On 16 Nov 1997 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >From a recent posting on comp.os.linux.setup: > > > Support from the Debian list was practically non-existant. One reply came > > on the mailing list in response to a question: not very helpful. > > This guy dumped Debian in favor of Red Hat.
Those choices are available to us all, and he is the only one who can judge which suits his need. I would never try to make that decission for him, even though for myself there is no place else to be. For the record, I maintain several packages for Debian, have been around for a while, hang out on debian-user to smooth the path of others when I can, and have a real life that drags me away from time to time. > > When I see questions about Debian in the newsgroups I usually email an > offer of help. Often the only help I can offer is the suggestion to ask on > debian-user. Often the response is "I tried that but nobody answered me". > You should ask if they were able to subscribe. When I answer questions on debian-user, I always reply to the sender and cc the list. Often, more so lately, my message goes out on the list, but the direct reply get's bounced back to me. At that point it becomes non-trivial to be of any assistance. > Maybe debian-newbie is needed after all? This would not solve the above problem. Splitting lists, hardly ever does what it is intended to do. There are several reasons why some requests go unanswered. For me there are some questions I can't answer, because I don't understand just what the author is trying to say and can't fathom an answer. I am always impressed when someone else, being more sensitive/attuned than myself, provides an on target answer. (The answer makes clear what the question was.) As I am a limited human, there are some messages that I just plain miss in the flood of other messages. This becomes increasingly difficult when there is a volumous, irrelevant, thread (or two) going on at the same time that you post your request for help. Even though I work harder at those times to look for "user" questions, I know I miss some in all the chaff. Of course there are other reasons for not answering a question. I have worked with this distribution for quite a while now, and, although I know quite a bit about several useful areas of the distribution, there are large territories of which I am near totally ignorant. At this point it is not clear that I will ever be able to grok it all, nor do I have any real interest in doing so. To get to whatever point I was going to make here, the volunteer nature of this distribution means that not everyone can, or is willing to, answer any arbitrary question that comes down the pipe. While this is regrettable, I am certain that I couldn't fix it if that were all I worked on, and I have no intention of focusing my life that narrowly ;-) On a similar vein, often the best answer I can give, is a pointer to some documentation, or a method of attacking the problem (without any real solution). How useful these answers are to the individual involved depends on that individual, and is hard for the person answering the question to judge, either before hand or afterwards. My perception of the level of support comes from the fact that, more than half the time when I start to answer a question I find at least three replies have already been made. (often more) It is a rare occurance when, under those circumstances, I find none of the replies to be quite adequate. On the rare occassions that that seems to have happened, I will add my two cents into the pot. For the other half of the questions, I do my best to provide assistance. When this is not possible due to my ignorance, I continue to look out for any answers to the question so that I might be able to provide that assistance in the future. I admit that sometimes I see no answers. I always hope that someone has answered him in private, or he will ask again, if there is still the need for help. All of the above (I have just realised) has been couched in terms of my own, personal, experience, so I'm sure that I don't see all the angles here, but I can make a few recommendations: 1. Sign up on debian-user. You can't expect a single posting to the list to magic a solution into your in-basket. 2. Be clear on the particulars of your problem and be specific about the variety and type of your hardware. These can often be importatant when you least expect it. Questions like, "Why is my Debian system broken?" are guaranteed to recieve few useful replies. 3. If your problem is related to a specific Debian package, or a small set of packages, going directly to the package maintainer will often provide the cheerful answer that is sought. (Find the package maintainers email address with dpkg -s <package>.) 4. Be persistant! So your message got no reply! Try again! Often recourse to item 2 will make the second attempt more successful. Always keep in mind that there are other reasons for a failure to answer than disinterest. Sometimes everyone gets up at the same time to go to the bathroom ;-) 5. When all else fails, fall back on your own skills and resources. Sometimes, if you continue to investigate you will discover, for yourself, just what the problem is. This is always more satisfying than the gift of a solution. Even when you can't arrive at a clear solution on your own, as the "technician" on-site, you are the most likely to notice something useful to the off-site support. In conclusion, while not all of the developers hang out on debian-user, a fair number do so. It is not always possible for a new user to tell whether a developer or a user is answering their question, so many times folks go away with an answer, but an unsatisfied feeling. I suspect for some the name debian-user implies that only users subscribe to the list, making it a 'chat room'. I also wish to thank the many "experienced" users, who hang out here and help new users get accustomed with the lay of the land. Their contientous attention to these new users is as valuable to the Debian distribution as any of the other varied contributions of the developers. Finally, just because a question has been answered 500 times, doesn't mean that the five hundred and first questioner has no right to the answer. If you get tired of answering the same question over and over, save it in a file and start your own faq. We need all the help we can get with documentation. Thanks for your time, Dwarf -- _-_-_-_-_-_- _-_-_-_-_-_-_- aka Dale Scheetz Phone: 1 (904) 656-9769 Flexible Software 11000 McCrackin Road e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tallahassee, FL 32308 _-_-_-_-_-_- If you don't see what you want, just ask _-_-_-_-_-_-_- -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .