LinuxQuestions.org Turns Nineteen
 

I'm proud to announce that LQ turned 19 yesterday! I’d like to once again thank each and every LQ member for their participation and feedback. While there is always room for improvement, that LQ has remained a friendly and welcoming place for new Linux members despite its constantly growing member-base and geographic distribution is a testament to the community.

To say that feedback has been absolutely critical to our success is an understatement. As has become tradition, I'd like to use this thread to collect as much feedback as possible about LQ. What are we doing well and where can we improve? Where are we failing? What can we do to ensure long time members remain engaged and willing to help? What can we do to ensure new members feel welcome? What should we be doing differently?

As part of our 19 year anniversary, we'll be randomly selecting 19 posts from this thread and upgrading that member to "Contributing Member" status for one year. Stay tuned, and thanks again for being a member. Together, I think we can make LQ even better.

NOTE: I know I've been talking about a pending code update for a while now. For a variety of reasons it's gotten pushed off much longer than I'd like. It's time though; stay tuned for more information soon.

--jeremy

For a little nostalgia, here is our very first logo. It didn't last long...

--jeremy

First of all; Congratulations!
My one question/suggestion...
Is it possible when a person who is posting, and does a paste (from a terminal or somewhere else), automatically wrap that in [code] tags? I understand the poster may not be always pasting from a terminal, so there will be many times when this does not apply...
I am not a web developer, so not sure if this is possible?

Congratulations!

I did enjoy the seeing the first Linux Questions logo. :)

Later on I may add some thoughts on how to improve LQ. Right now I just wanted to let you know that the forum is a great place for me to learn more about Linux - Ubuntu and the other distros in a working environment. The knowledge on the ins and outs of Linux that I have gained is invaluable.

Keep up the good work!

Congratulations Jeremy!

The community that has grown with and around LQ is first rate and in many ways unique, and LQ does indeed remain the friendliest destination of its kind! In the face of ever changing demographics among Linux users and the endlessly growing challenges of being free and public on the internet, that is saying quite a lot indeed!

But none of it would exist without your initial vision and your steady guiding hand every step of the way! Thank you for all that, and for giving us a place to learn and share!

Three cheers and take a bow!

Given I only joined to ask a few questions I couldn't find the answers to anywhere else in the beginning, and didn't envisage myself actually attempting to answer anyone else's questions; you must be doing something right Jeremy. ;)

While not that the above statement wasn't serious, in all seriousness; the amount of answers I've found here both without actually even asking the question myself, and just "lurking" in threads whether I posted to them myself or not, is just incredible. I think LQ's greatest asset by far is it's members, particularly members that have been here since the early and mid 2000's. The experiences they can share are just invaluable - I don't think you can find that in a lot of other places on the Internet. Particularly the "variety" of experiences they can share, from every aspect of IT and Linux, even other systems too.

I must also say that the help I've gotten here in my efforts to learn C and programming in general have been first class bar none. I could not have asked for better help (both in thread and otherwise too I might add). I didn't expect people to post all the replies they did, I figured maybe a few people might give some pointers and that would be about it. And it's not just the technical answers I got that I'm talking about either, it's also the encouragement too - from both new and long time members. Even better, it seems others have been following the thread and have learnt things from the answers given too. Particularly since I don't normally ask technical questions, it's refreshing to know that whether one is a "newbie" or not; help on is hand here. (I would post the above in the thread in question, but no doubt I'll probably have a few more questions to ask in it at some point.)

Who got randomly selected in the last LQ "anniversary thread" Jeremy?

Yeah, you have mentioned that. I was wondering what happened to LQ 2.0 ;)

Presentation of content
 

Hi
Just a note of congrats, but also to say that "first impressions are everything".
I appreciate gathering material can be quite time consuming but perhaps a few minutes spent on the look and feel of (bland?) emails would make for interest grabbing articles. Cheers, Phil

Cheers!
Despite me being a C coder under Windows, LQ was helpful in development my console tools, want to thank fellow members that helped me, THANKS!

As a suggestion, please consider making a thread for benchmarking free and open-source C code by gathering fellow members with strong machines, thus my humble contribution in text processing can be seen - it needs 128++GB RAM...

I've been a member of this forum for most of that time, and this place has always offered a good mix of members with different backgrounds and experience, and that has helped with making for an informative yet friendly environment for members to seek and provide help with navigating the large Linux universe. I'm glad to be a part of this dynamic, knowledgeable community. Keep it up LQ!

A slightly belated Happy 19th Birthday! :party: :Pengy:

Congratulations. I'm a 77 year old retired psychotherapist who turned away from math and engineering in 1962. I have taught myself to do some half-assed programming in python, and I am enjoying the way I can explore math, data, graphics. No need to remember how to differentiate and integrate, one just needs to know how to set up a problem. I love it. I rely on LQ to answer questions and provide ideas.
Regards,
Bill

19 years - that means your doing something right - right. ;)

I've been around for a few of them, helping where I can, & will continue to do so, with what I know about, but Linux has moved on to pulseaudio & systemd, neither of which I personally like, so there are many questions I have no experience of, but I'm glad to see, & say that we keep getting newer helpers coming on board, & this is what Linux is all about, freely helping your fellow man/woman to gain some knowledge, so that they can use their system how they want to, & not be dictated to by big corporations. :hattip:

Just to say congratulations Jeremy - very impressive. I'm someone who uses LQ when I need to - and this has been a great help and support. I'm not a "techie" - just a user of Linux to do the very ordinary tasks like most people. I would like to help others, and have tried, but many problems are way above me. It's just great to have access to people with techie skills and the time to help.
So, it's a BIG thank-you guys!

Far as I know automatic formatting is not possible in vBulletin (not sure which version this is but IMO it's a lot better than the latest and greatest version -- vB's 'new' stylesheet is just dreadful for usability). BUT if you set your default editor to Advanced, you'll have GUI access to all the formatting codes.

Ain't broke. Don't fix it.

I honestly don't know what I'd suggest. The occasional newsletter reminds me LQ exists (yes, I do forget) and nothing especially annoys me.

Hmm, well, Another Forum[TM] has an RSS feed for all posts. That's probably overkill here (too busy), but an RSS feed for all new threads would be useful.

---and somewhat later I see that you're already ahead of me on the RSS thing, which shows how much I wasn't paying attention. :D

stupid, but honest
 

You must be doing something right Jeremy.

I like the site the way it is, and it functions well. It supports what we need. Some of the graphics are slightly dated, but otherwise, I think it's great! Please keep up the great work.

Hi and congratulations. Not long to go to 20 :-))
I am rather an observer than a contributor. My reservations stem from a fear that my answers are not the best when others who are far more capable than I should rather be given the opportunity to reply. Your talk of Version 2.0 scares me to some extent because I do believe that your current layout is VERY functional and has been of great use to me. I fear that two things will happen when you prettify the next version a) You will find more opportunities to insert advertising and b) The compactness of the present code will be lost to a WordPres like marketing approach which means that evey answer will become 2 or 5 pages longer.

Background: I do use LQ pretty frequently but it is now overwumped by everyody who thinks that they are the technical EXPERT and use their knowledge to get WEBSITE-HITS rather than contribute practical answers to problems. Frequently the answers are not even correct or apply to incorrect versions. Mainly because software now seems to be out of date in weeks. Especially if one takes into account the frequency with which everyone issues upates to their software nowadays. Particularly all Phone Apps, Windows (Microsoft), Chrome and Oracle. Cannot speak for Apple. Cannot afford Apple.

Suggestion: In addition to your current rating and sorting process for answers I believe that two new qualifications will go a long way to sifting the wheat from the chaff. a) Much more emphasis on the dates for solutions and VERSION NUMBERS (listed latest available first) and b) Solutions should be qualified as 1) Tested 2)Referenced to other TESTED 3) Sure Knowledge and 4) Opinion / Suggestion. Some solutions do fall into the 3rd qualification and are really just pontifications. Not a lot of value. Lastly solutions that are inappropriate our out-of-date should be removable or FLAGGED as such.
Best regards, ianm

All I have to say is thank you, Jeremy, for the friendliest Linux place on the inner webs.

CONGRATS!!!!
 

Happy Birthday, and thank you. Keep doing it.

Good old nostalgia.

Many thanks Jeremy and congratulations on the anniversary. I've not been a member long, I was pointed in this direction by a friend and former colleague, when I resurrected my interest in Linux in my retirement. I'd dabbled back in SuSE 7 days but geve up due to lack of time. So as a new(ish)comer to modern Linux, I had a shedload of questions. When I've not been able to solve an issue myself, I've come here and have yet to be disappointed, either a solution or a pointer in the right direction in every case, so far.

What would I ask to be changed? Well, obviously, nothing! I do sometimes, probably lack of familiarity, have a little difficulty finding the posts related to my search. But that's me, not LQ.

Just keep doing what you do, Jeremy and I'll be one happy bunny!

Happy Birthday!
 

I am newbe in Linux and i was very pleased that LQ users not only answered my question but pointed the right direction in learning Linux, have told me about userfull book and their own expirience. I feel myself the member of the professional and supportive team which believe in my efforts. It give me power. Thank you!

Nineteen Years of success kind of answers it's self. Years ago (less than 19) I discovered LQ to have credible answers - ones that helped solved issues I struggled with.

So I presume LQ created an environment for quality people to gather to share information to help others... generally without so much condescending comments about choices. (Although some is unavoidable due to absurd misunderstandings)

When I couldn't find an answer anywhere else, after digging through documentation and distributions forums and wikis - of course LQ users could answer what specifically .d directories were about, quickly!

But there isn't any such thing? Are you sure you are talking about LQ?

Sto lat!

Congratulations! Good Job!

Hello! Congratulations, I'm satisfied by forum: it's convenient and full of useful information. Thanks for your job.

Thanks again for the feedback. Everyone who has participated in this thread has been upgraded to Contributing Member.

--jeremy

Whoa, generous :thumbsup:

Sure makes your job easier when no one wants to change anything! :hattip:

Congratulations and so cool to have a Linux forum so long around :)

Thanks,

Hopefully the feedback will help you decide how, or how not too, improve LQ.

Thank you for giving us contributing member status for a year. :hattip:

Jeremy--

Congrats on being here and helping us all out for 19 years. You all have been of great help to me over the years. Here is to 20 years, just around the corner. Keep up the great work and looking to the next 19 years.

kb7ypf34

THANKS!
I'll admit, after posting on this, I made the minimal contribution... but it's worth so much more.

Yes, thanks for keeping this platform alive for the benefit of a wide-ranging Linux user-base. :)

THANKS
 

HELLO THE ENGINEER.
THANKS AND CONGRATULATIONS IN ADVANCE FOR YOUR SITE, IT IS VERY ENCOURAGING AND WELL PLANNED IN THE END THANK YOU FOR ATTENDING YOUR FORUM I AM SO THAT AN AMATEUR A SIMPLE BEGINNER IN COMPUTING (LINUX IN GENERAL)
TO YOU ADMINISTRATOR God STILL STRENGTHENS YOU FOR THIS WONDERFUL IDEA

Wow. Congrats!

Congratulations on 20 years online!
 

Noted this posted last year.

Now you can say it's been online for 20 years. Congratulations!

I was too burned out to build a website after 9 years running a BBS until the Internet opened to the public and BBS's died out. The time I spent using ASCII developing the BBS theme and menus had me wearied to start on HTML. I only began developing again in the last 8 years after a 21 year hiatus :doh:

Congratulations LQ community, uptil now I'm only reading pages soaking as much info as I can get to get familiar with this OS. So thanks to all of you out there posting questions and answers but also not to forget the moderators that keep the threads clean and on point.

Keep it up! ;)

:scratch:

He was talking about a method to weed out the chaff by fine tuning the current rating system here.

The options that they asked to be included are not currently in any forum based software I am aware of, but that isn't to say that the features could be added here. Someone would have to spend some time to write up the code, test it and Jeremy push it into production.

That's the most powerful attraction of Open Source. You can assist fixing bug, writing docs or writing a new feature and submit it to the core developers for inclusion, or just utilize it on your own site if the license doesn't require changes to be sent back up stream.

Except this forum uses an old version of vBulletin, which is commercial and proprietary (and at the time was the only one with the features we enjoy today). Not that the functionality couldn't be reproduced, but not from vBulletin. phpBB is finally up to par with vB's functionality, and is opensource, but cloning a forum from one base to another is not a trivial task. Especially not one of this size. You're talking several days just to transport the message base.

Most so-called help sites have not been written by humans in about 15 years; computer-generated text has been that good for that long. And when it is a human, the pay is so minimal (about $5 per article) you don't get good writers. But it's why the answers presented tend to be generic and often marginal or wrong. It's all about getting ad impressions by hogging the search results.

LQ, conversely, is all about real users. :hattip:

LQ is older than me!
 

Older than me by about 5 years

A very happy and belated anniversary to you Jeremy.
 

A very happy and belated anniversary to you Jeremy and to all those that have made this site a good one.

Ouch, I certainly wouldn't want to the ETL process for the conversion. That's above my level of skill now. I haven't fiddled with ETL in 8 years and it would take me a month or more to bring it up to par. I don't have the time on hand to volunteer ether.

Having said that though, there is still a ton of legacy programs in use still that simply work and additional functionality is not required. The old adage applies 'if it ain't broken, don't fix it' so here we are :)

Yep... (I say, posting this from WinXP, where the oldest app still in regular use hies from 1991) ...in fact we lately had a thread here somewhere, "How should I improve the LQ site?" and the roaring reply was, "DON'T FIX IT!" :D

[And I wouldn't 'upgrade' vBulletin either. The latest version I've seen is broken in ways that never plagued these antiques.]

I'm sooo glad I'm not working now. I am so tired of Windows and all the descendents from 1.x through 10 over the years. Same old, same old.

While this adage works well in the corporate world, people who sell or license software must continue to update even if it's only bring to bring the GUI up to the more recent look and feel. I met one guy some years back who had a Win3.x program with the installer last updated in 98. He made a pot load of money in the beginning but that dried up to a drip today because the GUI shows the age. It still does everything they claim and is still unique in the market. But people aren't licensing it any longer (not at 4k a month) due to it. I and others have recommended he update it, and he swears he will but the fact is he can't afford to have it done. That train left the station before 2k became an issue for the IT community.

But we're talking Linux here, so I have to mention working on reverse engineering how that program worked and producing an open source project based on it. But now I'm not working, I have time to relearn Python (from 2.7) and attempt to do just that. Time has always been so frenetic. I ran into Linux in a Slackware book in 95. I'd heard some rumors of a *NIX clone and wanted to learn it. v1.18.x if I recall correctly. Was an absolute bear. If I weren't working with PC hardware at the time I'd never have figured out how to get X up and running. You had to know the horizontal/vertical frequencies and other minute details of the video card and use this oddball editor I'd never seen before, and just barely knew how to open a file, modify it and close it. Something called Emacs. Horrors! Then thrust into compiling C programs just to get them working long enough to determine if I could use it. Setting up and using a 2400 baud modem to connect to the world. But it had such a steep learning curve I put it up until 98 after realizing IBM couldn't market its way out of a wet paper bag and OS/2 was dead for all practical purposes. I'd actually met Gates in 92 and he ticked me off then and I swore from that point on I never use a single product of his ... and I never have. That's why I had my eye on anything else (an original ABM before the phrase was even coined).

Today, Linux is some really slick s**t, err, stuff. I've converted multitudes of the pre-boomer generation over once they realized how much it cost to use a PC with that other OS on it. They just wanted something that worked, didn't care about bells/whistles, just wanted it to work. No crashing on occasions or suddenly have white letters on a blue background displayed. Their toaster, ovens and other gadgets worked that way, so they expect the same from a PC.

I've strayed far enough off the field it's time to sign off and hide from the moderator.

Thanks for the wonderful site, Jeremy. This page welcomed me 11 years ago, and while I'm still a blooming idiot, I am a blooming idiot who uses Linux 100% of the time and even has a regular spot on two podcasts! (mintCast and Distrohoppers' Digest) It also hosts the only forum for one of my favorite distros, Bodhi Linux.

I have no idea what you can do to make the site better. Maybe change the colors and soften the blockiness of it? But it is the people who make this site great, and you're the #1 person here.

It's a more than a day late and a dollar short...but better late than never, as the saying goes...

Happy (very) belated birthday.

It's a very nice site, as well as friendly and responsive, which makes learning Linux easier.

Hey jeremy,

Do you think it would be possible to update the looks of the webforum here?

I don't mean a huge change; just a few improvements. Right now the age
shows a bit. I have been around here for quite a long time too.

Congratulations. We both started in Linux many years ago.
 

Sometime ago, long ago, in 2004, I started with Linux. It was my first introduction. Linux could fit onto a single 1.44 floppy. In fact in 2004, all of Linux could fit onto a 800meg CD.

We certainly can't do either today, unless it is a network install ISO.

In all the years, I have never faltered from being a Linux bigot. I would have linux for breakfast, for reading material in the bus on the way to work, and ...
I must have driven many friends crazy with conversations about Linux and the no-need for Windows.

It was not before LibreOffice came along that I could do the big sell. Linux is for business. And here we are today, 2020,jan,2 and what do we find.
Almost every distribution listed in Distrowatch is stable, will function according to the developer's objectives, and wow, it is a Linux world.
Microsoft is one of the biggest Linux users. How can you beat that? Gradually, MS is moving to emulate Linux in Windows. That is, to isolate the user from the Windows system.

There will always be two worlds for desktop users. Windows and Linux. Windows, because they came first, and are entrenched. It is something like the biblical story of David and Goliath. Linux will have to come up with something great (like Alexa) before it happens in Windows, and then... Linux will take the lead.

Happy New Year to all