[StuCo 98008]
GNU/Linux for Beginners
By the end of this lecture you will know
- How to get more information about an application
- How to use the UNIX manual pages
- How to find solutions on the Web
- How to ask for help in mailing lists
Find the solution online
- Search engines: query web pages and USENET archives.
- Special GNU/Linux help websites
Learn more about your application
- Application homepage
- FAQ section
- Mailing lists section
- Documentation installed on your machine
- /usr/share/doc
- Comments in configuration files
- Manual pages (man)
Help on Command-Line Tools
- Manual pages
- $ man “java”
- Search for strings with / (same with less, vi)
- $ apropos “java” (all relevant man pages)
- Info pages
- $ info emacs (CTRL-X CTRL-C to get out)
- “info:” in Konqueror address bar (simpler to use)
- $ whatis df
Mailing Lists
- Resist the temptation – never send a personal email
- Goes double for developers
- Goes quadruple for Linus himself (!)
- Know the code of conduct of each mailing list (netiquette)
- General rules
- Be polite, they're doing you a favor anyway
- Be precise, they can't read minds
- Try to solve your problem before asking for help
- Send [SOLVED] and thank people who help you
Style Crimes
- http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
- “Linux SUCKS!”
- “I NEED HELP FAST QUICK AND PRONTO”
- “My computer doesn't work! Help!”
- Top-posting
- HTML email
- Quoting 5,000 lines to add a “Yeah, me too”.
- Replying to an irrelevant thread.
- Ditto, but changing the Subject field.
How to figure out what's wrong
- Is it a GUI application?
- Run it from the command line
- Is it a daemon/server?
- Check system logs like /var/log/messages
- # grep -n “dsl” *.log
- What is the application doing?
- $ strace <application name>
- $ lsof | grep “application name”
- $ ps auxf (look for parents/children)
- $ top -c