Best Web Resource For Linux Help? 74
mikeswi asks: "I made the big switch to Linux from Windows about six months ago (SuSe Linux 10.0). Overall, I am very pleased with Linux. Every now and then, I run into a problem that I cannot puzzle out on my own. I am absolutely not a Linux expert and have no idea how to do certain things that expert Linux users take for granted. If a determined Google search turns up nothing, I plead for help at LinuxQuestions and someone there usually does a good job of helping me out. What web sites or other resources do Slashdot readers use, when they run into a Linux problem they can't handle themselves?"
IRC (Score:4, Informative)
Re:IRC (Score:2, Informative)
Re:IRC (Score:2)
Perhaps somehow you got routed to EFnet one day and didn't notice it?
Try asking slackers (Score:2, Interesting)
gentoo forums (Score:5, Informative)
Arch forums (Score:2)
Re:gentoo forums (Score:2)
Specifics (Score:4, Informative)
Here [opensuse.org] is a list of some SUSE resources. It has forums, wikis, mailing lists, USENETs, etc.
Re:Specifics (Score:3, Insightful)
I fully agree with that guy above who posted the starting thread comment on Gentoo - that community rocks - every single question I had was already asked and answered by others except the few which I directly asked and was given answers for, but I don't know if having a lot of questions is necessarily a good or bad thing (?), but the answers were all concise, and
Re:Specifics (Score:2)
As a longtime Gentoo user (4+ years), I have recently decided to test out Ubuntu. The polish is impressive, but the forums definitely have a higher signal-to-noise ratio than the Gentoo forums. This is not a slam on Ubuntu or its users by any means, I think its quite impressive. But in general, I think the Gentoo crowd simply attracts the more hard-core nerd element due to the type of distro it is. T
Re:Specifics (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Specifics (Score:5, Informative)
Start off with distro-specific forums.
Then, if you can't get anything there (and you're sure it's not because you're {being rude|being vague|asking a dumb question|etc.}), try to see if there are forums specific to the product you're having problems with (e.g. KDE, SANE) and ask there. Lastly, if you're still having trouble, see if there's a mailing list.
I say go for the mailing lists last, because I think it's polite if you ask a question on a list, to become a member for a few days and try to get an idea of the personalities involved, and then once you've gotten your question answered to stay on the list for a while and try to give back. That just seems polite.
That said, I've actually gotten much more help from the distro forums than from most mailing lists
I've never used IRC much for support (or at all, really), so I can't say anything about that.
Freenode. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Freenode. (Score:1)
Actually, this is a new way of doing things on freenode from about a year ago or so. Channels with only one # denotes an official channel for the project, where core developers often hang out and help, having project meetings and so on. Examples are #docbook, #svn and #mediawiki. Channels starting with "##" are unofficial channels for a project, used for helping out for this specific software/distro/whatever, for example ##lin
TLDP (Score:4, Informative)
If you want help with smaller tasks I would recommend finding a nice channel on freenode (IRC).
Re:TLDP (Score:4, Informative)
Re:TLDP (Score:1)
How much does it matter if the info is "out of date"? How much really changes with Linux, Posix and Unix style systems anyway? I don't think Linux has really changed a whole lot in the ten years I've been using it. Maybe iptables and direct rendering were added. The internals of X seem to have changed quite a bit, but configuring doesn't seem to be very different...I just can't think of many places in the howtos which would need updating...
Re:TLDP (Score:3, Informative)
I usually spent a while on google and then try a mailing list. When searching, error messages or whole phrases that someone is likely to use when describing a problem tend to pull up worthwhile results.
For mailing lists, cho
you might want to look into... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:A little known resource... (Score:2)
Distro Community (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Distro Community (Score:2)
Agreed. http://ubuntuforums.org/ [ubuntuforums.org] for me.
Check out your distribution's forums. (Score:3, Informative)
That being said, I sometimes find answers on the debian forums for obscure problems.
Re:Check out your distribution's forums. (Score:1)
http://www.debian-administration.org/ [debian-adm...ration.org] is good for all things Debian.
(Disclaimer: I have an article on snort up on there somewhere.)
Ubuntu Forums (Score:1)
Re:Ubuntu Forums (Score:2)
google and friends (Score:2)
Works especially well when I have a brain-fart moment.
Re:google and friends (Score:1)
Re:google and friends (Score:2)
Mailing lists (Score:1)
Value of community (Score:5, Interesting)
I know the submitter uses SuSE, and that's fine, I have no wish to sway people away from their favorite distributions. But Ubuntu is crazy delicious this way. You can post even the most newbie-ish of questions on their forums and almost always someone will help in a friendly manner in a matter of minutes. In fact many times Googling for general Linux problems will turn up solutions from ubuntuforums.org.
I think this is the "thing" that is going to be a big driver of certain distributions in the near future (as if it isn't already). I mean, you can have a distro like Linspire or Xandros where they try hard from a technical standpoint, but there's no community of helpful souls to help you out. What makes OSS go is the gift economy, and one (major) way to give back is to offer friendly technical assistance on the boards. Distros that don't "feel" like they are part of the gift economy are destined to languish. Ubuntu and Fedora seems to have communities like this, even though the vibe of each of their communities is pretty different.
Anyway, on completely different note, I kind of cringed when I saw this topic, because I expect to see a lot trolls posting anecdotes about how someone screamed at them to RTFM, how everyone is sooo hostile, and other such BS. The fact of it is that I have seen the opposite a lot more. For example, a user shows up on the boards, posts a problem involving a very rare digital camera that exeedingly few people have even heard of, and when nobody responds with a 100% solution in under an hour the user starts flaming the community for their "lack of responsiveness to problems."
Re:Value of community (Score:2)
Re:Value of community (Score:2)
Well, I wasn't really trying to hightlight a deficiency, but let's be honest -- the support community you get from Gentoo or Ubuntu or Fedora is insanely better than than what you get with essentially any other distro. I know Xa
some "communities" suck. (Score:1)
Those aren't trolls and that isn't BS. Maybe you haven't seen that behavoir, but I have. The Linux newsgroups on Usenet a few years ago were exactly like that. People would get pissed of because someone asked a question which none of them knew the answer. Then they'd be pissed because someone outside their circle answe
Google (Score:5, Informative)
I'm a full time linux admin, and have rarely, if ever, had Google fail to answer my questions. Best start (if you're getting lots of irrelevant results) is to start with the linux search - http://www.google.com/linux [google.com] - and from there start narrowing your search terms. Sometimes you might need to search some "newbie" sites to figure out what the term you should be using is.. eg. if you're looking for network configuration options scrap the search term "network" and try "eth0" or "ifconfig" or something, use the + and - operators, quote phrases, etc. I'll often run half a dozen searches adding and removing terms until I find what I want. Often the answers lie in forums, etc which google all indexes.. but if you've got a problem there's a 99% chance that someone else already has had the same problem and an answer has been found.
Google's great for full time sysadmins (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem isn't that mikeswi wasn't determined enough in his Googling, the problem is that he does not yet know enough about Linux to have the context needed for effective Googling to solve his Linux problems.
Re:Google's great for full time sysadmins (Score:2)
The post I responded to said:
Google is good. Google is great. When I was teaching computer classes at college I would insist that my students all learn how to use the search engines. But Google is not the one and only answer to all problems. If it were then we could, for example, disband all institutions of higher
Re:Google (Score:3, Informative)
IRC channels are good, but it is kind of like IM - if the devs aren't on you're out of luck.
I think it really depends on the distro. For Ubuntu, there is Ubuntu forums [ubuntuforums.org] for SuSE there are SuSE forums. [suseforums.net] The same goes for Gentoo [gentoo.org], Mepis [mepis.org],
Scot's Newsletter Forums (Score:2)
Use your local LUG (Score:2, Informative)
Find out what Linux User Groups are in your area and ask your question there. In most cases, local LUG groups, <plug type=shameless> like my own Tucson Free Unix Group - http://tfug.org </plug>, are invaluable in providing quick responses and personal experiences for local users. Quite often, your own LUG may even hold periodic meetings at a location near you, so someone more experienced can "lay hands" on the problem if it comes to t
Re:Use your local LUG (Score:1)
Linux, eh? (Score:1)
Re:Linux, eh? (Score:1)
Linux Help (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.justlinux.com/ [justlinux.com]
http://www.yolinux.com/ [yolinux.com]
http://www.pclinuxonline.com/ [pclinuxonline.com]
Some online magazines (I suggest you read the past issues):
http://www.linuxmagazine.com/ [linuxmagazine.com]
http://linuxgazette.net/ [linuxgazette.net]
Enjoy,
Google Linux (Score:3, Informative)
Try Qunu (not only for GNU/Linux help) (Score:4, Interesting)
Now, for the Slashdotters wishing to help (I personally don't yet, since last time I checked it wasn't really finished, but this question reminded me of it, so I may register and help in my spare time -- you decide when you help anyway), you can use your preferred Jabber client, add quser@qunu.com to your roster, and then select your domains of expertise. When you don't want to help, you can simply block the user or change your status (Away, DND, etc). If you want to stop helping completely, just remove the user from your roster (you can actually control user subscription in both ways with Jabber/XMPP, so you can stop when you want).
Qunu is a great idea, so if you have some time to waste (I mean, we're on Slashdot, right, so we do
suse help (Score:1)
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=suse+help&btn
The Ubuntu Forums (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The Ubuntu Forums (Score:1)
Very true. However, often the quick, polite answers one receives are ones that some may consider worthy of "beeing called an ignorant" response. Responses such as: "Ubuntu Forums are a wonderful resource" for help with SuSE Linux, for example. I speculate that it's because you can pay
Re:The Ubuntu Forums (Score:2)
Re:The Ubuntu Forums (Score:1)
What's needed is a linux help site aggregator that gives you a
Linux Help (Score:3, Informative)
If you can't find what you're looking for there, you can always head over to irc.freenode.net. The #suse and #opensuse channels will be of particular interest to you. You may find #kde helpful for KDE applications. ##linux is basically a catch-all channel; we'll generally be able to field just about any question you throw at us there. If we can't, we will point you in the right direction.
Keeping up with the FOSS news can also teach you quite a bit. You already know about Slashdot. http://osnews.com/ [osnews.com] is another very nice resource. http://www.kerneltrap.org/ [kerneltrap.org] is a less frequently updated site which can provide you with more advanced information. Keeping an eye on http://www.freshmeat.net/ [freshmeat.net] can help you get a better feel for the various software available for Linux. And of course, with gmail you can setup alerts for Linux, KDE, etc.
If you really want to learn more about Linux, there's no better way than distro hopping. Go to http://www.vmware.com/ [vmware.com] and download their free VMWare Server 1.0 to allow you to try out various distros without having to wipe your hard drive. This does, however, require you have a decent amount of RAM (I'd recommend at least 1 GB). Go to http://www.distrowatch.com/ [distrowatch.com] for a fairly complete list of the available Linux distros, sorted by popularity.
If all these links really don't solve your problems, take yourself over to your best local bookstore and buy a book or two. The drawback of doing this, however, is that most of them will be pretty much out of date by the time they hit the shelves. On the other hand, they will give you a great foundation upon which you can build (update yourself) easily by utilizing the online resources.
Also, never forget about http://www.google.com/linux [google.com]!
gmane (Score:2)
Try www.experts-exchange.com (Score:2, Informative)
I decided to subscribe figuring that I would cancel it once I fixed this one problem. Turns out that I use it a couple of
Re:Try www.experts-exchange.com (Score:1)
Just sscroll down the page far enough!
Screw Linux, what's a good UNIX site? (Score:1)
Re:Screw Linux, what's a good UNIX site? (Score:2)
Re:Screw Linux, what's a good UNIX site? (Score:1)
NOT manpages.com (Score:2)
IRC Channels (Score:2)
linuxforums? (Score:1)
Parallelize IRC and man/docs/Google (Score:2)
WHILE waiting for answers/flames read man pages/docs or google, and also the Google Groups. How to balance you problem solving between "official" docs of the SW at h
Slashdot (Score:3, Funny)
Documentation! (Score:1)
Thanks everyone! (Score:2)
A few weeks ago there was one article here that linked to three useful books for learning linux, and I'd just like to link to that for anyone else interested:
http://linuxboxadmin.com/articles/first3.php [linuxboxadmin.com]
I picked up Linux: Rute User's Tutorial and Exposition and I have to say i
search everywhere (Score:1)