Best Web Resource For Linux Help?

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?"

Comments

IRC

[CrazyJim1]

Freenode on IRC holds a wide variety of tech channels that you can ask questions on.

gentoo forums

[jdmicklos]

Although this is specific to the Gentoo Linux Distribution, Gentoo has fantastic forums. Gentoo I hope that helps.

Specifics

[tonyr1988]

Look for resources that pertain to your specific distro. As an Ubuntu user, I use the official Ubuntu forums, and it works beautifully.

Here is a list of some SUSE resources. It has forums, wikis, mailing lists, USENETs, etc.

Re:Specifics

[Kadin2048]

Yeah I'll second (third, fourth?) that as well.

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 ... although I can't tell whether this is because the lists are actually less helpful than the forums, or if it's just because since I never go to mailinglists except as a last resort, the problems I ask there are generally much more complicated, and more often that that just stump everyone. But I'd say about 75% of the questions I've ever posted to mailing lists have gone totally unanswered and are currently unsolved, while only a very small percentage of the questions I've posted to forums like UbuntuForums or KDE-Forum are.

I've never used IRC much for support (or at all, really), so I can't say anything about that.

Freenode.

[dcapel]

Get an IRC client and connect to irc.freenode.net:6667. There are a zillion channels on it, so you might feel a little lost, but few to start on would be ##linuxhelp, #suse,##kde/##gnome. Note: ## instead of # for channels means that it is a help or 'about' channel.

TLDP

[lillgud]

The Linux Documentation Project is a really great site with loads of HOWTO's and guides. Really worth checking out if you have a relatively big task to do (eg. setting up a mailserver or such).

If you want help with smaller tasks I would recommend finding a nice channel on freenode (IRC).

Re:TLDP

[bcrowell]

You have to watch out, though, because a lot of the stuff on LDP is extremely out of date. The good thing about using the forums and/or wiki for your own distro is that you're more likely to get up-to-date information, and it's also likely to be accurate for your distro.

Distro Community

[PAPPP]

To me the quality of the community, especially as shown by a distro's Wiki/Forum/IRC Channel is a big determinant in the desirability of the distro. I've been using ArchLinux for years, and one of it's strongest suits is its knowledgeable and within reason, patient and helpful community (along with great package management). If a quick search of the forums and wiki fail to answer your questions, someone on the IRC channel probably can; sometimes I leave the channel up in the background just to learn tricks from the more knowledgeable people hanging around. Keeping an eye on a good distro community can teach you all sorts of useful things. Also, never rule out a simple google search, if you are having a problem, there is a good chance someone else has had it too, so learn from their experience.

Google

[kronsrepus]

You say a determined google search turns up nothing? My guess is then that you're not determined enough!!

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 - 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.

Linux Help

[NullProg]

I still run SuSE 9.2. You already know about LinuxQuestions.org. If your ready try these links:

http://www.justlinux.com/
http://www.yolinux.com/
http://www.pclinuxonline.com/

Some online magazines (I suggest you read the past issues):

http://www.linuxmagazine.com/
http://linuxgazette.net/

Enjoy,

Linux Help

[solid_liq]

There are many good resources on the web. The standard resource is The Linux Documentation Project, or http://www.tldp.org/. Another site, which is much better than it used to be, is http://www.linux.com/. http://www.linuxjournal.com/ has many great articles to guide you through a wide variety of small projects. A great newer site with helpful articles is http://www.howtoforge.com/. For help on the desktop side, http://www.desktoplinux.com/ has many articles you may find of use. Documentation and information about KDE is, of course, available at http://www.kde.org/ and it's affiliated sites (linked from their homepage). IBM is always putting up new articles at http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/ that can provide usefull information for development work under Linux. You may also find the articles on http://www.debian.org/, http://www.gentoo.org/, and http://www.ubuntulinux.org/ usefull even though the articles were written for other distros.

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/ is another very nice resource. http://www.kerneltrap.org/ is a less frequently updated site which can provide you with more advanced information. Keeping an eye on http://www.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/ 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/ 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!