAM and 64MB Video card. I can't afford another PC let alone the price for Vista Ultimate. I just need something that works.
  • Koski, on 10/12/2007, -6/+8Why is digg so dead today? Is it just because it's friggin' easter holiday?
  • Neiby, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Maybe on The Sopranos tonight we'll learn that Tony secretly uses Ubuntu. Then he'll promptly get whacked by a guy from Brooklyn who uses PCLinuxOS.
  • noclue, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5I don't understand what all the hype about Ubuntu is. Is it usability? Support? Features? Documentation? I have used a lot of Linux distributions in my day, and don't understand how one can differ so much to create such a stir in the community. How is Ubuntu so much better than say Arch, Debian, or Gentoo?
  • truck87bp, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5I've been using Edgy 6 on my main machine and 7 on my test machine. I'm only a user but I haven't used my XP for a week and a half. I am so impressed with Feisty 7 on my test machine that waiting for the final release is driving me crazy and its like only less than 2 weeks away. XP is still good for Google Sketch-Up, Games and Incredimail.

    My old machine is an AMD 1000 on a old Jetway board. Feisty 7 beta cleared up all of my minor problems on this old piece of crap. Feisty rocks. The old AMD is cooking !

    I don't know who this group of people are thats putting Ubuntu together but they are doing one hell-of-a job. I wish I could contribute to this group but not in their league. Microsoft must be testing Ubuntu to and I'd bet they are shaking in their boots.

    Thank You Ubuntu Team, I love your software.
  • DoubtfulSalmon, on 11/03/2007, -2/+4@noclue: "Is it usability? Support? Features? Documentation?"

    Think religion. It works like any good cult - gets people signing on the dotted line, and once they feel that they belong, they align closely and become very evangelical.
  • DoubtfulSalmon, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3@streetstealth "After your experience with the distasteful conduct of these girls, were there some more level-headed forums within the community you could retreat to?"

    Thanks for your reply. I must admit I'm suprised... I just expected more ubuntian hatred and modding down to minus one million!

    The distasteful conduct in this instance started with the three people I mentioned in that one instance, but the instance I relate is just one of a number of distasteful experiences. My experience is that the Ubuntian IRC operators group is VERY tight-knit globally, and you cannot expect to take concerns (even when they're just minor ones) to an ubuntu irc op and expect a fair hearing. In pretty much exactly the same way as we've seen with Theo's outburst over the (truly minor in my view) bcw relicensing issue this week, my direct and repeated experience of ubuntian irc ops is that they're so tight-knit that they'll do a Theo, launch into an abusive defence of "their own" without any consideration of the actual issues at hand. This means that in practice the inmates really *are* running the asylum.

    There are two key differences between Theo's rants and the ubuntian ops: first, Theo is an experienced community leader of long standing, and despite some less than savoury personal attributes, it *could* be argued that he has earned the right to behave the way he does. Ubuntians on the other hand are new members of a very new project, and they really haven't earned the right to behave like anything. Second, Theo can rant, and people can listen or ignore... in ubunto irc, the operators do have the very real power to exclude people from participation, and they exert that power on a very regular basis, despite that their maturity and experience is often well at odds with the power they wield.

    The ubuntians pride themselves on their open and democratic operations, with all sorts of 'councils' at different levels and stuff. An aggrieved ubuntian or even an aggrieved member of the public *could* take their issue to any number of council meetings looking for resolution, but really, why would you? Theirs is an isolated corner of society and they can do what they like. I'll just grow up and get on with my life thanks.

    Other forums... well forums in the literal sense aren't my thing. I'm an old-schooler, so IRC and Usenet are really where its at for me. I don't go in for web based things in any committed way, and so if there are other suitable forums, then no, I've not attempted to participate because they're not comfortable or effective means of participation for me.

    I say *if* there are other suitable forums because I think that there likely are not. The Australian Ubuntu crowd is so tiny and so close-knit, and the vengeance of the operators so effective that once you've been labelled in one context, you're persona-non-grata in all of them. When you think about it, geeks tend to be so sex-starved at the best of times that a couple of teen-aged girls enjoy a substantial following, and they wield quite a strong control over the small community that is ubuntu-au - control that they have neither the maturity or the experience to effect properly.

    Is the problem systemic? Yes, I think it is. In two contexts. The problem is systemic in the Australian Ubuntu crowd as a whole, and it is systemic amongst the Ubuntu IRC operators community world-wide. That's not all of Ubuntu, granted, but it effectively blocks all participation for a large class of would-be ubuntians nonetheless.

    So no, I don't believe that there are more level-headed alternatives for me. I wish to contribute by providing technical support to n00bs at the front line, I'm not interested in political participation, I'm not an 3133+ programmer, I'm an experienced unix admin, technical evangelist and university lecturer who - believe it or not - actually *likes* helping teh n00bs! Ubuntu has made it clear to me that I'm not the sort of help that they want.

    So what began with the childish actions of a couple of teen-aged girls escalated very quickly into a situation where a strong and active supporter of Ubunto flipped over to the other side. I still use Ubuntu in my teaching, but now I use it as an example of the sort of bitter infighting and self-serving behaviour that occurs in the open source community that drives customers away, I use Ubuntu as an example of what not to do! I've taken down all the ubuntu posters I put up around the campus, I've stopped ordering ubuntu cds from shipit and handing them out in my classes and in the halls, and I've taken to actively warning people off of ubuntu.

    Sad, isn't it.

    There's nothing in the way Ubuntu operates internally that isn't a perfectly normal exemplar of human interaction. Group formation, norms, politics, all the stuff you learn in Organisational Behaviour 101 is right there. The difference with Ubuntu, what irks me, is that these people signed a piece of paper (literally in many cases) that said they promise to be good and kind and nice to everyone. They're card carrying hypocrites, and their actions seriously damage the brand and the product.
  • 1jaxstate1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I couldn't get that to work. But I did get it to work in VPC2007 in my XP bootcamp partition.
  • purserj, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Hi,

    I'm one of the regulars in the ubuntu-au channel and I have to say, that the only immature behaviour I've seen in there has come from one particular little troll who seems to be intent on spreading as much trouble as possible.

    DoubtfulSamon, I can take a quess at who you are on irc and if I am correct then I have you on ignore. This is for a reason. Firstly you insist on spreading your own "special" brand of religion in a non-religious channel, secondly you tend to dispense psychiatric advice proclaiming yourself to be a qualified psychiatrist while at the same time refusing to validate those claims.

    Seriously if you're going to troll please expect to be treated like a troll.
  • McTendo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Why do so many people like Gaim? I used it and couldn't accept file transfers. (the sender would keep telling me I cancelled it) I use Kopete now and it's pretty good, even though nothing happens when I tell it to open my inbox (used to open it in firefox until I installed Opera, then didn't go back to Firefox after uninstalling Opera and making Firefox default browser again)

    Ubuntu is awesome, even my fiancee and her family want me to install it on their comps (Xubuntu on their older ones as well), just don't get the whole Gaim > Kopete thing.
  • thebigmatay, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Absolutely. I'm dual booting OS X and Ubuntu Edgy from my 1st gen Macbook. It took a bit of work to get everything to work correctly (i.e., I had to compile a kernel to get the touchpad working right, etc.), but a simple install should get most things working right. The resources I used were:

    https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBook (Get Ubuntu running)
    http://simon.vanderlinden.eu.org/howtos/building-a-new-kernel-for-ubuntu/ (Compile a kernel in Ubuntu)
    http://simon.vanderlinden.eu.org/howtos/macbook-emulate-a-synaptics-touchpad-with-ubuntu-gnulinux/ (Configure the touchpad)

    It's definitely worth the try. Good luck.
  • streetstealth, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I wonder... I know people who've had similar experiences with nasty Wikipedia admins, but I don't think that the existence of some rude and abusive folks in a project necessarily means the whole project's doomed. It is a problem when it becomes systematic (I don't have the experience yet to say if that's the case with Wikipedia, though I would like to think it isn't), and I hope it isn't the case with Ubuntu...

    After your experience with the distasteful conduct of these girls, were there some more level-headed forums within the community you could retreat to?
  • Flendon, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3@fkr3
    The article is talking about how to get started with helping the Ubuntu community. If you just want to run Ubuntu you just click the menu button located in the same place as the Start button. So yeah, it can say that it is ready now.
  • UKsHaDoW, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4A lot of Linux developers use ubuntu. Including me. A lot of famous ones.

    I can probably assure you they know more about Linux then you.

  • Justinpirate, on 10/12/2007, -10/+9Thanks for being so positive!
  • retrodavid, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0@elvenseven:
    5) Cynical Comment!
    6) Comment Dugg Up!
    7) Pathetic Ego Boost!

    But seriously guys, the vicious back-and-forth on digg about things like
    all blog posts being adwords spam is getting a little out of hand.

    Just about every single story based off a blog with ads is immediately
    proclaimed a money-grab. That's ***** ridiculous.
    Some people just have things to say.
  • lpcustom, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3Works on my 22' just fine. Vista, however, does not. You can make any Linux work with any monitor anyway with just a bit of manual configuration. So your ability to get it to work is actually the problem you are having.
  • Neiby, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3I think you misspelled "PCLinuxOS > Ubuntu".
  • Frankie4Fingers, on 10/12/2007, -6/+5Yeah, stop digging things that really aren't any sort of news. If you have Ubuntu and you want to get support, type www.google.com and then search for it. There are plenty of places to find help for almost anything. Please don't spam digg with stupid ubuntu stories or asking a whole community of people to go and add supporting content to your personal blog.
  • GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3Bollocks, at least Ubuntu is capable of running proper shell commands. Some of the 1337 people who attack Ubuntu for the sake of it are just being stupid. There are plenty of things that Ubuntu hasn't yet done that could be attacked yet none of the trolls seem to pick up on (SELinux being the obvious one) them so I just assume they really don't know anything about computers or Linux.
  • 99butcher99, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0what we need is an IDIGGLINUXINALLITSFORMS digg site so all these silly linux headlines that all linux users just seem to digg can have their own site.
    Just because it is some form of linux does not make it digg worthy.
  • antechinus, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2Why would one get involved with an over hyped cult distro used primarily by Linux noobs and wankers?
    A software project sufficiently interesting to become involved with would hardly be specific to a particular distro. I guess too, that because of the large number of wankers, the helper politics must be as byzantine as the WikiPedia's.


  • venuspcs, on 10/12/2007, -8/+4Ubuntu ROCKS....I am still using 6.10 and occasionally boot to XP (only cause I can't get my Motorola Cell phone to work as a modem in Linux.....grrrrr......damn motorola) but it is ROCK SOLID. Compiz/Beryl finally work nearly flawlessly, GAIM/Firefox, Picassa2, Ooo2, FreeCiv and FrozenBubble KICK ASS.
  • jbess, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1 fedora > ubuntu
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