Re: locale errors
Chris Metzler wrote:
On Thu, 25 Mar 2004 14:42:01 -0500
Ashley Graham <ph33rful@optonline.net> wrote:
Try "dpkg-reconfigure locales" as root. If the locales package is not
installed, type "apt-get install locales". Please use the archive at
<http://groups.google.com> (Group linux.debian.user) or
<http://liste.debian.org> first next time. This question has been asked
and answered more then once.
What question hasn't been asked and answered more than once? What
question is new anymore?
I see new questions here all the time -- or at least, questions asked so infrequently as to be new to me. If that weren't the case, it's hard for
me to imagine that I'd stay subscribed. I like learning this stuff, and
I like helping others. But I have lots of things to do as it is, and it'd
be pretty hard for me to rationalize sticking around if I wasn't learning
much, and if the only people I was helping were people who weren't that
interested in helping themselves.
Have you tried looking up info through google lately?
A quick look-up with the search string "locale settings" returns nothing
that would help me; it does offer attempts to stear me in the right
direction, but I probably would have made other problems in trying to
fix my one.
When you get an error message, it's usually a good idea to search on
the text of the error message itself. In this case, I did a google search
of lists.debian.org, on the string "Setting locale failed", and got lots
of responses that looked helpful. See below.
Usually I do that, see below. This one I had a hard time figuring out
how to pose it, so I assumed that just a simple query here would suffice
(i guess I was wrong).
<snip>
I understand that the "noise" and/or extra bandwidth that I used in
sending/receiving comments with this message might have been burdensome
to the server(s), and possibly you, but I received the answer quicker,
and more presice to my dilemma, then if I had gone through google.
Who's to say what questions are allowed to be answered/asked? Should
they all go through you first; deleting the ones you feel are exotic
enough to actually spend time answering?
The first clause you wrote above is probably intended to be sarcastic --
implying that your one message cannot really have been much of a burden
to the list or the respondant. But, as the saying goes, no single
raindrop believes itself responsible for the flood. The users of useful
technical fora routinely make an effort to discourage redundant questions
for the simple reason that they want the fora to *remain useful*. And
your second clause -- that you got the answer faster from the list than
you would if you'd looked for it yourself -- illustrates another reason
this subject strikes a nerve with people: why should volunteers commit
their limited energy to helping people who don't seem willing to help
themselves? Why not put it towards people who *are*?
And feel free to point out the part of his post where he indicated that
soem questions aren't "allowed" to be answered or asked.
I tried to look it up, but searching for the entire string isn't an
option, but now I know of google groups I will more than likely go there
in the future, after my first stop with google itself.
And it wasn't sarcasm; I know that it is a lot of work to route all that
mail to all those different places, but I figured one more straw
wouldn't break the camels back.
Secondly, the possible ways of explaining a problem are far from small,
I could have typed away dozens of attempts in google, and still not
gotten an answer. But I did here; in about five minutes.
I'm glad. At the same time, though, you were kinda lucky.
<snip>
Sometimes, I'll throw this link at them instead:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
I've read it before, and usually; my questions are more thought out, and
more complex than this, honestly they are. But I was just getting
frustrated with applications not working as I expected, or not at all.
<snip>
Your specific question was "how do I fix this:", with a quote of the
perl warning. That specific question has been asked here lots. If
that wasn't the question you really wanted to ask -- if your question
instead was "I know how to change my locale settings; but how do I
gen locales I've defined?" -- then that's what you needed to have
typed. Again, you might want to look at the link above. Writing a
good question is a skill one can easily develop that not only makes
life a lot easier for those who might help you (and thus, makes people
more willing and enthusiastic to help you), but also is directly
educational (as I think Monique posted in another thread, it's often
the case that working on how to pose the question can make the answer
come to you). Yeah, this may take more time than just posting a
quick query. But you'll be more likely to get an answer when you do,
and less likely to seem lazy, and thus not make it past lots of
people's filters.
Working on posing the question has made me not ask it numerous times.
I apologize now for being a giant, swarthy, uncouth, american.
On this subject (asking questions that one could have found the answer
to oneself), the offenders are broadly distributed through the world's
nations.
my nationality wasn't an excuse, it was a warning.
-c
Reply to: