LinuxQuestions.org Turns Seventeen
 

I'm proud to announce that over the weekend LQ turned 17! 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 size is a testament to the community.

To say that feedback has been absolutely critical to our success is an understatement. With that in mind, 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? Note that while we've changed tack a bit on the pending code update, I would anticipate this being the year it finally happens. More on that soon (and as always there will be multiple iterations of feedback and testing before any changes are rolled out).

As part of our 17 year anniversary, we'll be randomly selecting 17 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.

--jeremy

If LQ were in the UK, now that it is 17, it could:

My, how it is growing up. Happy Birthday. :)

P.S. Please don't consider me for "Contributing Member" status unless I actually come up with an idea. And I have to say that I don't really have any (except perhaps that there be a sticky in the Newbies forum containing wise info for "Those new to Linux who have installed Kali") ;).

I've been an accountless lurker for years! This is one of the best resrouces for Linux/Unix help! The interface is conservative, the site is simple to use and has accumulated tons of content. Keep up the great work Jeremy and here's to many more successful years!

Happy 17th and very well done

While I'm glad as always that LQ is here and with us I have the impression that member growth is slacking a little, just as is the number of new (posts | threads) / month. Am I mistaken or is that a fact? And if so, is it worrisome? Or is it just another sign of maturing?

Be that as it may, thanks for your sustained efforts, Jeremy & Mods :).

Congratulations and many more years ahead.

hAPPY bIRTHDAY
 

i AM GRATEFUL FOR ALL THE HELP OVER THE YEARS.

One thing that I have noticed is that occasionally people who are new to LQ get confused with members' signatures, thinking that they are part of a reply.

The current dividing line between the reply and the signature may therefore need to be strengthened in some way to differentiate between these two parts of a member's post, while not allowing the signature, or the differentiation method, to detract from the actual reply itself.

One of the problems with this is that we members who have been here a while are so used to the setup, and the signatures of some more frequent members, that we can easily differentiate between the two parts and thus are not seeing the problem through the eyes of newcomers. Any modifications would probably therefore be best carried out in collaboration with newbies themselves.

I am not at all from computer science background. However, I received many "helping hands" on this forum that helped towards automating my simulations for PhD. I have thanked those in my thesis and again now thanks this community again here for the help (especially David The H., MadeInGermany, Jeremy) - Thank You.

I has been very cordial environment here for someone new to be free to ask questions and I was surprised that the experts reply fast to the questions.

What could make this forum better is:
1) better "search" for existing answers
2) small tutorials with examples for using mostly used cmds like grep find awk etc.
3) I would be happy to share two scripts I developed (or better said the LinuxQuestions' experts helped me to develop :) ) to launch simulations and another one for getting tabulated results for file count using find with variable combinations of keywords (rows and cols)



Thanks once again,

Happy 17th and thanks for all the good work Jeremy.

Happy 17th !!!!

Thank you for this wonderful place. :)

Happy 17th. This is the first place I look for any issues with Slackware that I might have.

I find it helpful too to read the posts that are beyond my level of knowledge. There's nothing like learning something new.

Thanks for being there!!

Same-o for me

I joined a while back & used to contribute more back then, I think that I don't visit as often because there are many more new members willing to pass on their knowledge to the newbies that keep on joining. :)

I have become pretty staid in my use of Linux/BSD, & merely use it rather than advocate it these days.

Also, since systemd, I no longer am current, as I do not use it, & avoid it as best I can.
I do not want my Linux becoming like MSWindows with it's 'registry'.

I use a window manager, no need for more - & I don't like bloat. :)

Thank you for this resource. It may be a sign of my generation, but I really appreciate having fora in which to discuss things. In comparison to membership and activity on most other fora to which I belong, which are all but dead, this forum is still quite lively. I blame the increasingly omni-present FB for the decline in forum activity.

Good to see you around, fatmac. :)

With AntiX, which you say you are using in your sidebar, you are more than "current" - systemd is only one of the options out there (although a pretty prevalent one at the moment, admittedly).

You've still got a great deal to offer - pop on and help us out if you get the time and.or inclination. Folk on here are often advised to use AntiX or MX, not only if they're using hardware with less resources but also if they want to avoid systemd.

Yes, Happy Birthday LQ!

I have to say in looking at the replies, to see posters who have tenure here far beyond mine, with small handfuls of posts, that it is impressive to hear their great opinions of the site.

They are, and have been paying attention, and have positive thoughts to say about LQ!

Thank you all for taking the time to offer your compliments.

Great job Jeremy!

The best distro agnostic forum auf das inturnetz, happy birthday and congrats. :)

Kudos to Jeremy for all his hard work and putting up with us. ;) (disclaimer: not intentional bum kissing)

Happy 17th - what a helpful community!

Happy Birthday
 

Happy Birthday & thank you for this forum. It has been a big help. It has already been posted but improving on search and having tutorials is always good.

Thank you

I love both Ubuntu and Linux Mint OS. I use a dual boot with Ubuntu 16.04 & W7 on my main older Laptop ASUS K52N. On my Old 32 bit HP Laptop
I use Ubuntu 16,04 and Linux Mint 18.1 which I love.

Keep up the good work.

Thanks to all that have been doing the work to make these Operating System so good.

Respectfully,
Pgaboria

LinuxQuestions.org Turns Seventeen
 

Well done and no help from me, I'm afraid. Understanding Linux remains an aspiration and every e-mail
from you a reminder and a slight reproach. Thanks Jeremy for keeping me on. Hapten

Happy 17th ..

I am very lucky to be here with Linux giants.

Happy 17th.........

I am thankful for being part of this LQ.
Your Posts are very useful and help many times to solve issues.

17 eh? I remember that. It was 60 years ago! You acquire a lot in 77 years and having just been awarded my 7th Dan in Wado Karate and being presented with a fine bottle of single malt by my class, I wish to toast your health and long life so you may continue to help bumblers like me through the Trauma that can be Linux.

How could you be improved? Keep doing what you do well.

When I first installed Linux, you didn't exist and let me tell you that back in the mid 90s it was a hard hard world!

You have made that world both easier and friendlier, thank you.

Best regards

Chris

Ah, good point. That seems to bee quite conclusive.

Maybe add the opportunity to post for anonymous users after they pass some captcha? Many people know the solutions to many problems but sometimes they are too lazy or don't have time to pass through registration just to share their knowledge. Happy 17!

Oh, I've been around LQ for a while now. I'm not the most active member, though. However, I have picked up numerous tidbits along the way that made my Linux journey much more pleasurable and functional. It was well worth the admission price.

Keep it ROCKIN', Jeremy!

Oh, and about the suggestions for improvement... can't fix what ain't broke. :)

~Eric

I've seen and used several other Linux-help resources, but LQ remains the best. I think its durability comes from its format; a traditional (some might argue "legacy") forum where people can post a question, receive answers, provide feedback and clarification, and then receive more answers. It's like a conversation, and it generally works pretty well. Sure, some sites, like Stack Overflow, might do better with small, one-line questions and one-line answers, but they tend to break down when a conversation needs to happen. LQ has a good balance, I think.

I do wish, sometimes, that cruft could be hidden from threads. For instance, if someone posts a question and reaches a conclusion, I wish they could go back to the thread and hide parts of the thread that are not a part of the most direct route to the ultimate solution. I guess they can already do that by summing up what worked in a final post before marking it solved, but for archival purposes I'd love to be able to trim things down to "here's what worked", especially on threads marred by excess opinions and misdirects.

In general, LQ is great because it's a sensible solution, and it has a friently and knowledgeable community. Keep it going!

I was thinking about that very point recently when I was on the point of advising an OP to edit their first post in order to point future readers past all the crud to the number of the post on the thread that eventually found the correct solution.

Perhaps there could be a way for the OP to mark a certain post as the solution? Or, alternatively, introduce a new "Solution Post" that the OP could fill in? I don't know whether that would be easy enough to code though.

Happy Birthday!!

I can't understand people who consider Facebook to be a viable platform for long-term discussions which can easily be referred later. It might be reasonably adequate for Q&A, but nobody should want to use it as a replacement for actual forums.

Thanks LQ!
 

I've been working with linux recently and found a good support in LQ every time I needed help.
I have always received timely and quality support.
In particular, on the occasion of my last post I received extraordinary support, I seemed to work alongside a good and generous colleague.
I consider you a great and beautiful resource, a nice place on the internet to go.
Best regards

Yack

Happy Birthday
 

... and of course happy birthday LQ !!!!

Yack

Impressive Run!
 

Very impressive run, Jeremy! Well done and congratulations!

-Bill

Happy birthday, LQ. I haven't logged in for several weeks recently, but I've been reading threads and posts occasionally. LQ is my go-to site when I have any Linux queries, and simply for browsing if I'm 'time-wasting' and don't want to strain my brain too much. The atmosphere is great! Thanks to everyone for making it a good place.

Happy Birthday LQ - keep up the good work.
I will say this is definitely my main site for longer qns. I really like the forward in time flow.

In Re posts 29, 30 "Solution Post": editing the 1st post to point to the "soln post" is fine, but in spite of some cruft appearing, I do think not removing cruft is a good idea, otherwise it can make nonsense of the succeeding conversation.

Also we don't want to encourage people to go back and edit posts, or we'll get the same problem; maybe a 2nd additional edit on a post just to say eg "I stuffed up this post, see post #XX instead".

Just an idea.

Happy Birthday LQ and thank you for all the help over the years!

HI

my aussie cents worth. Re post 37.

We are human and most times, first impressions count. The first paragraph can annoy or excite or explain the OP dilemma. So I see no problem if edit first post

Especially when a newbie says something like I have a blank screen.....get some replies and realizes it is a video driver or config error. So as long as they write, this post has been editted to narrow the causes etc.

### of course we can all be misleading so the edit may look like the second poster is discussing things not relevant to the amended first post, unless the second or later posters start using quote boxs. But isn't the goal to give an answer and not worry too much about our huge ego, well mine is medium sized and growing heh heh

[rant starts] but so many people mis-use or abuse the forum quote box and quote the entire post that I find it annoying to have to scroll down to get the point.
SOOOOOO maybe remove remove the quote button or modify it to only have the top line? I dunno [rant ends]

What are we doing well and where can we improve? You are doing everything well! Of course one can always improve in all aspects, but you are doing a great job!

Where are we failing? As far as I know, nowhere.

What can we do to ensure long time members remain engaged and willing to help? Doing what you are doing.

What can we do to ensure new members feel welcome? Continue to work as you do.

What should we be doing differently? I don't know, everything looks good to me.

17 years - wow - quite an accomplishment. Congratulations to all who make this forum a viable and vibrant resource.

I joined a couple of years back in order to ask a question and solve a simple problem - probably quite typically. Was dormant for quite a while and then I had to return one day with a more complex problem in hopes of finding answers. And I did. By that time, I was more experienced with Linux and happened to notice a question from a user concerning a problem I recently solved for myself. I figured I'd give back something to the community and ... that was it. I became "hooked" on helping others with their issues.

A fringe benefit of doing this that I did not expect was the amount of knowledge I gained just by reading posts and contributing. My knowledge of linux increased to the point where it is quickly closing in on my considerable expertise in the DOS/Windows space, amassed over a 34 year period. Since I've only been using linux for 9 years, that's saying something.

So this forum is a great place to help others learn and to keep learning ourselves. Let's keep it going :-) ...

Strengths to maintain:

- friendly, open, respectful and welcoming attitudes of all members

- simple interface (it may be considered "legacy", but like the command line, if it ain't broke ... ;-)

Cheers all - see you around :-)


Rick

Don't change the main process - maybe improve the searching
 

I consider LQ as both the most competent and the most reactive Linux forums. So, if you evolve it, don't evolve too much, and above all don't change the current 'fast reaction' capacities ;-)
Maybe a more efficient search function would help finding 'already existing answers', but actually the present one is quite extensive. Maybe simplifying it...
But, we definitely don't need fancy icons or animations. At least IMHO...
All the best, definitely
Hervé

Happy Birthday Linux questions
 

That's great! 17 years and going strong! I'm a newbie here and just now able to go here and ask questions and possibly answer some. Hoping to make friends here as well.

Techjunkie

Sincere congratulations. This is the only resource i have been constantly coming back over these years. thank you for your hard work!

Thanks for appreciating antiX and what Fatmac has to offer
 

I agree with you; Fatmac has plenty to offer; I know this not only from this forum, but also from the MX and antiX forums, where we have many participants that have been on and off - and back again - for over a decade.

I also appreciate that you mention MX and antiX because there are times when I encounter articles about "lightweight distributions" that do not even mention antiX, much less put it on a recommended list. I can't think of any other distribution that does better than antiX, though some, such as Puppy, SliTaz, Peppermint, and others are mentioned. That's OK, but when I read a review that includes Lubuntu as a "lightweight distribution" yet doesn't even comment on anything in the antiX or MX family, that is a concern, because I feel that both antiX and MX have high quality, strong tools, are easy to install, and though the community is moderate in size, it's easy to get help.

Lubuntu seems to leverage the Ubuntu name, but I only see versions approaching the capabilities of antiX or MX when they are derived from Lubuntu and add additional tools and features. So I really appreciate seeing someone mention and appreciate individuals and distributions that maintain excellence with communities much smaller in population than other well-known communities - and do it very well.

This has been an excellent site for a LONG time - and additional capabilities have been added over the years - forums, blogs, wiki entries.

I remember participating in a promotion MANY years ago and receiving an Linux Questions T shirt; it was so long ago that I wore it out, but remember the time with fondness.

The Android Forum has proven to be useful a couple of times as I was doing research, so adding modern technology to the overall site has also been useful to me.

Thanks for the memories, the useful forums, articles, and community!

Link broken?

ibiblio's Linux Distribution homepage

Oh, and btw. which Clinton Township, MI? ;).

Happy 17th.
I don't post much here or anywhere but I'm always able to get the help I need from this site when I need it.
I've been using the site for over a decade, if I remember right.
Thanks and keep it up.

Remember that scene in " Interview with a Vampire " With Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. v
" I need you so I can stay current with this century. "


This forum does that for me. Without anybody dying over it.
Happy 17th.

Don't Touch That Dial!
 

Jeremy, This site is great. Congrats. I would advocate not altering anything. Especially don't change the interface. Everybody who does seems to make their site more unusable than otherwise.

You might want to add a feature where we can stick virtual pins into images of the Systemd team and the person(s) who decided to restrict our freedom by not allowing Dolphin to be run as root. :-)