Fedora Magazine is always looking for content to publish from the Fedora Community as well as from Fedora Project. This content comes from the community members like you. I’d like to begin with how I got started writing for Fedora Magazine, highlighting the community interaction that led to it, and finishing with my thoughts on the results. Also, the content itself, what is it Fedora Magazine is looking for specifically? What steps does a community member need to take to contribute? What is the process that an article follows?
How I started writing for Fedora Magazine
On the 30th of July, 2018 Fedora Magazine published an article Clement Verna wrote about using VS Code for Python projects on Fedora https://fedoramagazine.org/vscode-python-howto/. I took exception to using a MS IDE for developing on Fedora Linux. I noted that there were readily available FOSS alternatives without having to resort to sullying your Fedora Linux installation. Clement merely replied with “Well write an article for the magazine about one or all of them”. How can you argue with that logic? I turned to Adam Samalik to help getting set up as a writer for Fedora Magazine. Paul Frields, and Ben Cotton were there whenever I had, well, pretty much any question regarding how to do … whatever with an article or with WordPress. With this type of help and community support, you know it can’t go wrong.
So I wrote my first article for Fedora Magazine, and it was published on February 18, 2019 https://fedoramagazine.org/building-flatpak-apps-in-gnome-builder-on-fedora-silverblue/. Since that first post, I realized that because of the community members I was supported by, it only takes a bit of time and effort to write a fairly interesting article. It also, coincidentally, takes the same effort and time to write a not so interesting post. For instance, like this one I tried for Awk https://fedoramagazine.org/awk-utility-in-fedora/. I really should have left that for someone with better knowledge in daily use of Awk. Oh well live and learn.
Writing for Fedora Magazine led to me becoming an Editor as well. Both roles are very rewarding for me as ways to contribute to the project and community regularly. I strongly encourage other community members who may be hesitant about where they can contribute, to take a look at writing for Fedora Magazine as a way to begin your contribution journey. I can honestly guarantee you will learn something along the way and have a bit of fun doing it.
What gets published?
The Fedora Magazine content that does get published is the result of direct input of ideas from the community about topics of interest to the community, or portions of it anyways. When deciding on what content makes it onto the magazine site, Editors take a number of things into consideration. We begin with the Fedora Magazine general content guidelines found at https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora-magazine.
In particular the following …
The content of the magazine varies, but mostly includes:
- General Announcements / News
- Tips on how to use software in Fedora
- Ideas for cool apps to try
- Ways to more effectively develop software using Fedora
- DIY hardware projects you can power with Fedora
- … And everything else related to Fedora in general!
And there is of course the Fedora discussion area at https://discussion.fedoraproject.org. This is where articles get proposed in the Magazine category, and the ideas get discussed openly in the community. This will often result in dynamic discussion around the article proposal, even after the article has published! Lastly, there is content that Fedora Magazine will never publish, like any article that would breach Fedora Communities Code of Conduct, or couldn’t comply with Fedora Magazines Terms and Conditions.
Where to start?
Those are some pretty good reasons to start writing for Fedora Magazine right? To get started, you need to get access. For that you need a Fedora Account gotten from https://accounts.fedoraproject.org/#register. Then, you need to sign into Fedora Magazine’s WordPress Dashboard using that Fedora Account. Fedora Magazine tracks the articles through the various workflow stages using the project Taiga, so you must sign in there with your Fedora Account so an Editor can grant you writer access to the Fedora Magazine project. Finally you go to the Fedora Discussion Forum, Fedora Magazine Topic and join the conversation.
For ideas, if you don’t have an article in mind already, a good strategy is to review the Article Spec column on the Fedora Magazine Taiga Board. The articles listed in that column are already approved. Don’t be afraid to ask if you find one that you wish to follow up with, but it is already assigned to someone else. This is a community effort. Articles in the Spec column are not actively being worked on. Maybe that writer would like some help to move the article along, or just doesn’t have the time right now.
What to expect from the Editors
US English is the grammar and spelling guideline for articles Fedora Magazine publishes. The assigned Editor would normally help you comply with these. But if they involve more than simple spelling or grammar changes, the Editor would contact the writer to work together in getting the article ready to publish. The magazine is very much a team effort.
There are times when a writer has a particular feature image for the article in mind for their article. That is definitely welcome. The guideline for creating images for Fedora Magazine are available at https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora-magazine/creating-an-image/. If you’re not as comfortable working with images, the Editors will take care of it.
For discussion of the article during the various pre-publication creation stages (Spec, In Progress, In Review, Edit, Scheduled, Published) the Editors like to use the Taiga card comments, if it is something technical about the article. After publishing, general discussion and comments should happen in both the Fedora Magazine discussion topic area, and also the article comment section.
What are you waiting for?
Now aren’t you just dying to contribute to the Community with an interesting article for the Fedora Magazine? Come on and join the team!
Henry Delgado
Si. pero en español.
Stephen Snow
I’m sorry that there are no plans for other language writing for Fedora Magazine. There has been some discussion I believe about translating it though, but I am unaware of the progress with it or indeed if any has been made.
José Miguel Morales
Sería interesante que aceptaran esta propuesta, a pesar de buscar siempre ayuda sería fantástico encontrarla aquí de primera mano y no tener que escarbar en blogs y en lugares alternativos, créanme en sumamente tedioso y poco amigable para fedora y cualquier otra distro.
Stephen Snow
So, do I take from this that you are thinking of volunteering for translating? Seriously though, here is a topic about it at discussion.fp.o https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/support-articles-in-a-variety-of-languages/27372/2
Raoul Mengis
OUI mais en Français
Stephen Snow
Hello Raoul,
As a person who lives in an official bilingual country, I am embarrassed to say we do not publish in any other language than US English. Although I can understand the logic. Logistically speaking, there would need to be a multi-lingual editorial board in order to satisfy the requirements, but it wouldn’t stop there. The Fedora Magazine effort is completely community driven. AFAIK, at this time there are only community members actively writing for us. So the most efficient and logical progress towards getting a multi-lingual magazine is to continue to publish in EngUS but translate to other language formats. We need community involvement for that and it is a good topic to bring up at our magazine discussion forum on Discord
Volterian
It is fortunate that there is a lingua franca of the internet…and FOSS (free open source).
English is not the best, but de facto it is what we have, still better than none !
Just make sure that auto-translation using FOSS or at least corporate remains usable.
A polyglot internet would be nice indeed….
Stephen Snow
Indeed
Krisztian
hello, I would like to try to write one article, but I’m not sure about the topic.. I’d rather read around the magasine for a while, and then see….
Stephen Snow
Certainly take your time to get comfortable with the topic you choose. Follow the links I posted in the article for the Article Spec where you will find proposals which have already been approved. Also the comments on the discussion.fp.o magazine topic can bring article ideas out from the community.
Ralf
I recently tried to install VirtualBox. The installation needs some adjustments for the boot loader. The code needs to be signed to get the kernel module loaded. For KVM, “virt-host-validate” does not work, and I believe I would have a couple of questions regarding containers and the more or less deprecated docker engine. My last statement in not right, but I would have a couple of questions to get started with docker or similar container workloads without such huge Kubernetes environmental setups.
Not sure if that’s a topic you are interested in, but I would say: A topic for a magazine article. Haven’t checked if articles for that already do exist, but the topic is huge and my desk is full of books with that topic, but I don’t find the time to read it all, since I’m busy with the kernel stuff that I’m trying to get familiar with.
Stephen Snow
There are articles on using Podman and Buildah and to a lesser extent Skopeo on the magazine site just search for either or all. I use containers regularly including toolbox, but not exclusively it, and I don’t use Kubernetes or Docker. Besides, if I wanted to have a kubernetes experience with Silverblue or Workstation for that matter, I’d use minishift or openshift. plus there’s also K3S which I have used.
Ralf
Thanks for the update. Im currently waiting for this 1 node OpenShift deployment option: https://www.openshift.com/learn/whats-new (I believe it was mentioned here)
Probably, nightly builds are already available. I haven’t checked.
Have a nice weekend!!
Ralf
Nice article Stephen, I assume it has all the things you need to know become a writer. Very interesting.
Unfortunately, not the best timing, since it’s getting summer and I’m personally so happy when I can turn-off all my machines and can enjoy the summer without too much electronic gadgets in my pocket.
I have quite a few ideas that are worth to be pressed into a suitable format, but the heat is unbearable and I find it difficult to think straight ahead at the moment.
Thanks anyways! As always, a very motivating contribution from you. Let’s see!
Stephen Snow
Hello Ralf,
I totally understand and can sympathize with what you say about the heat. This week has been cooler, thankfully. Yes, timing is everything and this article is one I was supposed to get together for ohhh about a month ago. I am happy it motivates, that was my intent, and keep your ideas coming!
Ralf
Thanks. Regarding the topic of translations: That is always possible. I’m using mainstream tools if needed, but I realized that you almost always need to adjust the translations a little bit so that the audience understands a point that wasn’t translated very well. One can do that in between. I can help here directely without start-up time.
What tools are available for translating into other languages?
My mother tongue is the German language.
Stephen Snow
Hello Ralf,
We should continue this at either libera.chat/#fedora-magazine (please be patient for my responses there, it’s nice out today). Or at discussion.fedoraproject.org magazine topic and start or use a topic about translating the magazine content
Matt
I think you missed a big key point here. Why would I bother writing for fedora magazine?
Gregory Bartholomew
I would say that the primary motive for writing for Fedora Magazine should be the same as the goal/mission of the Fedora Project itself. As stated on Fedora’s Mission and Foundations, that goal is to “advance free software”.
Matt
That is a fair enough answer, and the one I expected. I feel as though it should be mentioned in the article, which is a plea to encourage people to write for the magazine. Right now from the article it seems like the answer is, “because we asked nicely.”
Stephen Snow
Well, you brought it out of us through conversation which is also good. Thank you for the perspective.
Vitor
I would love to, although I am a writer, my specialty is Additive Manufacturing. So any topics about that, translation from Portuguese you guys can contact me, and I can make an article!
Gregory Bartholomew
Hi Vitor:
If you use free and open-source software that runs on Fedora Linux to do your Additive Manufacturing, then an article about it would be OK for the Fedora Magazine.
Posso traduzir do Português (apenas raramente, não muito).
Stephen Snow
I would like to read any article about using one or more FOSS projects to provide an additive mfg. solution. I mean as a Solution Provider myself, I am keenly interested in this area of technology.
Ralf Seidenschwang
I’m not pretty sure if I know what additive manufacturing stands for, or what it means?
Stephen Snow
Think industrial scale 3D printing, etc…
Gregory Bartholomew
Hi Vitor. The Fedora Magazine editors have discussed the possibility of translating articles from contributors and we’ve decided not to try to do this. Sorry. You can still attempt to do the translation yourself and submit in English.
Thanks.
Don Diego
Nice to know, I just registered, and I would love to start writing some articles soon. Even though, my native language is Spanish.
Stephen Snow
Welcome aboard! Looking forward to your posts.
Jay
Thank you for a really inspiring article. I’ve always considered writing a Linux-related blog or doing something similar, but I genuinely never felt that my level of experience (about 12 years) was sufficient to speak with any authority in the space.
I recently made the switch back to Fedora after having some serious internal conflicts regarding the lack of adoption of Gnome 40 by distros that would normally ship the newest Gnome during this release cycle – namely Ubuntu and Pop_OS. As such, I’ve developed some much stronger opinions regarding the state of Linux and open source in general, and I’ve also gained a new appreciation for the Fedora Project. I’m definitely going to jump into the links you’ve provided, and see if I can find a topic to write about.
Stephen Snow
Great, just let us know when you’re ready to start.
Ralf Seidenschwang
I’ve currently installed Ubuntu as a guest on a Fedora 33 host. Works perfectly fine. I’m currently using VirtualBox. For embedded systems or IoT, SOC devices, Ubuntu is very prominent. I certainly prefer Fedora over Ubuntu, but sometimes I do not have an option.
Parm Lehal
I feel the same pain…and wonder why Fedora is lagging behind.
Ralf Seidenschwang
Probably the Core for RHEL and Fedora is more in direction of server deployments, but considering the fact that nearly every device on the planet…
Happy weekend!
Zlatko
Hello,
Can you give a rough average on the time required? First, I mean the time invested directly writing, editing, coordinating etc, but also the total time from getting an idea to that board to actually getting it published?
I know it will vary in orders of magnitude, but maybe you have a rough idea on how long these things take.
Stephen Snow
Depends on content/topic. Some very in depth technical topics can sometimes only be done properly in a series of posts. While others can be put together in a day or less. The first article I wrote that I mention above took me about 15 minutes to test out with Gnome Builder, and two days to write. The biggest roadblock for me anyways, when thinking of time suck, would be actually starting the writing due to conceptualizing. As far as Editing/Publishing cycle, that is fairly quick once the post is ready for review, but for sake of pinning a time frame down let’s say optimally a post would get published the following week after it is in review. The other bits, WRT getting access can usually be done in a day. All the while writing can be done locally and pasted into WP after.
Danny Berne
I’d be writing about the two floppies I had to use to get open BSD to load. Now I need a 64 bit processor, with multiple hundreds of gigabytes of disk space (that is hundreds of billions of bytes) and billions just to put it in ram. We didn’t use the entire world supply of ram to open a browser to stalk our high school sweetheart’s dog, over the internet. (We did it the old fashioned way, through a dirty fence, and using binoculars stolen from our parents. I honestly don’t see a difference between the two.) These kids these days write “code” with that python business. How does the compiler know where the end of a line is? Why can’t I write a for statement? Why can’t I use curly braces? Just to write a bloated, inefficient “app” that is mostly stolen code.
Back in my day, a byte meant something. If you couldn’t fit your binary on 1.44 megabytes, you were crap. That is how I knew windows was crap…15 disks later.
This bloat is called bloat because inflation doesn’t do it justice. I’ll show you bloat, I’ll start by defining a kilobyte by the proper 1024. How is that confusing? How much is a page now? What is happening?
I totally forgot where I was going. I’m going to go back to streaming old “America’s funniest videos” on amazon because I can’t get the new opengl to work on my 15 year old computer so I can load YouTube on Chrome. But that’s okay because I only have 4 gb of ram and I don’t want to give google the pleasure of my ire.
Eric Nicholls
There’s no such thing as US English… There’s English and there are mistakes. As a Canadian loyalist, I refuse to commit spelling errors intentionally.
Stephen Snow
Well, actually there is. I’m as Canadian as the next one, and have difficulty not adhering to the spelling and grammar I was taught was correct. But it doesn’t change the fact that US English is a standard version of the English language. Maybe not the Queens English, but it works.
Norman Fuehner
I have been using Linux for severial years now and just love it, but the different types of material it is hard cause I did not have Linux in college!
So I have a lot to learn and Fedora is a great Operating System!
Ralf Seidenschwang
An easy to deploy local knowledge base with a well structured search engine would be very helpful. It’s on my to-do-list, like many other things.
xigua
Fedora works very well, I am from China, I can’t understand your discussion, but I support you from another place
Phoenix
To inspire those not having writer’s block and knowledge about this topic, I would love to see an article on how one can set up a Linux/gaming machine using KVM/IOMMU passthrough and the likes. This would potentially include hardware requirements as certain processors (and potentially mainboards) would simply fail to work due to PCI grouping and other conflicts.
The articles I found so far are mostly written for Ubuntu and are not easily converted to RPM-Linux like Fedora (the system I like and use), and are 5+ years old while technology moved on (processors mentioned in those guides do no longer exist and it becomes difficult to find the current successor).
Many Linux enthusiasts, including myself, would love to see to run games directly on Linux rather than resorting to a dual boot system with Windows taking up an entire disk on its own, but sadly, most games, even if they support Linux, have an abysmally bad performance when comparing the same game on the same machine in Windows. Likewise, since Fedora nowadays installs in 64-bit packages, I do not want to soil the system with a host of 32-bit components coming from Wine (Steam at least can be found as Flatpak and by that is somewhat separated, even though not the most stable).
Anton
why comments were closed under your first article about flatpack?
Stephen Snow
We close comments on an article shortly after publishing normally. I think it is an automatic function. Besides, that article would be outdated now as the relevant technology has advanced.
Eric Yeoh
VSCodium should do nicely rather than VS Code – but since I do scripting mostly nano or vim will do nicely. To each their own I say (I don’t need to like what others do – but it’s their right as long as they don’t hurt others) – Fedora is about allowing people to have freedom the freedom from lock-ins and to choose – both things I am very appreciative of.
Nildo
I would like to know if I am writing articles for the magazine besides the English language, the Portuguese language of Brazil, could both publications be released?
Gregory Bartholomew
Hi Nildo. We haven’t done that before. But I’ve forwarded your question to the Fedora Project Leader and the community:
Link: Fedora Magazine Posts in Multiple Languages?
Gregory Bartholomew
Hi Nildo. The Fedora Magazine editors have discussed the possibility of translating articles from contributors and we’ve decided not to try to do this. Sorry. You can still attempt to do the translation yourself and submit in English.
Thanks.
Ralf
Except for german authorities, english is actually required everywhere and has established itself as one of the most widely used languages especially in the field of science and technology.
I fully agree with the decision.
alberto.patino
Thanks! I’ve submitted my first proposal!