How can I help Linux?

[Silver-0-surfer]

So I have been using Linux solid for pretty much 2,5 years now. Mostly Red-hat based distros like fedora & centOS, but have got backtrack on a USB which is debian based now.

The question I have is how can a guy like me assist in the linux world, Im not a programmer I work in networking so writing code etc is sort of off. So how can I help linux grow

 

[bin3]

Best place would probably to join a few forums of those distributions you know a bit about; There are so many questions out there and most of the times it's not programming related, so anybody with a bit of technical experience does help a lot.

Also helps a lot with the 'feel-good factor' when you can point some newbie in the right direction with a few choice words or phrases.

 

[MickZA]

If you're not already a member sign up at http://www.linuxquestions.org/ then log in often and check out "zero reply threads" under quick links

 

[Silver-0-surfer]

Good point, I'm already a member of a few forums. Was just checking if there was actually anything else

 

[Other Pineapple Smurf]

Just spread the word and convert.

 

[Avenue]

Good point, I'm already a member of a few forums. Was just checking if there was actually anything else

yeah there is so much, from spreading the word, to beta testing, from creating tutorials to helping out on the forums. Distros like ubuntu have brainstorm where you can give ideas, or rate other peoples suggestions etc. The great thing about linux is the community involvement......... and when you make loads of cash, it may be fun to sponsor a project.

 

[karnuffel]

Share

Its easy...

Use Linux, show your friends how awesome it is, help them with installs...


The more people that use Linux the better

 

[shogun]

So... let's ask another question. I've got a lot of experience in .Net and coding practice in general (WPF, ASP.Net, Sql Server etc etc). I'm interested in porting some of my applications over to linux from .Net. Now I could port them to silverlight (moonlight)... but i'd also like to be able to build apps the "linux way".

Where do I start with no knowledge of c++ etc? I mean step one here, as in "what languages?, what compilers?, how do I get my first hello world working?".

Is http://www.linuxquestions.org/ a good place for this kind of stuff?

 

[bin3]

I would suggest starting with LAMP ... { Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP }

Read what you can on it, and try and do a few tutorials.

 

[MickZA]

Heres a good place to start http://www.linuxlinks.com/article/20090730135312222/Compilers.html - don't miss the IDE link in the main body.

 

[shogun]

I would suggest starting with LAMP ... { Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP }

Read what you can on it, and try and do a few tutorials.

Kewl, I was thinking more along the lines of building a Win32 style application (but something good looking like what I can do in WPF). I have experience in PHP, MySql on windows already. The web dev side is not really what i'm concerned about.

 

[shogun]

Heres a good place to start http://www.linuxlinks.com/article/20090730135312222/Compilers.html - don't miss the IDE link in the main body.

Thanks, heading over there now.

There should be a sticky thread somewhere here on developing appz for linux.

 

[bin3]

Sadly for this you might get thrown into the deep end and it's dark down there ...

The main problem with GUI's in Linux is that there are so many options -- The main options will probably be either KDE based or Gnome based, both of which has a bit of a learning curve. After that there are so many other GUI platforms out there that it is a really difficult decision, never mind the static or dynamic decisions or the Xorg vs Xfree vs ... debates ...

To be honest - I tend to stick with Java + Swing for rich clients in Linux; just tends to work better, and especially with frameworks like Substance it can look really, really pretty.

 

[shogun]

Sadly for this you might get thrown into the deep end and it's dark down there ...

The main problem with GUI's in Linux is that there are so many options -- The main options will probably be either KDE based or Gnome based, both of which has a bit of a learning curve. After that there are so many other GUI platforms out there that it is a really difficult decision, never mind the static or dynamic decisions or the Xorg vs Xfree vs ... debates ...

To be honest - I tend to stick with Java + Swing for rich clients in Linux; just tends to work better, and especially with frameworks like Substance it can look really, really pretty.

Thanks for that. Wikipedia says: "The Swing library makes heavy use of the Model/View/Controller software design pattern[1]". Yay for that. MVC is the way forward, and was one of the main concerns I had about porting some apps to a new framework.

I think this may take a few weeks. When I get some time, i'll try something simple, and see how it goes

 

[milomak]

the ultimate help is becoming a maintainer of a package (or more)

i hope to get here some day. and i guess that says to me i should be looking at hellanzb

 

[MyWorld]

Each distro has some unique circumstances, and the only way you could know how to contribute is by asking the distro maintainers. Usually there is a link on the distro pages to learn more.
The main support behind a distro:
Programmers
Maintainers
Documentation
PR
Marketing

As you can see, most of any of us can contribute somewhere here.