As the title says, is there a way?

your name in linux, or your name in the forum?


to change your linux name, edit /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow

In the forum.

email jeremy with a good reason.

A very good reason indeed.

Just to add some context, there are several reasons why changing an LQ nickname is only done on an infrequent/exceptional basis:

a. Your nickname was your own choice, so there's no real reason for a "do over"

b. In a public forum such as LQ, your fellow LQ'ers will recognize you by your nickname (whatever it might be) and if you change it, nobody will know that you previously were using some other nick. Why disconnect yourself from the goodwill you've already built up in the past

c. I don't think most folks at LQ really care what anyone else's nickname might be. (I mean, c'mon, look around at some of the crazy nicks people have selected Instead, people do care about whatever helpful hints/tips/advice you can offer in your posts

d. With over 300K registered members, even if only 1 in 1000 members requested a name change per month, that's 300 per month or 10 per day. That adds up, and worse yet, any time spent by the site admin on changing nicknames is time taken away from working on LQ itself

e. Changing nicknames disrupts forum continuity. Just like going to your favorite coffee-shop, restaurant, pub, cafe, bar, or whatever, it's nice to 'see' a few familiar faces, particularly if it's a place you like to hang out yourself. Obviously that's not a perfect analog for an online forum, but you do get a sense for someone's personality after seeing a certain number of their posts, and one of LQ's strengths (IMHO) is that it has so many long time members that you feel you kind of actually know them, even if you haven't actually met them in real life. That sense of community is (IMHO) one of LQ's main strengths, and helps make LQ what it is

In any case, and as noted before, if there is a compelling reason you wish to change your nickname, feel free to contact the site admin explaining why you'd like the change to be made. To my knowledge I don't know that there are any formulas or guidelines that determine whether a request will be made or not, and AFAIK each request is handled on a case by case basis

[edit] added spacing[/edit]

Care to share what you would prefer & why?

As a matter of fact, in my case -- literally a matter of fact -- I made a factual error in my choice of number. I checked my facts & Jeremy was kind enough to fix my mistake when I explained it.

This probably was between my 1st & 2nd posts.