[GLLUG] GLLUG still alive?

[Polarian]

Hello,

By the time I wrote this email, many relies flooded in, so I will
answer all of them in this email.

John:

> I think the main problem is that Linux has both become mainstream
> enough that help is available through many other channels, and also
> complex/fragmented enough that a general Linux mailing list may not
> be the best place to get help.

I believe this is still untrue.

You will very rarely find any Linux/FOSS enthusiasts if you pop to the
local boozer (I am yet to hear any techy convos :P), or even at
University, very few people know what Linux is at my University, and
only a few have started using it since they started. And this is within
computer science, where you would expect to find Linux users, in other
subjects where people who may be interested in Linux/FOSS but studying
say mathematics, or maybe literature, they will be even less likely to
bump into another Linux user.

It has become much more mainstream online sure, but locally? Not
really. If you wanted to talk about regional specific problems,
lets take Linux adoption in the UK, you would still likely struggle to
find answers to this in mainstream Linux mailing lists, as you will
have thousands of Germans, Americans, French etc all receiving the
email and not having a clue.

> That said there's still things which turn up here which don't appear
> anywhere else, and enough "old school" users to remember solutions to
> rare problems.

Very infrequently, by the looks of the mailing list archives.

> I don't know the status of the IRC channel as I never used it

Shame, hanging out on IRC is fun!

> there haven't in-person meetings for many years except for an
> occasional meet-up in a pub.

I thought that was what most lug meetups were, discussing Linux and
FOSS stuff over a nice pint.

Was there more interesting meetups? Mini hackathons? local events?

> I seemed to remember the mailing list
> having to move home once or twice because of non-contactable admins

I guess people move on in life. Also as Linux is much more well
known the outreach portion of lug's are not as useful anymore.

However surely lug's would be needed even more now that the community
is larger? 

There is a never ending stream of people who want support with their
Linux related issues, much more than distros can handle, not to mention
the fact its a way to meet friends and like minded people still,
regardless of how big Linux becomes that would always be a bonus for
many people.

> and I'm not sure looks after it at the moment (and thanks if you do).

The contact address on the website is Matt Copperwaite, although this
has not been updated since 2012/06 according to the website [1].

Their email is there, I could always email them and ask if they still
maintain GLLUG but I wouldn't want to do this if they are subscribed to
this mailing list too, it would be too noisy.

> I suppose the real question is what do you need or want from a users
> group which you haven't found anywhere else?

Unsure, I came across lug.org.uk as they are providing resources to a
FOSS event.

I thought it would be a good idea to investigate groups in my region
(London) especially how I am trying to branch out and begin to attend
events, finding ones close to home would be great!

Currently I am planning to attend EuroBSDCon (I know its not Linux, but
its still *nix) [2] in Ireland this year, and potentially FOSDEM next
year [3] simply for the experience.

However these are all international, and I have seen other lug's relay
event information within the surrounding regions, but there seems to be
no lug's left in/near London, and also no Linux/FOSS events around here
either.

IMO it doesn't matter if an event is big or small, as long as the
content is interesting, and there is booze, in fact due to my poor
communication and sensitivity to noise, a big event would actually be
more overwhelming than fun.

It is a shame, because from the looks of things, Germany and France
still have thriving LUG's in their local areas, and I see a lot of
Linux users from places like Germany, talking about their weekly meetup
with their local Linux group, so I became curious and decided to look
around.

> ps. I've been tempted a couple of times to post about the ongoing
> problems with Canonical not updating packages which have already been
> fixed in Debian

The solution is to save yourself the pain and agony and not use Ubuntu
or any canonical products :P

> but that would just be a rant and I don't particularly want to
> start a flame war in hot weather.

Yeah flame + hot weather doesn't sound like a good combination, could
develop heatstroke :)

Martin:

> Most LUGs are dying, if not already dead.  Why?  Very simple: we won.
> 
> Linux went from a hobbyist OS used by geeks and weirdos to global 
> ubiquity. The geeks and weirdos are still the same, though.

Global ubiquity within the server market maybe, within day to day use?
ehhh... not really.

As I said above, go to your local pub, and you are very unlikely to
find a single person there who has heard of Linux or uses it, yet alone
someone who is knowledgeable about it. Even in educational institutions
its referenced but far from a wide amount of content/knowledge on Linux.

And hell, say if you were right, everyone uses Linux, most people would
only be using it like Windows is used today, as a day to day operating
system to do their work, edit their photos etc, how many of them would
have indepth knowledge about the inter workings of the operating
system?

Where do people who want indepth conversations about the inner workings
of Linux go?

Chris:

> Yes you will still receive a few replies

\o/

> although I am a long since retired Linux user. Linux 
> was NEW when GLLUG was started

Sure, but what about the younger generations?

>  with many keen university students as members who 
> were able to contact package developers visiting London and persuade
> them to give talks on their pet subjects.

And yet, Linux is still not big within universities, at least
non-russell group universities.

My university exclusively uses Windows, apart from a few Macbooks which
computer science staff use (MacOS is better than Windows in their eyes)
but they are trying to get rid of them too.

I know some of the top unis, such as Oxford and Cambridge have entire
Linux labs, which sure is a lot better than it was back when Linux was
new and was not known at all.

Which basically means now, if you want Linux, work your arse off and
get into one of the top unis, otherwise suck up and enjoy windows. Or
that is what it seems like currently.

> We were able to use university lecture rooms and other facilities 
> such as University of Westminster computer labs, so it was an active
> group.

And now skip forward to when "Linux won" and, at least in the lower
ranked universities, you do not see any of this.

> A few members started their own  hacker spaces, see
> http://hackspace.org.uk[1].

Thanks for the link, looks interesting, I will check it out :)

Allan:

> I suspect most people have outgrown LUGs and found that online
> searches or their favourite AI (yes, I know) can answer their Linux
> questions and even serve as nerd companions. LUGs are less and less
> necessary as Linux gets better, or people give up and buy a
> Chromebook / Mac / Windows desktop for gaming.

Which is a shame, as there are young people who are interested in
lug's, people who want to experience what it was like in the
1990s/2000s.

> Mailing lists are for old people. Old people are finding "better"
> things to do with their time than edit
> /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf, like dying or spending time
> with the family or in the garden.

Yikes... that is very negative.

However mailing lists are not just for old people, you still bump into
younger people on mailing lists in their 20s, and there is still a few
University students which you see popping up on mailing lists, just
older people tend to be the more common age range :)

> The 'youth' tend to hang out on discourse, discord, and other hip
> places with variable-width fonts, 144Hz refresh rates and animated
> JIFs.

Unfortunately, as someone who comes from this generation, I would have
to agree with you here, even if it is painful to do so.

Discord has taken over the culture entirely, the first thing people at
my University did when we started was form a Discord group for playing
Valorant, with no concerns for Linux or any nerdy stuff. Computer
science is just a stepping stone to a thick wad of cash.

For the few which do love technology, who do love the old ways of doing
things such as mailing lists, IRC, hell even XMPP is considered old now
and I use it on a daily basis to keep in contact with people, it
becomes very difficult to find anyone out there who shares your views
or interests.

From people I know who are a similar age as me who are interested in the
old way of doing things, depression can become common, you are isolated
because you simply do not fit in to the norm. You can't speak to people
because everyone uses Discord, and you do not want to stoop to adopting
Discord yourself.

So they look for lug's, or other tech nerd groups, (not me specifically,
for me its more out of interesting, I am rather antisocial so
everything is based out of nerding/geeking out rather than social
contact), and all you see is the majority of them died out, then what?
Where do they go?

Linux didn't win, in fact I would say it lost. It was adopted server
side, and then wrapped up in abstractions to appeal to the average
young person. Take one look at hyprland and the eye candy (I will also
point out the developer is in their early 20s), or hell just spend 30
seconds on r/unixporn and you will see where the once nerdy community,
has turned into a community only interested in flashy window managers
and anime girl wallpaper. Mind you, I have nothing wrong with anime or
anime wallpapers, but it isn't what Linux is about... there should be
more to it.

The nerdy side died, Linux didn't win, windows simply failed. Countless
years of Microsoft locking down windows has made customisation
difficult, and then you have Linux which is all about you being free to
use however you like, and what do the younger generation do? Make the
most flashy eye candy desktop possible. Do you think any of them care
about FOSS or the *nix way of doing things? No.

The majority of Linux users I come across simple use gmail/outlook for
email, Discord for staying in contact with friends and family (which
has some of the most major privacy invasive features, such as rich
presence which literally tracks and reports the processes running on
your operating system) and 101 social media platforms. What happened
to the fun (I mean agony) of self hosting your own email?

You only tend to find self hosting in privacy paranoid circles these
days. The type of people who believe that leaking one packet to the
government would be the end of their life. And even then self hosting
is dying, the solution is slap Post Quantum Resistant End to End
Encryption (fancy words!) and then Open Source (another fancy word) and
out pops signal (centralised) and everyone hails it.

> IRC is dead(*). People tend to use Telegram, Signal, Discord, Matrix
> (ugh), and friends. I still chat to people I met through LUGs most
> days. Just not here.
> 
> * I am in around 30 channels, they're almost all dead.

Which is sad, truly sad, but that doesn't mean its the end?

IRC will never die, no matter what, there will always remain a
community, Libera is still (somewhat) thriving, there is a few hosting
companies which are using IRC for support, hell there is even an ISP
who does. IRC has died in the mainstream, but peal back the social
norms and you find a dedicated community keeping it alive.

> If you're looking for companionship or friendly banter, I'd recommend
> organising something, announcing where you will be and when. People
> nearby or willing will turn up, usually, in small numbers.

I could think of nothing more scary that meeting up with a bunch of
strangers, especially as someone from a younger generation. I am simply
testing the waters to see what is around, the last thing I would want
is to stick myself in the centre of it :P

Not to mention the fact I will have a disproportionate amount of
knowledge compared to the type of people who hang around lug's, it
would be like trying to explain rocket science to a baby.

Apologies for the email being so long, I didn't want to send multiple
emails so I condensed it all as best I could.

Take care,
-- 
Polarian
GPG signature: 0770E5312238C760
Jabber/XMPP: polarian at icebound.dev

[1] https://lug.org.uk/lugs/London/Greater%20London%20(GLLUG)/
[2] https://eurobsdcon.org/
[3] https://fosdem.org/