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.

Re:IRC

[paulmer2003]

Or, feel free to drop by #linux @ irc.rizon.net. Freenode is bad if you dont mind me saying, very high strung...They seem to enjoy yelling RTFM at people..

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

[Jtoxification]

You hit the nail on the head, bud. The discussion forum for whatever distro you use should always be the number one starting resource.


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 worked flawlessly. Waiting for things to compile before first use is a necessary evil when you know that all the software you use is optimized specifically to your machine. [/End long and boring Gentoo hype]

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.

Re:Specifics

[wierzpio]

not be too picky, but if forums "have a higher signal-to-noise ratio", then that should be better, right? I mean: more signal and/or less noise...

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.

Re:TLDP

[munpfazy]

Yup. TLDP is a great resource, especially for broad overview questions or cases where one starts off without enough keywords to make a meaningful search. Some information is old, but everything is dated, so it's usually relatively easy to stay clear of dangerously misleading material.

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, choosing the most specific mailing list possible is always a good idea. Sending mail to some generic linux list with a detailed question about some specific software package isn't likely to get you anywhere. Local user groups are a decent place to ask a question when you haven't enough information to know which specific list is appropriate.

For someone brand new to linux, starting out with a fairly brief overview of linux or unix-like OS's in general isn't a bad idea. The Slackware Book works rather nicely as a free option, even if you aren't a slackware fan. (But then, I am - so my judgment may be questionable.) http://www.slackbook.org/

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.

Check out your distribution's forums.

[MMC Monster]

I'm a Ubuntu person myself, and feel that the Ubuntu forums are excellent.

That being said, I sometimes find answers on the debian forums for obscure problems.

Value of community

[Wylfing]

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."

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.

Re:Google

[jambarama]

I like google groups better than the google linux search, but I don't think either are the best sites. IMHO any site that purports to have all answers to all linux questions isn't going to do very well with any semi-complex question. They just can't have the know-how.

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 for SuSE there are SuSE forums. The same goes for Gentoo, Mepis, Debian, Redhat, Fedora or any other distro out there. The larger projects also have their own forums.

Getting as specific a location as you can will help (e.g. the google group on Debian is better than the one on Linux users for Debian problems). That is why IRC is great when you have a reasonably well-researched and specific question. Before you ask a dev (who may be working on fixing the problem, or may have already fixed it, or may be plagued by the same question over and over again) please read how to ask a question properly. That way you are maximizing the chance that you get the right answer, people won't get mad at you, and you won't be wasting anyone else's time.

Use your local LUG

[choprboy]

"What web sites or other resources do Slashdot readers use..."

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 that.

Google's great for full time sysadmins

[DrJimbo]

You provided some great Googling tips but I don't think Google is the answer for a Linux newbie.

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.

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,

Google Linux

[Rydia]

Lots of people I know try google but don't realize that Google has a linux site-only engine, which is a huge asset, even over normal google search. Very helpful when looking for an application or the official site of a package you're working on getting running.

Try Qunu (not only for GNU/Linux help)

[A.K.A_Magnet]

You should have a look at Qunu. It's a quite new Jabber/XMPP-based service. You go to the ["AJAX"/"Web2.0"/super high-tech] website, select/search a topic (Linux, Apache, Website, Ubuntu, Suse, networking, etc.. it doesn't have to be technical but the site is quite new so I doubt you'll find help for other domains); you'll get a list of experts (ie: people who have registered themselves as experts, you can adjust with multiple domains, eg expert in both Linux and GTK). Qunu supports other languages too. Once you've chosen an expert, you can ask your question, and hope for an answer (but if the expert is on the list, he should be available and answer in a timely manner). It's just like getting help on IRC, except that thanks to some Jabber/XMPP magic you go directly to the point (no need for a client other than your web browser, no need to know where to go, etc).

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 ;)), or if you're fed up with helping on IRC (and people asking if they can ask and not asking the fucking question), you should give it a try.

The Ubuntu Forums

[r_benchley]

The Ubuntu Forums are a wonderful resource. Instead of beeing called an ingnorant newbie, people with questions get quick, polite answers. Very little of the arrogant, elitist attitude that pops up in so many Linux forums.

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!

Try www.experts-exchange.com

[Nile]

I have been "in the industry" for about 12 years now and opened my own computer support company about 2 years ago. Early on I came across the site http://www.experts-exchange.com/ . I found it in a google search for some wacky problem on a client's computer that I hadn't seen before. I could see the question, but the answer...for that I had to take out a $9.95 per month subscription.

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 times a month to find the answer to some obscure problem in just about any area from Programming to Desktop tweaks and Linux to MS Exchange Server.

For me it's well worth the money because I'm the guy they call when no one else can fix a problem. It might not make sense for a regular user who has an occasional question with an easy answer to pay the fee...but if your time is worth a lot to you, I'll say you can find just any piece of information on the site.

Try asking slackers

[kuitang]

Especially the ##slackware channel. People who use bare-bones distros are generally more knowledgeable about Linux (myself included). They frequently help people from other distros, even Ubuntu, though you should probably not bring your n00b questions there.

Slashdot

[Doug Neal]

Just submit your Linux questions as more Ask Slashdot articles. Duh.