The new Linux.com

mthomas

Complete with Flash ads. Great ....

fabsh

Maybe they work in Gnash?

mhangman

and what is about the "new to linux forum"? loved this system. doesnt matter what they use.

ikis

Hi. Where did all the posts of the old forum go?

Unless I'm missing something, I think there should be at least a link to see them.

AZorin

The new Linux.com looks REALLY cool, much better than Microsoft's site (in my opinion (and i'm not being biased)).

mwoster

www.linux.com/archive

TheAncientGoat

Still needs a bit of ironing, because there are /lots/ of things going on in the site, and getting through everything isn't perfectly sorted yet, but I believe that it will get there.

A few remarks (just my personal opinion):

Distribution news needs Distro image tags, the Download Linux tab isn't well placed.

The Answers page doesn't quite make sense to me.. Nor do most of the Learn pages, come to think of it.. The information just isn't displayed effectively.

Directory? Books and software downloads? Those are on different neural pathways for me..

Also, there's a lot of things that aren't explained well.. What are "applications" on my user screen? What does the different categories mean? What tone does the rating button mean on the answers?

It might just be me being silly, but I know that there are lots of silly people out there :P

LKP

bah I think that in time many things will change regarding new layout/site structure

Maybe most of what doesn't look good or make sense to this point is the result of doing so many changes and try to put them together

Anyway, if the changes are good or bad only time will say, from my point of view at least I think this changes are going well but surely there's a lot that needs to be done still

ikis

mwoster wrote:

www.linux.com/archive

Thanks, Mike.

TheAncientGoat

Yes, I totally agree that things will change for the best, but criticism is necessary to identify what needs to change

malcarada

I don't like the webpage design, all the empty space on the sides and the orange colour, it sucks. The community idea is great though it just needs a better portal.

Here are my proposed improvements:

- Expand the columns and get rid of all the empty space on the site, sides, top and bottom empty space.

-Get rid of the orange colour and go back to blue.

- Linux.com logo is a square, delete it and use Tux as logo

- Searchbox on the sidebar not on top of the page

To see a well designed Linux portal see Linuxjournal

TheAncientGoat

I donno, I like the visual design.. And please, give poor Tux a rest, he has to be in so many places now he recently broke down and had to have a temp stand in for him from Tasmania :P

The interface design could use some work though

Last_Dino

I think that It looks much nicer and more professional. The ads don't bother me so much... it's not like they're inviting us to shoot ducks to win a prize or to take the ULTIMATE QUIZ!!!!!1!!! or something like that.

I think that the forum topics need some revision.

There should be a "General Discussion" that could house linux news discussions, etc. Under hardware, there should be an "Other" category that would accommodate questions about hardware not listed or general hardware discussions, such as "What MoBo is the best to build a 64 bit Linux system?"

Most of all I think it's a terrible idea to divide the discussion into specific Distros or to ask for a "favorite Distro" to register. Here's Why:

1 - There is no way to list every distro. I'm currently using elive, which is based in Debian, but my home computer uses Mint, which is based on Ubuntu, which is also in turn based on Debian. What Distro would I pick?

2 - As stated above, many people use multiple distros or switch frequently. I've also extensively used Mandriva and Sabayon (which is based on Gentoo, which is not even listed in the forums).

3 - Individual distros already have their own communities, forums, wikis, chatrooms, etc. to discuss all sorts of aspects related to that specific distro. If someone has a Distro-specific question or comment, it will almost always be better off posted at one of those resources than here.

4 - Many of the "distribution" questions that people have here are questions about which distribution will serve them best, or comparisons between distros. What forum should they post in?

Basically, it just doesn't make sense ideologically or practically to have the forums divided this way. It has the potential to create disparity in the wider Linux community, and it doesn't serve the needs of the people who use this site.

temmu

nice layout. it's clean.

forum breakup?
it's ok; the major distros are listed
so if one has a distro specific comment, there it goes.
===or one could only have debian, slackware and red hat,
the top-level distros, so to speak.
other types of threads drop into appropriate categories.


colors?
well, everyone loves blue, but sooo many sites are
based on that fact.
orange and gray is a well-known, acceptable color combo.

there's a lot of top level links for me to chase, so, it's off i go...

thx for listening!

Skripka

mthomas wrote:

Complete with Flash ads. Great ....

That is easy to fix-get AdBlock or Privoxy or a similar tool.


This forum suffers from design flaws on virtually every level. More space is dedictaed to buttons and superfluous crap than content...that on top of the whole user info on the right insanity.

dsparil

Last_Dino wrote:

I think that It looks much nicer and more professional. The ads don't bother me so much... it's not like they're inviting us to shoot ducks to win a prize or to take the ULTIMATE QUIZ!!!!!1!!! or something like that.

I think that the forum topics need some revision.

There should be a "General Discussion" that could house linux news discussions, etc. Under hardware, there should be an "Other" category that would accommodate questions about hardware not listed or general hardware discussions, such as "What MoBo is the best to build a 64 bit Linux system?"

Most of all I think it's a terrible idea to divide the discussion into specific Distros or to ask for a "favorite Distro" to register. Here's Why:

1 - There is no way to list every distro. I'm currently using elive, which is based in Debian, but my home computer uses Mint, which is based on Ubuntu, which is also in turn based on Debian. What Distro would I pick?

2 - As stated above, many people use multiple distros or switch frequently. I've also extensively used Mandriva and Sabayon (which is based on Gentoo, which is not even listed in the forums).

3 - Individual distros already have their own communities, forums, wikis, chatrooms, etc. to discuss all sorts of aspects related to that specific distro. If someone has a Distro-specific question or comment, it will almost always be better off posted at one of those resources than here.

4 - Many of the "distribution" questions that people have here are questions about which distribution will serve them best, or comparisons between distros. What forum should they post in?

Basically, it just doesn't make sense ideologically or practically to have the forums divided this way. It has the potential to create disparity in the wider Linux community, and it doesn't serve the needs of the people who use this site.

I agree with this. It seems to me that Linux.com should be a neutral zone for all Linux users and not just the most favored. I don't think distros should be segregated in the way that they are.

I hope this helps.

P.S. I'm also a Sabayon user.

atreyu

All in all, I'd have to say so far, so good. I am crossing my fingers that this site will morph into something more slick and stream-lined (particularly layout-wise) as the weeks progress - am I way off here? Keep up the good work, guys. You are certainly attracting attention - group memberships are growing by leaps and bounds. In fact, my biggest grievance would be that the Groups are outa control and need to be reorg'd.

bobmajdakjr

privacy options need major help.

public profile is key, but still some common sense fields like "phone number" should not show up even on "everyone"

mauler5858

I really like the concept of what they are trying to do with this site. Take whats best about social networking sites, and pour it into making the linux community much stronger.

scottco229

I like it, nice job....

devkhadka

All the things are fine and interesting. There is no comment on the content and topics . i liked the way joomla configured for the site.

Rovanion

Yes the site looks great and all.
But why oh why are these flash adds here?
Why is Linux.com stuffed up with proprietary stuff that makes the site run 10times slower and closes up the source code to the user?

ludovic.ferre

What about using Adblock Plus [1]? I have been free of advertisment for a long time now. And of course I use FlashBlock [2] so even if the add was displayed, it wouldn't play me up.

[1]https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865
[2]https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/433

bobmajdakjr

no, he has a valid point.

flash is complete crap on linux. on fresh installs of anything (at this moment, linux mint 7) flash elements crash in firefox all the time, in the middle of youtube movies, in the middle of page loads, it is, crap. it only got worse after they added 64 bit support.

i have to use my macbook (not that that causes me pain, as it is my favourite computer) just to do things that involve flash so i know they will not crash in the middle of them.

also the ads are so huge the site area is so narrow.

as for opensourcing the site, i could not care less if it was or was not. really do not care.

Faceless79

Very nice. Joomla is the best. The site is clean, organized and dare I say fun?

kryptikos

I'm actually very interested and excited to see the changes to Linux.com. Color scheme and content layout is well designed. I was a regular surfer of the old site so I can say I do like where Linux.com is headed.

As with anything new there are going to be things that work wonderfully and some things that need some tweaking. Top couple of suggestions I have are:

1. Better spam protection. I shouldn't be getting solicitation to buy my medications from Canada or be told how I can be more appeasing to the ladies if I take a little blue pill. Too many automated bots seem to be creating accounts and posting jibberish and creating groups.

2. Rework the CSS. The columns need to be wider. I've noticed on my browser (Firefox) it tends to cut words off.

3. Better messages/email functionality. I can't create group lists to send one message to everyone. I'm unable to include more than one friend at a time on a message. Would be cool to see an integration of IM...like what Gmail has or Yahoo.

In some ways it would appear they are using Joomla, Drupal or Liferay as the base foundation of the site.

It's still new enough that there are teething problems, but I definitely like where it is headed. I'm ready and willing to participate, be a proponent for, market and contribute to Linux.com!