Importance of Community

[ihavenoname]

I just wanted to see what people here thought of the importance of a distro's community. answer the poll then, if you want post you answer and why you chose it.

Edit: to clarify the meaning of community I would like to add the following.

In this post I was referring to the helpfullness of a community as well as the level of activity (projects etc.)For example, if someone is trying to choose between Fedora and Ubuntu and the Ubuntu community has more things going on, the people are more helpful, but Fedora is a little bit better then Ubuntu (wheather that be better GUIs or better package managment(this is all hypothetical).) Assuming that Ubuntu isn't crippled then what would you advise them to choose? That is what I was getting at here.

[T700]

Can't speak for others, but it is certainly important to me. Having a place to come to for friendly help was a big factor in me running Ubuntu.

Paul

[djsroknrol]

I second T700....It made my transition to Ubuntu from MS much easier. The people on here are very knowledgeable and helpful...I hope to be around long enough to be as helpful...

[Skia_42]

The main reason that I love Ubunutu so much is that there is such a great, open community. I have never seen any flaming in these forums.

[Jucato]

I personally believe that in the free/open source software world, a community, which is made up of both users and developers, is actually essential in keeping a project alive. This is all the more important in biggest open source software, a Linux distro. No matter how good an OS is, if the community (of users and developers and owner/s) around it are a PITA, people will be hesitant to use it (unless the OS is being shoved down their throats). Case in point: Windows.

[RavenOfOdin]

It depends on the community and what you define a community as.

If you define a community as a good technical support base which helps you get things done in a neat and tidy manner, then I'll say it is important. If however you define a community as a group that shares the same views, the answer is that it is not. This applies double for an Internet community. For all I know, a ten year old brat from - as the joke goes, a particular small town in Idaho - could be sitting behind his keyboard pretending to be Neve Campbell.

For the purposes of the poll, I stuck my vote under the "Its stupid to choose an OS based on. . ." bit.

As long as the OS works, good technical support comes with it, and it isn't made by the computing world's answer to Enron, it gets my vote.

[ComplexNumber]

i think its kinda important. it is important, but its not the most important. i care more about what the actual distro offers. if (for example) arch linux has the most fantastic community, it wouldn't sway me to think that its the best overall if the actual distro is just not for me.

[RAV TUX]

I feel it is one the most important aspects of any Linux Distro, and a primary factor I use when evaluating new Distros.

Ubuntuforums has by far the best community of any of the Distros and this is one of Ubuntu's strongest assets.

[Kilz]

Community is the #1 reason for choosing a distro.
I am a 64bit system owner, who refuses to use anything but a 64bit OS. There are other distros better 64bit support. Other distro's that are more polished. Other distro's that that are older. But none have the community Ubuntu has.
I have never been told to RTFM [-( , Google it [-X , or ignored :-# here. True there are times when I get frustrated that something isn't working :confused: , or hard to make work ](*,) . But I wouldn't trade the community for anything.
The helping others attitude is contagious. I know that it has inspired me to help where I can. I'm not the most outgoing person, I don't make friends easily. But I help answer questions where I can. I may not know everything. But answering what I can I learn more.
Stop using ubuntu? Id rather cut off my right arm with a rusty dull hacksaw. :-D

[Jucato]

I'd just like to clarify my position.

Although I believe that a good community is important in choosing a distro, I also believe that it is not the only nor is it the primary factor. Actually, I think that the quality of the community and the quality of the distro should go hand in hand, on the same level. A good distro with a bad community will slowly find itself with a shrinking userbase. A good community with a bad distro won't last long either. However, I think that a poor quality distro that has a good and active community might have a big chance of improving, because of the community.

I also define "community" as a group of people working towards a common goal, even if at times they do not see eye to eye. So in Linux distros, I consider users, developers, maintainers, tech support, owners, etc. all part of the distro's community. Of course, within that community, there are other "sub"-communities, like the group of general users, the group of developers, etc.

[Dr. Nick]

I think that a great community can make a great distro, and the community flocks to what distro has devs that are open to new ideas.

I think that alot of the tutorials/howtos and 3rd party projects have made Ubuntu what it is. I dont just turn my pc on and use it day to day, I turn it on and think of what I want to try and use the community to guide me using howtos posted by others.

You dont see a OS that is many times better than ubuntu that has a horrible community.

[Derek Djons]

Without a community a distro is going nowhere. A community provides a lot of complementary work and help the developers can't, don't have time for or whatever.

Also a community size can be relative. For instance Ubuntu Linux is an easy distro which can be used by many and for many reasons. So there are a lot of individuals with possibly very different problems. But Slackware on the other hand is for the more experienced Linux users. The type of people there are very different. So the community is a lot smaller by itself but is able to provide guidance and help to eachother.

[Bezmotivnik]

I just wanted to see what people here thought of the importance of a distro's community.
"Community" is too vague a word for me.

"Accessible knowledge base and user support system" is critical, if that's what you mean. If not, then I don't think it's important at all. "Community" just means a bunch of people in the same place, literally or figuratively. It's what they do that matters. :-|

[ubuntu_demon]

IMHO Ubuntu's community is very important. For example for new users and for improving Ubuntu by testing it and providing ideas.

A recent relevant blog entry of mine :
Helping Ubuntu
http://ubuntudemon.wordpress.com/2006/07/19/helping-ubuntu

[ihavenoname]

IMHO Ubuntu's community is very important. For example for new users and for improving Ubuntu by testing it and providing ideas.

A recent relevant blog entry of mine :
Helping Ubuntu
http://ubuntudemon.wordpress.com/2006/07/19/helping-ubuntu
In referance to ubuntu_demon's blog linked above.

Thanx for this ubuntu_demon, your absoulutly correct. Part of the reason open source projects generally have better quality then many non-free ones, is that corporations have a set number of people working on it (100 or more based on the project and the company) with Linux everyone is working on it together. And it's not to get paid, it is because we want to. So we are motivated to make the product as good as it can be. There has been research about this <http://www.ccfbest.org/management/motivationfrominside.htm>. In general I have found participation in the Linux communty to be a joy! Keep up the good work everyone.

[ubuntu_demon]

In referance to ubuntu_demon's blog linked above.

Thanx for this ubuntu_demon, your absoulutly correct. Part of the reason open source projects generally have better quality then many non-free ones, is that corporations have a set number of people working on it (100 or more based on the project and the company) with Linux everyone is working on it together. And it's not to get paid, it is because we want to. So we are motivated to make the product as good as it can be. There has been research about this <http://www.ccfbest.org/management/motivationfrominside.htm>. In general I have found participation in the Linux communty to be a joy! Keep up the good work everyone.
Thank you for the link. You made a tiny mistake in it though. Here's the correct one :

http://www.ccfbest.org/management/motivationfrominside.htm

[GStubbs43]

A good community with a bad distro won't last long either. However, I think that a poor quality distro that has a good and active community might have a big chance of improving, because of the community.


What is the difference between these two things? To me they seem like the same thing... http://ubuntuforums.org/images/smilies/confused.gif

[Jucato]

What I meant was that a bad distro, even if it has a good community, won't probably last long, because the community might look for something else that would support their needs.

Howeve, that same distro has a very big chance of improving itself, if that good community would stick to it and work together to improve it.

Good distro + good community = the best scenario
Good distro + bad community = will discourage users from staying or scare away new users
Bad distro + good community = probably won't last long, but still has a great chance of improving
Bad distro + bad community = you're out of luck

Again, I define community as including both users, developers, owners, etc.

[AndyCooll]

I'd just like to clarify my position. ...Actually, I think that the quality of the community and the quality of the distro should go hand in hand, on the same level.

I'll go along with that. I love Ubuntu because it is an excellent distro that enables me to do what I need a computer to do AND it has an excellent community that gives me the support and encouragemetn when I need it.

:cool:

[ComplexNumber]

Good distro + good community = the best scenario
Good distro + bad community = will discourage users from staying or scare away new users
Bad distro + good community = probably won't last long, but still has a great chance of improving
Bad distro + bad community = you're out of lucki think i would agree, mostly. if a person is reasonably linux savvy, it will be the distro that becomes more important. a great many people don't even bother to visit the forum that belongs to a distro. many don't need to. so i doubt that it would discourage users from staying at all.

[Jucato]

i would switch 2 and 3 around. if a person is reasonably linux savvy, it will be the distro that becomes more important. a great many people don't even bother to visit the forum that belongs to a distro.

Probably, but like I said in my previous posts (both the one immediately above and in a previous page), I consider a distro's community to be made up of users, developers, owners, support, etc. While a linux savvy user might not be visiting forums that often, he would probably be subscribe to some other form of communication, like a mailing list. But even if he doesn't, in one way or another, he will be looking for support, either free or commercial. And I consider customer service a part of the community, too. So when I say "bad community" it can be a combination of any or all of, but not limited to, the following factors:

- generally bad attitude of users (fanboys, RTFM guys, l33t, etc).
- developers who don't listen
- poor customer support, both free and commercial
- poor management/admins
- and probably some other factors.

[ComplexNumber]

- developers who don't listen i would consider the developers to be part of the distro. although i can see your point of the "community", there has to be a dividing line drawn somewhere between community and distro. without the developers, there is no distro.

[Jucato]

Yes, there's a line dividing the "general community" and the "developer community", but in my mind, they're both part of the larger "distro community". This large "distro community" itself is divided into different sub-communities. I think I also mentioned that somewhere in my previous posts. The big distro community's common goal is to work toward the over-all improvement of the distro. Each "sub-community" contributes to this goal in their own specialized way. Developers, of course, maintain and improve the distro itself. Customer support provides support (I'm being redundant...). Contributors gives different things like artwork, documentation, etc. The general community provides a userbase that may or may not provide an alternative source of support, contributions, ideas, etc., or just a place to "hang around".

Of course, this is just how I understand a distro's community. It's my own personal view. And I'm sure as hell that I'm not even 50% correct. :D

[ComplexNumber]

IMO the way to separate them is to ask yourself: "Can there be a distro without <fill in criteria>". for example:
-is there a distro without developers? answer: no.
-is there a distro without a forum? answer: yes (eg at some point, every distro had no forum)
-is there a distro without company management(eg the management guys who work at red hat)? answer: no.
-etc.

just go though the list, and by a process of elimination, arrive at those 'components' which are part of the distro and which are part of the community.

[Jucato]

But a forum is only one of the many ways that the general userbase can communicate. There are other forms like mailing lists, blogs, wikis, CMS, etc. Bug reporting is also another form of communication coming from the userbase.

So, modifying your list, I could probably also ask:
- is there a distro without a userbase: probably, but most likely, no.

But, "is there a distro without company management? answer: no"?
How about other distros that don't have company management, but do have some other form of management? Like Debian, DSL, KNOPPIX, and some other distros? I think a better question would be

- is there a distro without management (company or group)? answer: no

[ComplexNumber]

- is there a distro without a userbase: probably, but most likely, no. are you equating a forum/IRC/etc with userbase? well, i'm not. like i said earlier, there can even be a large userbase, but without the need for a forum/IRC/etc. much/most of the information about any particular distro is not distro specific, but is linux specific. most of the information is transferable from one distro to another. its not like each of the distros are totally unique in every single way. quite the reverse - they all share about 99% common information. for example, when i was trying to get my wireless card to work on fedora, i looked on this forum, gentoo forum, and many other sources for hunts and tips. it didn't take me that long, and none of the information that was required was fedora specific. thats something to bear in mind :)

[Stormy Eyes]

I don't consider the community at all when picking a distro.

[slimdog360]

google can only get you so far, if it were not for the forums I would have given up.

[Stormy Eyes]

google can only get you so far, if it were not for the forums I would have given up.

Back in 1999, I didn't have google or forums. I didn't even have a modem. I used to buy SuSE Linux for the manuals.

[Jucato]

are you equating a forum/IRC/etc with userbase?

No I'm not. In fact, what I've been saying is that "userbase community" != forum/IRC/mailing list/etc. These are just some of the ways that the users communicate. These forms of communication may or may not exist for a particular distro. However, these same forms of communication are the only means of evaluating whether a certain (userbase) community is "good" or "bad". I mean, how will people be able to know and say that "the Ubuntu community is friendly and one of the best Linux communities" if there was no way for them to experience that. They're only able to evaluate those statements because of the visible expression of the community through the forums/mailing list/IRC/etc.

However, I doubt that even more than 80% of Ubuntu users are registered in the forums.

Anyway, let's just leave it at that. It my personal interpretation so it will always be open to errors. I'm not alway correct, not even more than 50% of the time. :D

[ComplexNumber]

Fenyx
well, the bottom line is still that when a user needs support and/or information, most of it isn't distro specific, so the community that surrounds a distro is not as important as some people may believe. its the total amount of information/support about all the distros that matters IMO. reason being is that much of what people need to know is not distro speciifc (as i pointed out in my example abou the wireless card)
yes, lets leave it at that ;).

[ihavenoname]

Thank you for the link. You made a tiny mistake in it though. Here's the correct one :

http://www.ccfbest.org/management/motivationfrominside.htm

Thank you for the correction.

[ihavenoname]

Complexnumber, I had the same situation you did, I came here to get my Ubuntu working with wifi and I was able to get Fedora working with that same info. However, diffrent distros sometimes use diffrent methods of doing thins. For example Arch uses BSD-style init-scripts while Ubuntu uses Sys-V. Also due to some of the patches that the Disto devs use certain bugs may apper that are essentially distro specific. However I do understand your point that a lot of the support is general. (ex. Ndiswrapper) But that does not negaite the need for a community that is centered around a particular distro. Because although 99% of the things in every distro were taken from other oss projects, they may have specific patches (as stated earlier) or may cause diffrent issues to do the fact that one combination of parts (a distro) is very diffrent from another combination of parts. THis goes back to the question why are there diffrent distros. The answer is (more or less) that each distro provides a diffrent combination of parts and thus support for that specific combination. (Ex. hal may work one way with sys-v scripts while it may need a totally different configuration for bsd init-scripts. (this is probably not true but it's only an example)). So to sum up my long winded answer I agree with you but only 50%

[richbarna]

I think that the community/forum quality is only essential to new users who are in regular need of support. As users become more comfortable with the linux way of thinking and start to experiment with different distros, the need for support lessens.

I have possibly 35 other linux distros and didn't even look at their forums.

The reason I prefer ubuntuforums is for the community in itself, there are many non-ubuntu users that come here to hang out, that's community related not distro-related.

So basically I think that the Distro/Community equasion for success depends on the users experience.

[fuscia]

i don't think it takes a village to get good support. it's more pleasant if the help is cordial and fun, but it's not necessary. if i had to choose between grumpy&knowledgable and friendly&stupid, i'd go with the former. fortunately, there are a lot of places that combine friendly with knowledgable, including this place.