A suggestion for the Forums

I just emailed Tim and Jim about this:
I would like to see a Linux room in the forum -I recently switched to Linux. I have always loved MG's forums and thought that it would only be better with a Linux room. -Do you care? -is it a bad idea?
Yours,
522.

(edit sys specs...again)

 

very few here use linux, so, there probably wouldn't be a whole lot of activity to warrant its own forum. plus, the forums for the distro's would probably be a better resource than a post or two every couple of weeks.

 

i agree with acejones, I mean look at Apple it has its own forum and look at the activity

 

Hell, now that OSX is netbsd based you could make the Apple forum a multiple OS forum.

Apple, NetBSD, Linux, all that stuff. Might increase traffic, might do a whole lot of jack shit too.

 

the downside for having a seperate download, such as a tar, is you have to manually install it, when i would gather that most linux users know how to install from inside linux. plus, what if that program had rpm's, deb's, etc, and a linux newbie comes digging around? then you'll only have a small handful of users that can help. linux isn't windows...heck, its not even osx. it is its own beast, that i believe, already has a great set of resources that would be hard to "compete" against.

 

Actually ace, i bet many here do use linux, youd be surprised.

 

Maybe they could just rename the Macintosh Forum to something like...OTHER Operating Systems...?

 

Ignoring acejones who has not installed either mandriva Linux One or Ubuntu....

It IS easy now. As easy as 98 was. Still some tweaking but mostly plug and play. In fact the only tweaking I did was to install sound add ons. Nothing like Mandrake 7.1 or RedHat used to be.

Dell Dimension 4100 933 Pentium 3 mostly as it arrived from Dell in 1994. Rage 128 card, Soundblaster sound card.
512 Meg RAM
200 WD drive
HP All-on-one Deskjet/Scanner

One partition has Breezy Ubuntu now idle, and this has Dapper Kubuntu. I have 100% Linux in place and do not have wine except for Picasa for Linux.

The cost and the fact that I have Genuine Authorized software running was the reason I switched.

 

actually, the only reason I do not run ubuntu as my main OS is b/c its lack of printer compatibility (plus my printer is wireless). would you like to know what distro's i've installed?

ubuntu/kubuntu/xubuntu (Breezey and Dapper)
mandriva (mandrake before it was mandriva)
Suse Enterprise
OpenSuse
RedHat Enterprise

i've ran DSL, Puppy, and Knoppix off of usb drives.

my setup does not allow me to use linux, or i would. before you make assumptions, make sure you're not going to make an ass off yourself. you are right about one thing...it is easy. its the easiest install experience out there. everything works the first time. and then if you use automatix (or easy ubuntu for ubuntu), it gets even easier.

if you took a poll, i bet less than 10% of users here do NOT run linux or mac, myself included.

to expand my previous comment, the easiest way to install in gnome (ubuntu, etc) is to use synaptec. the easiest way to install in kde is adept. if you like the command line, use apt-get, or even wget if its not in a repository. downloading the tar file is NOT the easiest way to download a file. If MG added linux downloads, they would need the install files. if the program has more than one distro install, then MG would need those as well.

it seems you guys are thinking i'm saying that linux does not belong here. i'm not. all i'm saying is, unless there's an overwhelming majority of users here that have a need for a linux forum, then why create a dead forum? do you think a handful of users here can compete with dedicated linux forums at other sites? no offense to MG, but you have to see the bigger picture.

but what do i know...apparently, i've never installed linux...

 

I don't use Linux often, but I have used it, generally in the Live versions. I would be interested in such a forum. I disagree it would be dead, slow perhaps, but not dead.

 

I agree with acejones in that the linux distros have their own very active forums which are probably a lot quicker than posting on mg's then waiting for days for a reply. I run Ubuntu Dapper exclusively now on both my laptop and desktop. When something breaks I just go to ubuntu forums stick the problem in the search box and you can bet other people have had the same. Usually have a fit immediatley.