Ade Malsasa Akbar contact
Senior author, Open Source enthusiast.
Saturday, February 20, 2021 at 12:49

First time encountering Free Libre Open Source Software? First time using GNU plus Linux computers? Want to get friends and supports? want to know more about software freedom? Join our community -- the Free Software community. In this list you will see biggest discussion forums in form or web forums, mailing lists, etc. Once again, I don't make distinction whether each forum is official or not. This is a short version of my old longer list (see here, see here) so you can immediately see and join!

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1) Free Software Foundation

The FSF (Free Software Foundation) along with The GNU Project are the pioneer and the source of all Free Software Movement around the world. If you want to know free software, you see the FSF. There are discussion forums you can join:

- LibrePlanet
- Trisquel OS Forum
- Parabola OS List

2) The GNU Project

GNU is the first and only free software operating system. Our GNU/Linux comes from GNU and the project is the source of all distros we know -- and inspired the other new free OSes like FreeDOS and ReactOS. There is top discussion forum you can join:

- GNU-Linux-Libre List

3) The Linux Project

You must have heard about Linux, right? Linux is the most popular symbol of our Free Software community -- and actually it is a program among other programs in our OS. Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML) is the most active public email discussion place on the internet. However, there are many public discussion places for The Linux Kernel such as below:

- LKML
- Kernel Newbies
- Super User
- ServerFault
- AskUbuntu


4) LibreOffice Community

Thanks to LibreOffice, we have the best Free Software office suite everywhere. Thanks to the predecessors too, OpenOffice.org and Sun Microsystem, without you all this great goodness will never be a reality.

5) KDE and GNOME

KDE and GNOME are the symbols of our Free Software community when we talk about computer user interface -- compared to Windows' and macOS' -- representing the other choices like Cinnamon and Deepin. They are so cheerful & easy to approach as they are more closer to humans than, say, low level things which need deep thinking like kernel or the OS. So join them here:

- KDE Forum
- GNOME Forum

6) Debian Community

The oldest combination of GNU operating system plus Linux which had most number of derivative distros. Debian is the source of the most popular distro, Ubuntu, hence the source to others too, from A to Z, like Antix and Zorin.

- Debian Lists


7) Fedora Community

When I talk about Fedora community here, I mean the mainline RPM family including Red Hat, CentOS and everything else related. 

- What Can I Do For Fedora
- Users List

8) Ubuntu Forums

When people talk about "Linux", they talk about Ubuntu in my country. That describes how popular Ubuntu is as the most popular symbol of GNU/Linux operating system. See discussions on the net you will always see Ubuntu among the results.

- The Forum
- AskUbuntu
- Users List

9) Linux Mint Forums


The traditionalist Ubuntu from Ireland, Linux Mint, touched the hearts of many computer users everywhere. That is why the discussion forums are so strong for years up to today -- it is very vast and active society on the net! Both the News Site and Web Forum are busy with discussions among the users and the developers --often, commented directly-- an amazing & admirable experience you will never find with Microsoft or Apple.

The Blog

Where news announced and people coming by to leave comments, a lot, and developers answer, a lot too.

The Forum

Where everything about Mint discussed vastly and widely everyday.


10) openSUSE Forums

The green chameleons, European operating system family SUSE and openSUSE made big parts of our Free Software Community. We know the most complete and user friendly control panel, Yast, is there. If you ever had an openSUSE computer, you will know what I mean. Join them at the forum!

11) Computer Graphic Forums

Do you do computer graphics and photography? You know, today we are strong --actually since years-- thanks to the community in both 2D and 3D fields. Feeling weak? Have some friends and join them!

PIXLS.US

The photographers and graphics users are here -- the only professional community talking tools like Rawtherapee, GIMP and Darktable with their beautiful list of software. I suggest everyone to see this one first before anything else in libre graphics.

Libre Graphics World

This community's name names the graphics part of our Free Software Community -- yes, it literally is. The new website is now LibreArts.org and the old one was LibreGraphicsWorld.org.

Blender Community

One of the best 3D animation communities on earth thanks to the great tool, Blender, that has been made the movies like Sintel and Tears of Steel.

FreeCAD Community

Architectural buildings & mechanical drawings are covered with the tool FreeCAD. We have a strong community here -- they love to share their house & machinery designs there.

Libre.Graphics

A very simple website that sums them up nicely. Good for starters!


12) The Privacy Projects

Learned that computing privacy is important? Most likely you heard that from our Free Software Community. You can join us:

- Privacy Tools IO

This is the user-friendly computing-privacy resource on the net. The discussion happens on web forum and GitHub.

- Prism Break 

This is a really good resource similar to Privacy Tools that teaches us to use Free instead Nonfree software, and the independence, for security of our data and communication. The discussion happens on GitHub.

- F-Droid Community

Nothing like F-Droid on other than Android system even on GNU/Linux itself. Thanks to the strong F-Droid and also The Guardian Project communities, we can learn so much from them that Free Software, security & privacy, and independence are very important -- as a golden bonus, they made everything easy.


Afterwords

That's all from me. Of course there are so many others not mentioned here so you can learn further (see here, see here) and explore yourself. I wish you the best experience. Happy computing!

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