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By Rich Johnson on Published: March 4, 2007 at 4:34 pm

People always ask how I got involved with Free Software and of course lately, Ubuntu. I started messing with Linux around 1993 or 1994 and back then it wasn’t all that easy to find a single starting point on getting involved. I was a coder back then, but I didn’t feel like I was a hardcore coder compared to the guys who were doing the kernel hacking, putting GNOME together, or tweaking AfterSTEP. So for the longest time I stayed on the sidelines and was just a user, and at times an abuser. Hi, my name is Rich and I am a Linux user! (everyone applaud and cheer at this point). Today is much different when it comes to getting involved.

Getting involved in a free software community or a Linux distribution community is as easy as choosing your outfit for the day (unless of course your mom or significant-other dresses you). For the past 10+ years I was using SuSE (before Novell), Debian, and Slackware. It wasn’t easy to find one spot that I fit into. My coding style at that time was way different than what the communities were doing. Then Mepis came around, of course I heard of Ubuntu, but I have been a long time KDE user and contributor, and wanted a distribution that was built for and with KDE in mind. Then came Kubuntu. The Ubuntu community was popular for the super friendly people who always seemed to be there to help you no matter your situation as well as being very easy to get involved with. I knew I had found the place I wanted to help build and support the legacy it has built and continues to build.

So that is the past. Now, what exactly did I do to get involved with Ubuntu and Kubuntu? People (Brandon, aka imbrandon) will tell you, I was just a typical user when I stumbled upon #kubuntu-devel on IRC. I haven’t touched code since the 90’s, but I knew my way around KDE and Linux/Debian pretty good. So at first when there were pre-release ISOs (i.e., Feisty Herd 5 CD image), I would download, burn them, and then install it, and ask what exactly needed to be tested, see if I could find bugs and report them. From there, only a few weeks later I ran into Matthew East and Jonathan Jesse of the Ubuntu Documentation Project. I wanted to help document, that is something I can help out with. So they pointed me to starting out with editing and cleaning up the Wiki pages to see how I was there. I did that for a few weeks, then decided I would download the documentation repository and play with it. My XML and DocBook skills at that time were next to nothing, very rusty. After submitting a few patches to close existing documentation bugs, Matt went ahead and set me up with SVN access and Documentation Team membership. I haven’t looked back since, this was the first group that really gave me a HUGE chance at getting involved with a very important aspect of Ubuntu. Now I am a Kubuntu documentation junkie, can’t get enough of it.

Well during this time I also hooked up with people like Jordan Mantha, Daniel T. Chen, Brandon Holtsclaw, Sarah Hobbs, Jonathan Riddell, and many many more (bddebian boo!). They helped me learn packaging (which I am still learning). Now I have had quite a few packages uploaded into the repositories that many of you use on a daily basis. That is super cool. After this I wanted more. So I am in the process of “re-learning” or knocking the dust off of my C++ skills (weak as all hell at this point) so I can get back into coding and have been working on a couple of secret projects and not-so-secret projects.

So, with the Ubuntu community I am involved in one way or the other with: Kubuntu documentation, Kubuntu release notes, Ubuntu packaging (MOTU wannabe), Marketing, LoCo Teams (Chicago and Illinois are the beginnings of my world domination plan), Edubuntu Documentation (got in here by accident, but if you really want to get in quick, Edubuntu is the way to go, they need developers and documenters), The Fridge, and more… I am now involved with KDE and helping out with KDE 4 and KOffice 2 documentation, and getting involved deeper with KHelpCenter and hopefully some day a fully integrated topic based help system that is desktop environment independent.

So, if you want to get involved, let me be the first to say, IT IS EASY! Follow your instincts, to bite off more than you can chew, and go for it! If you aren’t a coder, don’t worry the community still needs you. Get involved with Marketing, Documentation (Wiki work as well), LoCo teams, IRC support, bug triaging, and so much more. From here you will learn the ropes rather quickly by watching others in the community and your growth will be determined by you. Who knows, this time next year you may be a top-knotch developer who many people look up to. That is another perk of being involved in such a great community, whether it is Ubuntu, KDE, GNOME, or whatever, people will look up to you, not as a God, but more or less as a leader or liason wanting to absorb everything the community has taught you. It is great getting someone interested and then watching them grow and become a great community leader.

Jono Bacon, the Ubuntu Community Manager, gives the greatest talks I have ever seen when it comes to community. Here is a YouTube video of his latest and greatest, Herding Cats, talk at linuxconf.au this year.

GET INVOLVED NOW! It’s easy, rewarding, and a great place to meet new friends.

Posted in Development | Tagged | 1 Response

Ubuntu Illinois

By Rich Johnson on Published: March 1, 2007 at 10:57 pm

LoCo Love! Illinois people (that small corn state in the US) you now have a place to call home in the Ubuntu community. Tonight, after talks with other Ubuntu members it has been decided to start an Ubuntu Illinois Local Community Team. Since I have been the team lead in a way for Ubuntu Chicago, it was decided that I should go ahead and get the project rolling. Well after further thought, a couple of dreams and some hacking, Illinois has now been Ubuntu’ized.

What is a LoCo? A LoCo, or Local Community, is a team of Ubuntu enthusiast that want to see Ubuntu succeed. The team will be made up of people from all walks of life with advocacy and support of Ubuntu in their minds. The building process will be slow, but if you are in the state of Illinois and would like to be apart of the Ubuntu community, you now have a place to start. What will we do? Right now the growth of membership is a large priority. Once we have a strong membership, and during the process of gaining new members, we will give talks, do demos, advocate (market) Ubuntu anyway possible. We will help people switch over, we will provide them with support, and we will turn them into enthusiasts as well.

Ubuntu Chicago in the past year has had some pretty good success. The team has held in-depth meetings, members have given talks at local events, converted hundreds of local users and have even helped support those users with their new life in the free software world.

Sign me up! Well, you can sign up yourself to show that you are interested in helping Ubuntu and Ubuntu Illinois grow. Head on over to the team page on launchpad and sign up. Note that you have to have an account on the launchpad first. Until the team gets up to speed the Ubuntu Chicago mailing list will be used for communications as well as the IRC channel. So, point your IRC client to #ubuntu-illinois on Freenode which will redirect you for the time being to #ubuntu-chicago. Say hi and hang out. Within the following months we are hoping to have a decent turn out in membership as well as events planned at the state universities. Keep an eye out for an updated wiki page for the team as well.

Thanks to everyone who helped in conceiving this idea and for poking me enough times to go ahead and start it up.

Posted in Linux | Tagged , | 5 Responses

Documentation LoCo Style

By Rich Johnson on Published: February 25, 2007 at 7:13 pm

Yes, we are beating the hell out of this topic. Why? Because we are looking for Ubuntu enthusiasts who are either:

  1. Apart of a Local Community Team (LoCo)
  2. Looking to join a LoCo
  3. Possibly interested in starting a LoCo

No matter your status we do in fact want and need your help. We are working on documenting everything, and we mean everything, about LoCo teams. Do you have questions you want answered? Well we want our documentation to answer them for you, so bring your questions! Want to know what all is involved in setting up, running, and maintaining a LoCo? Well our documentation should be able to answer those questions for you. No matter the topic, the question, or anything else you can think up, we want and need it in our LoCo documentation.

So what we, the Ubuntu LoCo Community, have done is created the Ubuntu LoCo Docs Day. What is it you might ask? It is a full day, 24 hours or more if you can stay awake that long, of documenting everything and anything LoCo. The better the LoCo documentation the easier it is for new enthusiasts to get involved in this wonderful Ubuntu community.

So when is it? I knew you were going to ask that. How does March 3rd suit you? Yes, no matter where at in the world you are at, March 3rd from 00:01 all the way unti 23:59 of that day is LoCo Doc Day.

So where is it? Worldwide dude! No really, everywhere in the world it is LoCo Doc Day on March 3rd, so no matter where you are at, that’s where it is 🙂 OK, really it is in #ubuntu-locoteams on IRC. How do I connect to IRC? Wow, you are just loaded with questions today aren’t you? You have your options, but since you are asking, here are the easy ones. X-Chat and Gaim for you GNOME/Ubuntu users and Konversation for you super-smart KDE/Kubuntu users 🙂 (/me waits for the flames). You will want to set your respective client to connect to chat.freenode.net and use port 8001 just to be secure. Don’t worry, we aren’t a bunch of silly hackers sitting in a channel waiting for you to connect so we can grab your IP and create world havoc. OK, well not all of us, just Joey and Melissa. Once you have connected to the server, most clients will respect you typing /join #ubuntu-locoteams and then pressing enter.

CALLING ALL TRANSLATORS!!! We definitely want and need you big time for this event. Not only do we want English documentation, but we also want documentation for your language. Why? Well not everyone is down with this English thing. I was raised all my life in the United States and I still suck at English. Anyways, it is easier for prospective members in your locales to read their native language. So if you can take English and convert it to <insert your language here> then you are a must 🙂

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