Welcome to the 2012 LinuxQuestions.org Members Choice Awards. The categories have been chosen, the nominees have been posted and I'm happy to announce that the polls are now open. To vote, visit http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ce-awards-104/ and select your entry in each category. If you have any suggestions for additions or modifications to poll nominees, please post in the thread for the poll in question. Any general suggestions should be posted in this thread.

A couple comments:

* We do realize that some polls have nominees that are not directly comparable. There are already over 30 polls. If we got down to the granularity some members would like to see, there would be 100's if not 1000's of polls. That would be a net decline in the usefulness of the awards IMHO. We try to strike the best balance we can, and do modify the polls and nominees every year, based on feedback. If you have any suggestions on how the polls can be improved, do let us know.

* There are no set in stone guidelines for voting. Our recommendation is to base your vote on which application you found most valuable to you in 2012, along with which project you feel made the largest improvements in 2012. That being said, in the end the criteria is up to you.

* Posting a comment is optional, but do be aware that for your vote to count you have to select an option and click the "Vote Now" button (regardless of whether you have left a comment or not).

* You must have at least one post to be able to vote.

* All polls will close on February 4th at 12PM LQST.

Congratulations to all nominees and good luck!

--jeremy

Another year, another Members Choice awards!

One of my fav activities here at LQ, and certainly one that I look forward to reviewing each year after it closes!

Kindest regards,

.

This is really interesting. I love this and this my 2nd time and I can't believe 1 year has passed so soon.

always a joy.


i posted the link to the awards on an irc channel, and someone whom i'm getting the impression loves to be negative asked "what's the point?". so i responded with:that middle reason, is the most valuable. this is my #1 source for discovering new software.

i started using zathura, ranger, darktable, and many others from these awards, and would not likely have learned of them otherwise. many more gems, left untried, undiscovered.

It's awfully hard to give this poll ANY credibility when, for example, the category window manager doesn't even include kde as an option.

KDE isn't a window manager, it's a desktop environment; which has its own dedicated category.

--jeremy

Kinda embarrassing when take your left foot out of your mouth and put your right foot in coz you foopah'd like that in public, huh?

KDE is in this poll HERE

Not only that, but the very first post of the thread containing the poll you blurted out about says:

You must have just missed it though. It's not like you were looking to potty mouth the effort Jeremy makes each year to bring us our "Members Choice Awards".

And with that having been said, "Thanks for all the effort Jeremy!



Kindest regards,

.

Will be interesting to see who wins.

Where are the results from the polls?

After voting, it tells you

Apparently I have to post something to vote. First time back and active here since about 2006, and already it's do this, do that? :P

I would've been more active over the years, but you know how it is, I have a brother in politics.

Er, ok, uh....I have DID and an alternate personality was in control of my body?

Couldn't have been cuz I was using Windows....

Whatever....keep up the great work guys, and may the slack be with you .

Hey Jeremy you forgot one poll. " Linux forum of the year."

As I wrote elsewhere, I would like to propose two new categories for next year:

- The 'Backup Application of the Year' category should include the likes of SpiderOak and Dropbox, which are automatic backup and syncing utilities. Else, I would suggest adding a new category 'Automatic Backup & File Sync Application of the Year' that would include SpiderOak, Dropbox, Syncany, etc. These are important and popular software programs.

- I would also suggest to add a 'Scientific/Statistical Package of the Year' category that would include R, Maxima (wxMaxima), Octave, Sage, PSPP, gretl, etc. This would imply removing R from 'Programming Language of the Year'.

"Game Distribution Service of the Year" might be an interesting category for next year. The contenders would include Steam, Desura, Humble, Gameolith, TuxGames, and possibly others.

This is NOT a criticism of the poll categories, but one of the coolest things I use to convince non-linux users to "give it a try" are the various turn-key Linux offerings around the place.

Admittedly I don't think I have a wide breadth of experience here (despite 25+ years in IT and 15+ years with Linux - my first "real" exposure being embedded cross development with Red-Hat 5.1), I come from the "if it aint broke, don't fix it" school, but TurnKey Linux must surely deserve a mention somewhere (my apologies if it does already in a category I haven't found yet).

Booting from a live-cd/dvd (no, your precious Windows system won't be affected) or better still, installing into a VM or bare-metal environment, and having a completely functional web-server, DB server, CMS, e-commerce, domain controller, Amazon dev environment, etc. etc. ...) installed and running in literally 15 minutes or less just blows the MS addicts away.

Have a look at http://www.turnkeylinux.org and see for yourself.

On the security front (and also a turn-key system if you want), the work done by Doug Burks (and others) in putting together a complete IDS system like Security Onion is just astounding. I use this both at home and at work (where it got us past the PCI-DSS compliant line) and can't fault the latest version.

See it at http://securityonion.blogspot.com.au/

DISCLAIMER: I don't work for, or have any affiliation with (other than admiration for) either TurnKey Linux or Security Onion, but rather am a senior lone-voice in a MS development and hosting shop.