A.1.3 Personal Help

The correct place to ask for help with Debian is the debian-user mailing list at debian-user@lists.debian.org. If you know how to use IRC (Internet Relay Chat), you can use the #debian channel on irc.debian.org. You can find general GNU/Linux help on the comp.os.linux.* USENET hierarchy. It is also possible to hire paid consultants to provide guaranteed support services. The Debian website⁵ has more information on many of these resources.

Again, please do not ask the authors of this book for help. We probably don’t know the answer to your specific problem anyway; if you mail debian-user, you will get higher-quality responses, and more quickly.

Always be polite and make an effort to help yourself by reading the documentation. Remember, Debian is a volunteer effort and people are doing you a favor by giving their time to help you. Many of them charge hundreds of dollars for the same services during the day.

Tips for asking questions

• Read the obvious documentation first. Things like command options and what a command does will be covered there. This includes manpages and info documentation.
• Check the HOWTO documents if your question is about setting up something such as PPP or Ethernet.
• Try to be sure the answer isn’t in this book.
• Don’t be afraid to ask, after you’ve made a basic effort to look it up.
• Don’t be afraid to ask for conceptual explanations, advice, and other things not often found in the documentation.
• Include any information that seems relevant. You’ll almost always want to mention the version of Debian you’re using. You may also want to mention the version of any pertinent packages: The command dpkg -l packagename will tell you this. It’s also useful to say what you’ve tried so far and what happened. Please include the exact error messages, if any.
• Don’t apologize for being new to Linux. There’s no reason everyone should be a GNU/Linux expert to use it, any more than everyone should be a mechanic to use a car.
• Don’t post or mail in HTML. Some versions of Netscape and Internet Explorer will post in HTML rather than plain text. Most people will not even read these posts because the posts are difficult to read in most mail programs. There should be a setting somewhere in the preferences to disable HTML.
• Be polite. Remember that Debian is an all-volunteer effort, and anyone who helps you is doing so on his or her time out of kindness.
• Re-mail your question to the list if you’ve gotten no responses after several days. Perhaps there were lots of messages and it was overlooked. Or perhaps no one knows the answer – if no one answers the second time, this is a good bet. You might want to try including more information the second time.
• Answer questions yourself when you know the answer. Debian depends on everyone doing his or her part. If you ask a question, and later on someone else asks the same question, you’ll know how to answer it. Do so!