Suggestion for Newbie Support
In the ongoing discussion surrounding how to best support newer Debian
Linux users, a couple of comments:
1. For those volunteering to work on various "FAQ" documents. Try to
get your work into the true Debian FAQ's and not some strange offshoot
FAQ only available on the web somewhere. It's going to make Debian that
much better and many more copies of the info will be out there in the
end result.
2. Posting a large FAQ to the list regularly is a bad idea for those who
have to pay for bandwidth. Perhaps an auto-posting every once in a
while with a URL and instructions on where to find the official FAQ's
would be useful, but if someone's done their homework, they'll already
have read the official FAQ info and will remember where they saw the
question answered anyway.
3. The IRC servers available for Debian have EXCELLENT support tools,
including a couple of indispensable infobots named dpkg and apt. Dpkg
helps people look for .deb's in the unstable or stable trees, and apt is
an infobot that has been taught a wealth of things. For example,
sending a message to the apt bot saying "apt, slink->potato?" will get
you info on upgrading from slink to potato. For those that have never
been on IRC, the people there are just as friendly and helpful as the
folks on debian-user. Use irc.debian.org or better yet, one of the
mirrors that's close to you... more info is on the debian Web pages.
4. Bandwidth: Don't copy the entire message inline that you're replying
to! We don't all need to read it again, just clip enough to remind us
of the question and answer it. Simple netiquette.
5. People answering questions should try to use references to on-line
documentation whenever possible. Any person who's got half of this
stuff memorized is doing a disservice to a new person by simply
answering the question without showing that person WHERE to learn it the
next time. (But I'm guilty of this one myself.)
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| Nate Duehr - nate@natetech.com | Support Amateur Radio & Linux! |
| Private Pilot, Telephony Engineer | Ham Callsign: N0NTZ |
| UNIX Hack, Perl Hack, Tech-Freak | Grid Square: DM79 |
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