Where Can You Engage with Fedora? | Fedora Podcast 058

Fedora has a lot of different places where people talk, ask questions, and get involved. And it's not always obvious where to start. Today, we are going to go through as many different tips and tricks as we could find, from Matrix to Discourse to Fedora Magazine, the Join SIG, and This Week in Fedora, so you know exactly where to go. Hey there, and welcome to the Fedora Podcast. I'm your host Eric the IT Guy Hendricks. This is episode number 58. It should have been episode one, but hey, we didn't think about it then, so we're doing it now. But, I couldn't think of a better person to help me talk about how to get involved in any community than the one, the only, Mr. Noah Soliah. Noah, welcome to the Fedora Podcast, my friend. >> Thank you, Eric. I can't talk. All right, I can't talk. I can't wait to talk, and I see that we're going to talk about Matrix. So, guess what I'm excited to talk about. >> Not Matrix, right? You're You've never been a fan. >> Never. Is that obvious? Is it showing on my face? >> [laughter] >> If If you are listening to the audio podcast, he's trying not to smile, but anyway. >> But, it ain't working. >> [laughter] >> Awesome. So, yeah, we found like six or seven different places where we've We've discovered some Some of these just in the past week. Thank you, Carl Gerlach, from episode 57. About how to engage with Fedora, whether that's communication or getting started. So, Noah, you've already teased it, and people already know who you and I are, so we can skip the intro, right? We don't have a guest today. No. No. Nobody. Okay, no No guest today. There's nobody else here. It's just us. >> Just all them people right there in the internet hole. >> Yeah, the the internet hole. >> [laughter] >> All right. Right. So, Noah, this this is your passion and you actually sold me on the platform. So, why don't you talk a little bit about Matrix and then we'll talk a little bit about Matrix for Fedora specifically. >> So, there probably could not be a time in history, Eric, where it's more important than ever to have a unified communication platform. There are all manner of different social media entities that are putting all manner of restrictions and if you look around the world, countries are making the decision to ban and or to restrict who can say what and on what platform. And so, Matrix, if you haven't heard about it, is a decentralized communication platform that was started for the expressed purpose of federated communication. What do I mean by federated communication? So, if you look at, for example, email, you might be Eric at the IT guy and I might be Noah at AskNoahShow, but we can email each other together. And it's that's been true, Eric, for 30 plus years we've been able to do that. We knew that that was a possibility, we knew that the world could function like that, and yet we traded that reality for an alternative reality in which if your organization uses Microsoft Teams and my organization uses Slack, we can't talk to each other. And so, that idea of federation or that idea moving from one organization to the other didn't really didn't really hold true when it came to instant messaging. And I have personally been through, let's see here, we started with IRC, ICQ, MSN Messenger, AOL Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, then it went to, I guess, Facebook Messenger for a while, Steam Messenger, Viber, Telegram, and finally So, I In in every one of these transitions, yeah, Discord, thank you. Every one of these transitions, I lost people. There There people that I made connections with or people friends that I made, and I lost connection with them. Somewhere in there is SMS. Matrix seeks to solve all of that, in part because they did something really interesting that I think that Lotus Notes did back in the day, or well, Microsoft did back in the day when they were trying to take over for Lotus Notes. What they did was they provided backwards compatibility, so you could open your Lotus Notes spreadsheets inside of Excel. And so, Matrix is kind of doing the same thing where it allows you to do you backwards compatible. So, you're a Fedora community member, you're really used to IRC, that's okay. There's a way to bridge Matrix back to IRC. You like your IRC client? That's okay. There's a way to use WeChat, for example, with a Matrix server. And so, what essentially all of these projects have, to include Fedora, have centralized around Matrix, and they're moving to to Matrix for real-time communication. So, really easy to get started. The first thing you can do, and I would tell you this is a really great introduction to our introduction. If you're trying to get introduced to the Fedora community, and you don't know where to start, chat is a really great place to plant your footsteps, because what it'll allow you to do is get plugged into the next steps. So, maybe your ultimate goal is to be a graphic designer. Maybe your ultimate goal is to hack the Gibson, and you actually want to write some code for Fedora. Maybe your goal is something else entirely. Whatever it is, it all starts by getting connected to other people, other like-minded people, other people who can get you the answers to the questions that you might have. And you do that by going to chat.fedoraproject.org. Now, Fedora hosts a server, fedora.im. You're Eric the IT guy on matrix.org, okay? I am kernelinux@linuxdelta.com. And yet, all three if somebody goes to fedora chat.fedoraproject.org and creates an account, they'll be able to talk to you, you'll be able to talk to me, I'll be able to talk to them, we'll all be able to talk together. And if for some reason matrix.org were to go under, the Linux Delta server were to go down, uh Fedora would decide that they didn't want In in any of those situations, the connections that you build with other people are going to stay there. So, there is this other concept that's known as spaces. And the concept of spaces is a collection of rooms. So, here's what that involves, Eric. It means that you have discoverability. Previously, you had to know, "Hey, I need to connect to this IRC server, and I have to go into this room." And if you wanted to find another room, you had to know that that room existed, and you had to go there. Spaces allow you to join the Fedora space, and that becomes a jumping-off point to all the individual teams, all of the individual special interest groups. And so, you can see them all there, and you can decide for yourself in real time, "Oh, that looks interesting. I think I'd like to check that out." And so, it serves as this exploring or discoverability aspect where when something new is added to the Fedora space, you can discover it. Uh the third thing is that there are a number of different clients that you can use to connect. So, the most prominent of which is Element. It's uh a client that is designed and supported by the people who wrote the Matrix spec. You can learn more by going to element.io. Element is written as a web app first. So, really, if you're running it on your computer, it's this little Chromium wrap thing, the Electron, we all love it. Um and but but it it if you want to, you can just run it in your browser. So, if you go to chat.fedoraproject.org, it's going to load Element for you in your browser. You don't have to download nothing, you don't have to install nothing, you can just use it that way. When you start to get into it and you say, "Hey, I want to install my own client." Well, guess what? If you're in the GNOME world, there's Nico. If you're in the KDE world, uh there's Or do I have that backwards? Might have that backwards. But there's a client for every different There's a client for every different desktop environment. There's a There's a native client for every different operating system, regardless of what you're on. Uh my personal favorite, Eric, you're going to like this. Gomuks. You know what Gomuks is? It's a CLI based uh, Matrix client. And the thing that I like about it, it fits perfectly into my i3 tiling window manager. So, it you're just a terminal window to me. It's absolutely awesome. Um, and so, >> I didn't know about that one. >> is is pretty neat. So, here's what's great about it. Uh, Gomuks is written by a guy who eats, lives, and breathes the command line based Matrix client. So, it scratches all the itch is that this guy has. And so, he's it's it's super polished. So, what I like about it, super snappy, super fast, everything is keyboard based uh, shortcuts. And it it's it's not it's not it's not glamorous. I mean, no any any uh, UI design or plain [laughter] text, but it's really great. The other thing I really like about it, when I'm in focus mode, I'm trying to get something done, the thing that I cannot get past is I'm in a lot of rooms, Eric, as I know you likely are. And so, I'm constantly getting ping pong ping pong. Just drives me nuts. And so, the nice thing about Gomuks is, I can sign into an account, and then I'll get alerts by way of they'll turn bold. But, you know when I'm going to see those, Eric? When I switch over to that that desktop environment or that that that workspace tab, and I see which rooms are bold. And past that, I don't know. I was busy doing something else, you know. So, I I really like it from that from that standpoint. So, you can check it out Gomuks. Um, but yeah, there's it doesn't matter if you're if you're a frac I think Fractal is the is the Gnome one, and Nico is the the KDE one. I might have I might have those backwards. Um, but there's depending on what platform you're on, what an operating system on, there's likely a Matrix client for you. Um, but if you don't know which one to start with, just go to chat.fedoraproject.org, check out the the web based one. You don't have to download anything, you don't have to install anything, and you can start exploring the various different rooms where you might get plugged into the Fedora project. >> So, the uh, the producer just uh, just pinged me and said that Fractal is in fact the uh, Gnome version, and Nico would be the the KDE version, which is confusing cuz usually everything KDE starts with a K. So, may the K is silent. >> I Well, I don't think it was written by the the KDE folks. I think it was I think it's a QT client that they they put But, here's So, to your point to your point though, there are So, a what is happening is So, it started with Element like it was like the flagship client then a bunch of people tried to do their own thing in whatever um you know, toolkit they wanted to to see it done in. But, what what is really neat that I'm seeing happen all over the place, places are natively integrating Matrix into their thing. So, the best example I have of that, Thunderbird. Thunderbird's a freaking mail client, Eric. It's not designed to do instant messaging, but guess what it can do? It can send and receive Matrix messages. Why? Because they made Matrix a first-class citizen inside of Thunderbird. And so, even when you install if you ever install Kubuntu, you watch what when the installer goes, it'll actually say like, "Hey, you have questions? Here's how to get to the Matrix room." And it's all integrated, all neat and nice like into the operating system. So, over time there there's going to be that integration and it's just going to get better and better and better. Today is the worst Matrix is ever going to be. Tomorrow, it'll be even better. >> So, as as someone who is on a lot of different platforms like I know you are, um you you can tell Noah's excited about something cuz I didn't get a word in edgewise during during that. Uh and and that's that's why we love you, Noah. Uh but uh I I literally have a 34-in Dell ultrawide monitor uh that my laptop clamshells and connects to. Uh the So, the problem is one of my virtual desktops is dedicated to nothing but you guessed it, communication platforms. Email, Slack, Element, Discord. Uh I finally retired Telegram about a year ago because I had 10 times as many bots as I had people conversations. Um And then there's a couple of others. Uh SMS is in there somewhere. Uh And so, we really need Element {slash} Matrix to win. To To clarify, Matrix is the protocol, Element is one of the companies and one of the platforms behind Matrix. Um we really need it to win because there's so many things so a lot of you probably are familiar with Slack and all of their integrations. Slack is great. It's amazing, but it's very very heavy. Matrix is a little bit lighter and it's much more free and open source software um uh respecting. In fact, shameless plug for this show, there is a Fedora podcast room where a lot of us hang out. We talk about what's coming up next on the show. Ideally we get enough like like Noah and I >> [clears throat] >> it'd be nice to get more people in there to talk about the show, to talk about topics, you know, really build a community around this this podcast. There's literally hundreds of you that download every episode. You should be in the Fedora podcast uh Matrix room so we can talk about the show and get to know all of you. Um but what's really nice is um we actually publish not only to YouTube, not only to uh all the audio platforms that are out there, but we also publish to PeerTube which thank you AltaSpeed for sponsoring the uh Linux Rocks PeerTube instance because that's where Fedora podcast actually publishes free and open source respecting versions of this show. The nice thing is there's actually a hook for PeerTube into Matrix. I haven't set it up yet. I'm a volunteer, get off me. But what's really really nice about this is the fact that we can actually configure the hook so that every time we publish an episode of this show out to PeerTube, that link is automatically dropped into the Matrix room. So you just get notified that hey, there's a new episode of the show, click this link and go to watch it on PeerTube. Amazing. It is such it is so fantastic. And one of the other things Noah that that you kind of hinted at, but I want to call out specifically is the fact that Matrix allows you, especially if you have I don't know about some of the others cuz I started with Element and I haven't switched, Uh but Element actually allows you to kind of prioritize rooms, prioritize chats, and to fine-tune your notifications. So, most of the Fedora rooms that I'm in, I'm usually just a lurker. I I hang out in there. I keep an eye on it when I have time. Uh whether that's Fedora mobility or you know, some of the others, some of the ones that I'm keeping an eye on for for oh, they they finally published this thing. Now we need to bring them on to the Fedora podcast. So, what's [clears throat] nice is I can set those to low priority. And so I don't get notified. I just get the little white dot that says, "Hey, you have unread messages here." Fedora podcast, Noah and I have a one-on-one chat. Those are set to high priority. Don't let it go to your head, Noah. You're not the only high priority person in my matrix, but but I've got I've got people that are set to high priority, which is basically notify me anytime they even think about sending me a message. >> Mhm. >> Or one of the really cool features and something that I should have really sit down and and uh and fine-tune is you can actually set only if someone says at room, at my handle, or a certain number of keywords. So, when I was a Red Hat Linux systems or when I was a Red Hat technical product marketing manager, I was in a number of open source chat rooms or sysadmin watering holes, just people where people would hang out. And I would set up keywords like Red Hat, Rel, uh Enterprise Linux. I would set those keywords and instead of all or nothing, I could actually get notified only if someone said my name, at room, or one of those keywords. So, if someone in like the Noah mentioned ask Noah. So, if someone in the Geek Lab mentioned Rel, I would get notified. So, as a Rel technical product marketing manager, I can go, "Oh, they're talking about Rel. What are What What are they saying?" So, Matrix is just really, really powerful. And what's nice is Fedora has very successfully migrated a huge network of people from IRC onto Matrix. And they've got some spaces set up. They've got multiple rooms set up and Lord knows they have a room for just about everything. >> I want to I want to just touch on you had mentioned um priority alerts, right? And so like you I'm in a gazillion rooms and one of the things one of the important concepts I think to make clear is that every conversation is a room. So whether it's a room that has just you and I it's a DM still a room. If a space is really just a room it's a room with a collection of rooms. If it's a group room it's it's a group So the the reason that that's advantageous here is because what it allows you to do is so for example I have my my account that everybody knows about at colonelnix@nixdelta.com but then I've got other like like I got a family account that runs on my family server. I've got a work account that I use at Altaspeed um and I have a like a what you might call a bat phone account a pri- priority account and the what it does is there is actually a bot written by a guy by the name of Sleuth and what he did is it's kind of what you're talking about where it looks for rel In in my case it looks for the phrase page Noah and if that happens it sets up an alert on the most adorable tiny little Android phone you've ever seen in your entire life. I mean this thing if you're if you're listening to the audio version is fits into my palm uh and I can basically make it I mean it's just absolutely adorable and tiny and so go swimming go to the pool uh go around my my main phone uh gets left wherever and just this little tiny baby guy comes with me uh and is on me at all times all hours of the day and that then goes off if if there's an alert and so what it allows me to do is simultaneously watch hundreds of rooms and if my attention is needed and privileged people are able to do that then then it then it goes and sets the alert alert off. But it's a really great way for people to get involved, right? If they're looking for a first step to say how do I get in touch with Eric and Noah? How do I get in touch with other people from the Fedora project? This is a really great first step. >> For sure. >> [snorts] >> So, we we've spent 14 out of 17 minutes talking about Matrix. So, I think I think we've kind of drilled this home that Matrix is kind of the place to be. >> Welcome to Matrix. >> [laughter] >> Uh and and [clears throat] I will say this I I will say one more thing about Matrix then we will move on, I promise. Maybe. Uh but the other thing to to think about is Fedora it does have regularly occurring meetings. And unlike a lot of projects out there, a lot of them are semi-asynchronous. And so, what I mean is they're they're not a Google Meet or Zoom or something. Uh a lot of Fedora meetings are text-based and they have specific meeting rooms. So, if you join a SIG like the Cloud SIG, they might say we're meeting in Fedora meeting one at 10:00 UTC. And so, you just you just join that room and you're you're already there. You're already in the meeting. Uh and so, you can attend this this text-based Matrix-hosted meeting. It really works out well and you don't have this issue where some random third-party closed-source AI bot is actually transcribing the meeting. You don't need transcription because it's literally right there. Uh So, I I we we may have just sold everyone on signing up. Uh so, I I expect within a week of this episode we'll have like a thousand people in our Fedora podcast room. >> chat.fedoraproject.org. Go now. >> There you go. We'll we'll wait. Okay, we won't actually wait. >> [laughter] >> All right, so point number two. Now that we're 20 minutes into this thing. I don't know about you, Noah, but I came up in the world where PHP bulletin boards reigned over everything. There was a PHPBB for everything. That was one of my first jobs in tech was managing these stupid things. Uh if I never have to manage MySQL or Apache or PHP LAMP stack for those of you that aren't following along. If I never have to manage a lamp stack like that ever again, I will be so happy. But I mean that was that was my childhood. I was literally on Star Trek role-playing games on PHP bulletin boards. That is how old and how nerdy I am. I will I own it. I am a nerd. You can crown me now. >> I I I think that gives you nerd cred. Eric, I would tell you that even to this day like all joking aside even in 2026 when I have a new interest like I want to learn about cars. I want to learn the very first thing I do is where are the forums for this particular interest? Cuz chat is great. You know what the problem with chat is? It isn't necessarily asynchronous, right? And so you it requires somebody to be on the other end or it gets lost in scroll back. And so the nice thing about forums is you can post on a forum and say, "I have problem XYZ or I have question ABC." And 3 days later some guy on the other side of the world that you didn't know, but he's a nerd and has your answer. He wakes up, crawls out of bed, turns on his computer Dora and goes, "Woo, look at that. Some American didn't know the answer to that. I know the answer to that." And then types it out on the other side of the world and 3 days later you get your answer. That happens because of forum posts. And the best thing that ever happened to forum posts is we went from these highly complex, very proprietary, very difficult things difficult things to maintain and use to Discourse, which is a modern designed, nice, sleek UI specifically designed with community collaboration in mind. So when things are very popular, they rise to the top. When they're not so popular, they don't exactly rise to the top. >> Well, I mean to be fair there there's two different two different two main different ways of organizing new topics. First is by by new. So you're seeing kind of a real-time well, real-time as you refresh the page, you'll see everything new that comes in. But there is also the the popularity aspect of it as well. So for instance, if you've listened to this show for any length of time, you may not notice, but I actually post on sorry, I haven't even given out the URL yet and I do this for a living. discussion.fedoraproject.org that's discussion.fedoraproject.org is the home of the Fedora discourse also known as the Fedora forums unofficially um but for every episode of this show I actually post a thread with links to the audio the video PeerTube YouTube and a brief description the idea being that there is now a unified place for people to go and ask questions about a specific topic. So we're going to talk about the joint sig here in a few minutes and if you if you aren't able to figure out how to get in into element you could actually just go into the the thread for this episode and and ask your question. Hey you guys mentioned the joint sig I've got Matrix I've I've got my account created how do I get there from here and people that watch this show will go oh look they had an episode they had a question about this specific episode or hey Eric what you said was really really dumb and I think you you're ugly and you should not be the host of the Fedora podcast anymore. While hurtful that would be a great place for for that kind of a conversation but discourse is nice because that archive ability um you know I've used this term a few times but you know chat like Noah said is kind of semi asynchronous so you can get into a conversation but if three other conversations pop up in the middle of your of your discussion you're going to be scrolling back a ways not so with threaded discussions and those threaded discussions are usually grouped by by category so it makes it really easy to engage with the community in fact one of the things I see most often on the Fedora discussion discourse instance is proposed changes for the next major version of Fedora. So we want to make this change we think that instead of using Linux we should use Windows you know here's my here's my proposal for Fedora Linux 45 um don't anybody would that please but you get the idea that it's a great place to propose changes, to get votes, to get live feedback, and have it in a way that's archive-able, that's searchable, uh and you can you can bookmark things, and it makes it really, really easy to keep track of information versus chat, where it's semi-ephemeral. Eventually, that that message gets so far back into the into the background that it's just it's as good as invisible, unless you said something stupid, in which case the internet will pick it up and will never let you forget when you said that one dumb thing. Sad, but true. >> [laughter] >> And no one remembers the brilliant things that I say on these shows. Everybody remembers the thing the times when I get tongue-tied or say something dumb. Can we talk about Fedora Magazine? I think we should. This is the place I don't spend enough time. Go for it. >> Well, so Fedora Magazine is really great. It is essentially a public-facing blog of Fedora, which I would tell you I think is one of the most creatively well-placed, well-marketed names out there. So, like so for example, a lot of times you'll have blog. and then whatever the organization is.com. And I think that that has this idea of like, "Oh, I want to see what's new or I want to see what's latest." Fedora Magazine, it's almost as if it were a like it's own entity. And if you just wanted to get an introduction to Linux, you might go to fedoramagazine.org, and you know, you might learn about remote web-based installation for Fedora. You might learn about Flock 2026. Um you might learn about sandboxing AI coding. So, so there's all manner of different articles on there that it is just like you want to have a your best foot forward in the technical community, Fedora Magazine is a great way to do that. They've got tips, they've got how-tos, they've got release coverage, they've got community spotlight. They give you an opportunity to write an article, or if you're a listener that wants to contribute, um and so it it's it it it's a really great difference between um It's a It's a really great way to have like a public-facing thing that people can uh can can discover and and and learn about Fedora and about the wider community. >> For sure. And I mean the the Fedora Magazine has been around for years and I think it was very aptly named. Um you know, we we live in a world that everything is everything is high-tech, but it's it's nice to have that callback to something like a magazine. Like so many of us have stories about going and buying the the latest issue of, you know, Wired or, you know, whatever and and learning a lot about uh about Linux and technology that way. So, it is a beautiful callback and there are years and years of articles. And in fact, if you look at a lot of the search numbers, some some of the older blogs blogs that are years old um are still some of the most widely searched and widely accessed tutorials out there. How do I do XYZ in Fedora? And you get a Fedora Magazine article that could be three or four years old that's still relevant. They have an amazing team over there. They have a great group of editors. And No, you'll love this. I did a little bit of digging into how to get started with Fedora Magazine. You know what their recommendation is? >> What's that? >> Go to Matrix and join the Fedora Magazine room. >> I love it. I love it. There's It's like there's a theme that's going on here, Eric. >> [laughter] >> So, and and and Fedora Magazine puts out regular content, but I think we could do more. I think we as a community could be creating more content. And one of the one of the drivers behind this episode was people ask us, "How do you get involved in Fedora? Do I have to be a kernel-level engineer? Do I have to be a Do I have to be some brainiac where I where I think and I'm literally the numbers pop up in little bubbles over my head?" No, you don't. You absolutely don't. But you know what you could do? Write a how-to on how to join the the the join SIG or a uh a non-PhD required instruction guide on how to get started with Boot-C, which is something that I'm actually trying in my home lab. And so, having those how-to guides, very, very simple I I If If I can do it, you can do it. Write Write a bit of an introduction, write a step-by-step, put in some screenshots, put in some code examples, write a conclusion on what you learned and why it's important, and that's it. Submit it. And now, guess what? You are a published author. That's great for your own learning, that's great for teaching others, that's great for your resumes if you're out there on the job market. >> I might even take that one step further, Eric, just to say >> Let's do it. >> It is almost more benefit You tell me if you agree with this. I'd I'm interested in your pushback on this, but I think that it's actually more beneficial if somebody comes to it a little gun-shy and they're like, "Man, I don't really feel like I know what I'm doing in this space." You know what? You're the best person to write documentation. You know why? Because you're going to be able to write documentation that I'm going to be able to understand cuz I don't know what I'm talking about. You know what I mean? And so, if you >> Totally. >> frame it in that way, like my my father-in-law's a great example of this. He's He's absolutely one of He's a mechanical engineer, probably one of the smartest human beings I've ever met in my life. Try to have him explain something math-wise to you, and it's like you're talking Greek, right? Like he just >> [laughter] >> Like Like he We get five words in, Eric, and it's like he's talking a different language cuz he's already so far over my head that I have no idea what he's talking about. Conversely, I would tell you that I make a really excellent teacher cuz it takes me a long time to wrap to really internalize wrap my head around a thing. And the So, to draw parallels to that, water skiing. I am the absolute I was the absolute worst water skier. It took me the longest time to be able to get up on a slalom ski, but you know what? Guarantee you, I'd put my bottom dollar on this, if you or I or anybody else went out on the lake, I could get you up on one ski in one in not not the first try, per se, but like in one boating outing, I can get you up on one ski. Why? Because I can look at somebody like that. I can I can instantly identify and be like, that's what they're doing wrong. Here's how you do that right. Because I did it all wrong myself. And so it makes me a really excellent teacher. So if you come to it with a little bit of humility to say, I don't actually really know what I'm doing. Great. Awesome. You're needed more than anybody else. >> For sure. And and as much as I would like to play devil's advocate on that point, I I really can't. Uh some of the worst people to write uh feature documentation are the people that wrote the feature. It is so much better for an engineer to hand it to somebody like yourself and go, here, I wrote this feature. And then you sit down and go, okay, now, how can I use this? That is where some of the best documentation >> that? Well, you just get the widget and you compile it. Right, where do I get the widget? How do I compile How do I do that? Yeah, no, 100%. >> Yep. Yep. So brilliant. Yeah, yeah. Uh check out fedoramagazine.org. Uh and then if you'd like to get involved, um if we have not sold you yet, sign up for Matrix and go join the Fedora uh magazine uh uh Matrix room. And say, hey, I would like to write an article. And I you know what? I bet you that the editors there would have an a a list of ideas of things that they would like to see articles written on and don't have time for it themselves. Is it your turn or my turn? I forgot. I think it's your turn. >> [laughter] >> So a few weeks ago we had an episode talking about the 2026 Fedora contributor awards that were announced at Flock to Fedora. Um and one of the gentlemen on the show uh was actually one of the lead sponsors, owners, uh of the Fedora Join SIG. And what is fantastic is this is the place to go when you don't know where to go. And guess where it's hosted now. >> Ooh, let me guess. Let me guess. Slack, Discord, no, no, Matrix. >> It is hosted on Matrix. >> Yeah. go You can go to the Fedora join sig. >> [laughter] >> There's a reason why we co-host. >> That's right. >> You can go to the Fedora join sig and just say, "Hey, I'm new here and I'm interested in XYZ." And you know what? There's probably a Fedora ambassador or one of those senior-level contributors who's been around Fedora for longer than it's been called Fedora who can go, "Well, that's not my team, but have you talked to Joe? Joe's the guy to talk to over in kernel development." Or you're you're interested in just downloading it? Go join the general Fedora channel. There are people in there that literally their job, their whole contribution, every hour that they spend on the Fedora project is literally just a traffic cop. Their job is, "Hey, I see you. Welcome in." And they wave you in, they welcome you, they ask some questions about you and go, "You want to go talk to that guy." Or you want to go talk to that gal. It is one of the most effective onboarding experiences I have ever had. Have you ever joined a company where you've been there for a week and you still don't have your laptop? Been there, done that. It's not fun. Getting involved with the Fedora project is easier than getting a corporate-issued laptop at a new job. Noah, I dare you to challenge me on that. >> I don't I wouldn't I wouldn't touch that with a 10-ft pole. >> [laughter] >> So, whether you're a user or a want-to-be contributor, the Fedora join sig is the place to go. And they they can explain the project, they can explain the structure, they can explain where to hang out. Uh and they can really help get you connected. And then guess what? Eventually in a few years, when you are now the subject matter expert, if you're now the the the smartest kernel developer in the room, you might be asked to just kind of idle in the in the join room and just say, "Hey, I was in your shoes not 3 years ago. I didn't know how to spell kernel. I didn't know how to compile the widget, Noah. But now I I know where I know where all the things are and now I can help other people become a part of the Fedora community." >> Mhm. >> So, yeah, any any other thoughts on the joint SIG there, Noah? >> I I think the concept of SIGs are really interesting, right? Like I don't think we talk I I think I remember the first time I heard SIG I don't know if you remember the company that made like keyboards and stuff like that. And the first few times I heard SIG I didn't understand it meant special interest group and I thought it was some reference to like a piece of hardware. And then when I learned a little bit more about SIGs, well, you don't know what you don't know, but like as I learned a little bit more about them and I was like, man, this makes so much flipping sense that you would have a person or group or organization. They're like, you know what, we need Auto Fedor. Great. Awesome. Well, that should probably exist somewhere so that that there's so that there's a cohesive communication dialogue between the people who are making the thing and the people who are going to use it. And so SIGs are a really great way where you can bring some domain domain knowledge from your particular industry your particular thing and say, ah, I can I can tell you where the pain points are right there. Let's talk about what can I do for fedora.org. If you are listening to this episode and somehow you haven't got the message that if you just join Matrix, there'll be some friends there for you and the friends that you didn't even know that you had are waiting to meet you. Fine. That message went out right over here. I got it. I got you covered. All you have to do is go to this website, what can I do for fedora.org. When you land there, it's going to tell you what you can do for Fedora. And then you get to make the decision. Eric, you get to decide. Do I want to do that for Fedora? So, for example, the first thing that I saw when I landed there is it says design, pixel ninja. Do you identify as a pixel ninja? If you say, that's me, bro, then you click sounds awesome and it'll give you the next steps. If you don't see your So, then you're like, pixel ninja, I use MS Paint and could barely paint a stick man. Okay, next, please. And then it'll say, coding, hacking the Gibson. Do you want to hack the Gibson? Do you feel like that's you? And then you can say, yep, that's me or that's not you. And so it'll walk you through the various different roles that are there. Now, Carl tells us that it's maybe a little out of date and so there's maybe some things that need to be but generally speaking it's still broadly applicable. And so if you don't know what to do, we highly suggest you go to what can I do for fedora.org. Just answer the questions that pop up on your screen and Robert will be your your brother's uncle and you will land a position in Fedora. >> Robert is my brother's uncle. That that explains a lot of things. Well, we'll have to unwrap that after the show. >> Awesome. >> But >> I never mind. >> [laughter] >> So Noah Noah mentioned Carl and the the funny thing is I I've been doing the Fedora podcast off and on since 2020 2021. I forget which year. It all blurs together. I think it was 2021. Um and the funny thing is I haven't joined the Fedora join sig because I'm still trying to learn about the community. I still don't know where to send everyone. And the funny thing is Carl George was our guest in our previous episode. So just 2 weeks ago. >> [laughter] >> And he told us about this and literally if you watch the video version, you can see my eyes just get really big when I pull up the site. Because I hadn't heard of this tool. Yes, some some of the instructions are a little bit dated. So if you're looking for somewhere to contribute and you know kind of how the hub and spoke of all the things work in the Fedora project, that may be somewhere where you can contribute. But like Noah said, most of it and and I've done that thing where you take the quiz 50 times to try and get the celebrity that you want to say that you're most like. And I've I've done that and I haven't made it to Fedora podcast host. So somebody really needs to fix that. But some of the information may be a little bit dated but is really really nice because it gives you at least a ballpark. And more more often than not it'll probably just direct you to a Matrix room anyway. So But it it'll give you some ideas. And it's funny because you know, hacking the Gibson I was like what what what is this what does this mean? But so so playing with some of them >> time out. Tell me you've seen the movie Hackers. >> I have, but not for like 15 years. >> It doesn't matter. It should have made if you watch the movie, it should have made an impact on you to the point that hacking the gifts hack the planet. Really? Oh, man. Okay, it's okay. We'll fix it up here. I I'm going to help you. I'm going to help you. We're going to we're going to do a watch party together, you and I. >> There you go. >> Yeah. >> Should I do that before or after I publish this episode? >> Um I'll tell you what you do. We'll do it after they publish the episode. That way the little like the little like echo echo keystrokes keystrokes that are in there that are completely unrealistic and the graphics of 1990 Never mind. It's just It's just [laughter] It's a great movie. It's I can't You're bringing back nostalgia. I need to stop now. >> Okay, so go sign up for Matrix and then go watch Hackers and then join us in the Fedora podcast room and we'll talk about Hackers. That's That's what I'm hearing. >> Yeah, yes. >> So that brings us to uh a somewhat newer um change in the Fedora community. Uh a lot of places do roundup blogs where it's just basically a link of different a link to different blogs. Some people do social media posts, but what Fedora has started doing is really really cool and it's T W I F, This Week in Fedora. And so basically what it is is just a summation of everything that's been going on. It's a [clears throat] written weekly recap of activity across not just one project team, but all the subteams. Uh things like EPEL, things like uh Cloud SIGs, things like uh the the Fedora uh project community as a whole. It's a really really really good um habit to get into. Gives you a good pulse of what is the project doing. Um and and you don't have to go and and dig through mailing list archives or anything. All that stuff is kind of pulled into This Week in Fedora and it really gives you a nice consolidated place to get some of the top news. It's like It's like skimming the front page of a newspaper. Wait, our audience is fairly young. It's like skimming the the front page of a website and going, I want to learn about that. Oh, that's interesting, but the headline's all I need, or this two-sentence description, that's all I need. That's enough information there, and you move on with your day. Um So, it's at abombard.fedorapeople.org/twif. That is a mouthful, and I'm not even sure how to say that on air. So, this is a perfect time for me to point out the fact that Noah and I spent a lot of time collecting links and um and descriptions for the show notes. So, if you haven't been looking at the show notes >> Yeah, read the documentation for this episode, and we'll have links to all of this stuff. Um so, check out this week in Fedora, because Noah, maybe I shouldn't admit this twice in one episode, but I didn't know this was a thing until about a month ago. >> Here's the thing, the >> Although, I think it's fairly new, so maybe I'm off the hook for that one. >> This, I think it just perfectly exemplifies what we said earlier, that um ignorance serves a a role in that it helps draw attention. I promise you, Eric, there's somebody else listening to this podcast. They're probably eating popcorn right now, and they're like, I did not know that was a thing, either. So, I'm glad I >> you should start watching Hackers. >> And I need to start watching Hackers. Never seen that movie. I don't know what this Acid Burn stuff is about. >> [laughter] >> So, yeah, I I I >> I think that's why I'm a great communicator, cuz most of the time I find out about these things the day before we record a podcast episode. >> It's okay. So, as long as you find out a day before we record the podcast episode, and not a day after we record the podcast episode. >> Yeah, I misplaced my Tardis, so >> [laughter] >> So, I >> [sighs] >> Let's let's bring everything together. >> Let's do it. The funny thing is I always jinx this before an episode. I usually make the same stupid comment. You know what? This might be a shorter episode. It might only be 20 or 30 minutes, but I think that's okay. But no. So first off, sign up for Matrix. If you haven't already, sign up for Matrix. Second of all, watch Hackers wait. That's not the point. That's an important part of the equation. Nobody's going to accept you in Fedora. >> First they're going to start quizzing you about the movie. No, that doesn't happen. I just made that up. >> Oh, so that's that's not a requirement to get into the joint sig? >> No, they don't have to. I mean it it will I will personally judge your character less if you haven't seen the 1995 movie Hackers, but it's okay. You're still welcome. >> [laughter] >> We let Noah in, so you know, we're going to let you in, too. So if you are a total newcomer, here's what I would suggest. Jump into the description. Grab the links. Take a look around. Try out what can I do in Fedora. Look at the most recent issue of this week in Fedora. And just get a feel for what's out there. In fact, I I pitched this last episode as an episode for people that are big fans of the Fedora project to share with people that aren't. That way you have a way to jump in. Yeah, we've been goofy. Yeah, we've been having some fun with at each other's expense, but the whole point is to get involved because like Noah said, this is something I've adopted in my own life that I have friends all over the internet that I just haven't met yet. And so many of them ironically are part of the Fedora community. And I've gotten so in love with this with this group of people that even now when I'm at conferences or something, I'm like, "Hey, yeah, I'd love to connect with you, but maybe connect with me through the Fedora Matrix room because I've got so many other people that I can just immediately connect you with. People that I think you'll really resonate with." Um And so just uh so check out the check out the join sig, check out uh check out a couple of the links in the in the uh in the show notes. And then ping Noah if you have any any problems. >> That's right. Absolutely. And if I can't help you, I'll send you to Eric. Any any any positive things come to me, all the complaints go to him. It's the way we work that out. >> That sounds right. That sounds right. Uh just send those to uh Carl George at fedora.org. >> [laughter] >> That that that's that's my that's my email only for complaints. That >> Right. >> It's a hot list, so not everyone has that email. >> He's going to appreciate that. Yeah. >> I'm going to get an angry message from him on Matrix. But it'll it'll it'll be angry. Now, is there anything about getting involved in the Fedora community that we didn't talk about? >> Do we mention chat.fedoraproject.org? Can't Can't remember if that came up at all. >> Was it was that the Matrix elemental thing? >> Yeah. Eric. Uh but yeah, you'll you'll [laughter] want to go to chat.fedoraproject.org. You'll want to start there. But seriously, connect with us. We would love to We would love to connect with you. We'd like to build a meaningful, long-lasting relationship with you. To do that, we have to be able to talk to you. So, that's your first step. >> For sure. Awesome. Well, that brings us to the episode the end of this quote short episode. Um in 2 weeks, we have an interesting crossover. Uh so just last episode, so if you're watching this in queue just a few minutes ago, we were actually talking to Carl George about Apple extra packages for Enterprise Linux. And I got a few questions about wait, I I've heard of the CentOS thing, but didn't that go away? Wasn't Stream Linux community something or other thing uh when we were talking about Enterprise Linux and the relationship between Fedora and downstream. So, you've got Fedora, you've got CentOS Stream, you've got CentOS uh you've got Rel, then you've got CentOS Linux, which is now retired. And so we've got we've got a few questions about what is that relationship? How does that work? How does Red Hat kind of fit into this whole situation? So, next episode in just a couple of weeks, we're actually going to have a couple of folks on from our friends over at the CentOS project. They're going to talk about what CentOS is, how it relates to Fedora, some of the um some of the joint resources, which by the way, because of Fedora's success, you know what CentOS is using for their primary communications platform now, Noah? >> Mhm. Is I heard Microsoft Teams, right? >> Oh god, I hope not. >> [laughter] >> But they are actually using Matrix. >> Matrix? >> Amazing. So, there is a CentOS space for Matrix rooms. So, join us in 2 weeks for that episode. Uh we'll have we'll have some new guests on. Noah and I will be talking about Fedora project meets CentOS Linux on a really awesome crossover episode of this podcast. In the meantime, make sure you hit that like button. I know it's dumb, but the producer always tells me to say this, so in the time that I was being goofy, you could have hit that little thumbs up button. If you're listening to the audio, head out to your podcast player and please leave a review for the show. The show's audience is growing like crazy, uh but I think we can do more. I think we can reach more people with the awesomeness that is the Fedora project. Not because you like hearing Noah or myself talk. Um I know I do, uh which is why I'm a podcast host. I love listening to myself talk. Actually I'm listening live, but not after the fact. >> [laughter] >> But uh leave a review. That just kind of greases the algorithms. That just soothes the AI overlords to have them show our content to new people. So, leave a review, leave a comment, hit the like button, do the subscribe thing. That way you get notified anytime we create new content. Um just do all the podcast things. Help us make Fedora podcast and the Fedora project bigger and better than it ever has been because things are just looking up. So, Noah, any closing thoughts before we wrap? >> I love you all. I hope to see you on the Matrix side. >> Awesome. Um and don't worry. This This Matrix does not involve shoving a long metal thing up into your skull. So, much less much much less painful. Awesome. Well, thank you all. >> [laughter] >> Why oh why? Anyway, if you haven't seen The Matrix, watch Hackers, then watch Matrix. >> That's right. >> We'll have a big old watch party. Anyway, this has been another thrilling, exciting episode of The Floor podcast. I've been your host, Eric TIIT Guy Hendricks. Joining me today from Ask Noa Fame is Noa Tzelaya, and we will see you all next time. Bye-bye.