FreeBSD Newbies FAK

[Sue Blake]

                         FreeBSD-Newbies First Aid Kit

   This is a regular posting to the FreeBSD-Newbies mailing list.
   It is also available at
   http://people.freebsd.org/~sue/newbies/fak.html

   FreeBSD-Questions at FreeBSD.ORG is the place to send all questions about
   installing, configuring, running and using FreeBSD. All help requests
   are handled by FreeBSD-Questions, including newbies questions. It is
   particularly important to send all installation questions and answers
   to FreeBSD-Questions so that they only appear in one place.

   FreeBSD-Newbies is different. We don't ask for FreeBSD help or answer
   how-to questions. It is a discussion forum for newbies.

   FreeBSD-Newbies provides a place for new FreeBSD users to meet and
   covers any of the activities of newbies that are not already dealt
   with elsewhere. Examples include helping each other to learn more on
   our own, finding and using resources, problem solving techniques, how
   to seek help elsewhere, how to use mailing lists and which lists to
   use, general chat, making mistakes, boasting, sharing ideas, stories,
   moral (but not technical) support, and taking an active part in the
   FreeBSD community. We take our problems and support questions to
   freebsd-questions, and use freebsd-newbies to meet others who are
   doing the same things that we do as newbies.

   We can help people to use the FreeBSD mailing lists and resources, or
   to interact more productively with the broader FreeBSD community.
   These are not support questions, and not technical, so we deal with
   them here. Everyone can help with these new user orientation requests.

   One of the things we do together is learn more effective ways to find
   help when we need it. Here are some suggestions:

When something doesn't work the way you expect

    1. First look at the errata for your release of FreeBSD at
       http://www.FreeBSD.ORG/releases/ for the latest information and
       security advisories.
    2. Search the Handbook, FAQ, and mail archives at
       http://www.FreeBSD.ORG/search/search.html
    3. If you still have a question or problem, collect the output of
       `uname -a' and of any relevant program(s) and email your question
       to FreeBSD-questions at FreeBSD.ORG.

Mailing lists

   When you have a problem that you can't solve by yourself, there's only
   one support mailing list and that's FreeBSD-questions at FreeBSD.ORG.
   FreeBSD-questions helps with installation and basic setup as well as
   more general and advanced questions.

   You don't have to actually join freebsd-questions before asking a
   question there. Replies to your question will normally be sent to you
   personally as well as to the list. Just make sure you have read and
   followed the guidelines for posting, because you might find them
   different to what you're used to. If you do subscribe to
   freebsd-questions you'll have the advantage of seeing all of the
   recent questions and their answers.

   Before you post to FreeBSD-questions, please read the guidelines at
   http://www.lemis.com/questions.html Many of the people who answer
   FreeBSD-questions are very knowledgeable, but they get frustrated when
   they get questions which are difficult to understand.
   http://www.lemis.com/email.html is worth reading too.

   If you're not sure that you can follow these guidelines, come back and
   ask the other newbies for help on how to post an effective question to
   the support mailing list.

   Maybe your question has been asked before. If you search the mailing
   list archives at http://www.freebsd.org/search/search.html first you
   might get the answer right away. It's always worth trying.

   Other mailing lists
   (http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/eresources.html#ERESOURCES-CHARTERS)
   cover specialised areas and many are more developer-oriented. You'll
   need to read their charters carefully before participating, but it's
   probably a good idea to ask on either -newbies or -questions for
   advice about where to post a more specialised question.

   FreeBSD-announce is a very low volume read-only list for occasional
   announcements, such as notice of new releases, and the Really Quick
   Newsletter. It's worth subscribing to FreeBSD-announce too.

Manuals

   You'll always be expected to show that you have made some effort to
   use the available documentation before asking for help. That's not
   always as easy as it sounds!

   If you know what documentation you need but can't locate it, send a
   brief query to FreeBSD-questions. If you don't know what you need,
   always have trouble finding it, or can't make any sense of it when you
   do, ask some patient newbies to steer you in the right direction.

   Anyone interested in writing or reviewing documentation for FreeBSD is
   encouraged to join the FreeBSD Documentation Project. Details are at
   http://www.freebsd.org/docproj/docproj.html

Other resources

   A resource list is available at
   http://www.freebsd.org/projects/newbies.html to help new and
   inexperienced FreeBSD users to find relevant information quickly. It
   includes books, on line documents and tutorials, and links to web
   pages that other newbies have found useful for learning. If you have a
   suggestion for good material to be included, please write to
   freebsd-newbies and tell us about it.

But I have seen people asking questions here!

   It is quite common for people to send the wrong kind of post to a
   mailing list. Because we're newbies it'll certainly happen here from
   time to time. The best thing to do if you see a message that doesn't
   belong on a list is to ignore it. There's always someone around whose
   job it is to sort these problems out privately.

   The posts to the lists go straight through, whatever their content. It
   is going to be confusing for a little while because we're all newbies
   so we all make mistakes. That's OK.

   One thing we're going to see a fair bit is people posting questions,
   believing they're doing the right thing by posting here as newbies,
   not realising how it works. If someone answers those questions the
   situation will snowball. There's nothing wrong with helping someone to
   redirect their question to freebsd-questions, but please do so gently.
   There's nothing wrong with the occasional mistake either.

   So all questions, requests for help, etc still go to freebsd-questions
   as usual. Ours is more of a discussion group, a place where newbies
   can relax with other newbies and focus more on our successes than on
   our temporary imperfection. We can talk about things here that are not
   allowed on freebsd-questions. We're also a bit freer to make the
   mistakes that we need to make in order to learn.
     _________________________________________________________________

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