The Utah Open Source Movement

Being fairly new to the Beehive State, I was pleased to see so many people here are involved in open source. The newest face of this movement is the Utah Open Source Planet. The Planet is an aggregation of blogs from people who support open source. In fact, my blog is one of the many that are posted there.

The Planet is a great way to share ideas and meet other people with similar interests. Many posters have included a "hackergotchi" head-shot and GPS coordinates, which makes it easier to associate the online persona with a real person. I am starting to feel part of this thriving community, and I look forward to opportunities to meet these people in the real world.

While I am talking about it, I want to ask a question that may help me understand the local community better. At the last OALUG meeting, we were talking about the most popular distro of each Utah LUG. Here the best we came up with:

OALUG = Ubuntu
FSLC = Debian
PLUG = Gentoo
SLLUG = ???
UVLUG = ???

Did I miss any LUGS, and does this look accurate? Do SLLUG and UVLUG have favorites, or is it evenly divided?

This question is focused on getting to know more about the people, rather than a debate about the distros. I believe that all open source software should be commended. Competition and choice is what makes us stronger.

Comments

  1. Anonymous4/08/2006 4:16 AM

    At UVLUG I see a lot of Fedora Core and Suse users. Personally, I tend to use Fedora Core, CentOS and Ubuntu.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous4/08/2006 5:48 PM

    Welcome to Utah :)

    UUG (BYU's Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/) has a poll up regarding this. Looks like the winner is either Fedora or Ubuntu. For our installfest this past year, we decided to switch from Fedora to Ubuntu as our default distro, partly because it's an easier install, and partly because it meant we didn't have to burn as many cds. :)

    ~TuxGirl

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous4/10/2006 1:22 AM

    As for Plug, I would definitely say that Gentoo is *not* the most popular. They are an active segment, but in what the general population use, the Fedora and Debian users both outnumber them by quite a bit.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Using the Cisco console in Linux

Image
Introduction People who work with Cisco network equipment need to be able to connect to the console port on their devices. In Windows, you can simply fire up HyperTerminal to get basic access to your devices. If you are using Linux, then you need to know how this can be done with an application called Minicom . Hardware First, you are going to need a Cisco console cable , a Cisco device, and a computer. If your computer has a serial port , then you can use the standard console cable that comes with every Cisco device. If you do not have a serial port (like most new laptops), then you need to purchase a USB to Serial adapter that supports Linux. This device will allow you to use the standard Cisco cable, which has a serial port on one end. Install Minicom You can easily install Minicom by using "System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager". Search for "minicom" and choose to install the package. Click "Apply" and Minicom should be insta
Read more

What it takes to make Ubuntu ready for use

I recently installed Ubuntu 6.10 on a new PC at work. In this post I will document all the steps I had to perform to get it ready for everyday use. Each step is assigned a level of difficulty, which I define below: Very Easy Step can be completed without using the command prompt Intuitive to complete Easy Step can be completed without using the command prompt May require searching to find the right place to make the change Medium Requires a single command to be entered at the command prompt Requires searching internet resources to find the solution Hard Requires multiple commands to be entered at the command prompt Requires searching internet resources to find the solution Very Hard Requires multiple commands to be entered at the command prompt Requires searching internet resources to find the solution Requires the user to manually edit a configuration file These criteria are quite strict, because I believe that using an operating system should be intuitive, and not require any spec
Read more

Five ways to use Windows apps in Linux

Image
1. Use an open source alternative instead When someone asks me if they can run "Windows Application X" on Linux, the first thing I tell them is to look for an open source alternative. For most Windows applications, there will be a high-quality open source alternative that can meet their needs. The biggest hurdle for non-Linux people is simply knowing that these alternative exist and how to find them. The best place I have found to search for these applications is at www.osalt.com . On that site, you can enter the name of the Windows application and it will list the open source alternatives that provide similar functionality. Be sure to check it out. 2. Buy a commercial product that was designed for Linux If you cannot find an open source alternative, and you have not already purchased a Windows application, then you should consider purchasing a commercial product that was designed for Linux. Here is a story of a civil engineer who wanted to find an open source replacemen
Read more