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Social networking and the Linux distribution

By Rebecca Sobol
January 7, 2009
Last August a friend of mine invited me to join Facebook, a social networking site. I was skeptical. After all, when you spend hours every day working on a computer, spending more hours networking with friends seems less than attractive.

Lately though, I've been seeing mention of various distributions on Facebook, so I thought I'd take a look for other Linux groups. The first I found in my search is the GNU Linux group, with over 24,000 members.

There are around 500 groups of various distribution fans. Any member can join a group, if the group is open. Look for the groups Debian GNU/Linux and Gentoo Linux Users (motto: if it moves compile it). Also SuSE Linux Users and openSUSE Linux. There's BackTrack Linux, an unofficial Ubuntu Linux group, Arch Linux, Pardus Linux Users, Mandriva Linux Users, Linux Mint, Fedora - Linux, and many more. I only looked at 40 of 500 groups.

There are many individuals with Linux in their names. As individuals you can only find out more about them if you become friends. Most seem to be fans of one distribution or another. There are many instances of Ubuntu Linux or Linux Ubuntu, Fedora Linux or Linux Fedora, plus fans of Linux Unbuntu, Linux Suse, Debian Gnu Linux, Redhat Linux, Linux Barrera, Mandriva Linux, Apollokk Arch-Linux, Linux Centos, Dell Linux, Linux Asianux, Mk Linux, Intel Linux, Comunidad Linux, Linux Latin America, Knoppix Linux, Maghreb Linux in Morocco, Sabayon Linux, Tito Linux in Egypt, Linux Galore in India, Zune Linux and Tux Linux. The spellings and capitalization are copied directly from Facebook. Other obvious fans include Unix Linux from Morocco, Linux Torvaldo, Linus Linux, and Linus Linux Torvalds from France.

You can find local user groups, Linux forums, Python fans, more distribution fan groups, and if you can't find what you are looking for you can start your own group, if you are a Facebook member of course.

LWN.net even has an unofficial fan site, so stop by for a visit.

All this research was done on Facebook. I have yet to join MySpace, Twitter or any of the growing number of other social networking sites.

to post comments

Social networking and the Linux distribution

Posted Jan 11, 2009 14:50 UTC (Sun) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link]

The only compelling reason I've heard for sites like Facebook, Hyves, etc is that it gives a handle to link to your friends and for them to link to you, so that if they move, change numbers, etc you can still find them.

This ofcourse hinges on Facebook being more stable than one's email address. Whether this is true probably depends on how involved you are in the IT industry.


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