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Accepted
harisibrahimkv
Asked: 2012-05-04 17:28:17 +0800 CST

Where else to go for help if not helped at Ask Ubuntu?

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What other official places can I go for getting help on Ubuntu if I do not get the help I wanted on Ask Ubuntu?

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9 Answers

  1. Best Answer


    Some places you can go when looking for help when using the RTFM method ...

    The Official Ubuntu Documentation page where you can find the official documentation developed and maintained by the Ubuntu Documentation Project.

    The Ubuntu Documentation Wiki, whose home page I can never seem to find with a search, is a community-driven and open area of the Ubuntu documentation website which anyone can edit.

    The Ubuntu Wiki. (I'm never really sure what this site is about or where to look for things on it, but there it is all the same. It does have a somewhat pretty page containing Ubuntu Release Information)

    Ubuntu Common Questions (aka FAQ) page

    The Ubuntu Manpage Repository

    The Ubuntu Index of all available pages (Supposedly a list/index of all community documentation pages.)

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  2. I feel the question is missing something. It's phrased in the manner of "I didn't get help here... where else can I go to find people to help me?" But Ask Ubuntu isn't really about helping people one-on-one. If that were the primary purpose, we wouldn't close questions because they are duplicates or bug reports. The primary purpose of Ask Ubuntu is to create a useful resource for people to look up their question and find answers.

    So the proper answer to "I didn't get help here. What do I do next?" is:

    "Do your research. Search for similar, related questions. Then if you still haven't gotten anywhere, edit and improve your question using the knowledge you have garnered."

    Ideally you're supposed to have done this first. But often people do not. The FAQ actually suggests doing this.

    First, search Ask Ubuntu. Experiment with different keywords. Use more restricted searches first, e.g. more specific keywords and also putting phrases in quotes, and then lighten the constraints if you aren't finding what you need.

    Next, you can use Google to search for key terms. Even if you didn't get an answer from searching Ask Ubuntu, you might have gotten some ideas of what to search for. Google will find you hits from a variety of forums and is still generally considered the best search engine. You might also consider using Google's site specific search. Along with your keywords, just type in site:askubuntu.com, for example, to search only Ask Ubuntu. Or site:ubuntuforums.org to search Ubuntu forums (forum search can be pretty bad, so this really helps).

    Finally after all that, if you still haven't found your answer, you're hopefully much better informed, and you should yet again consider posting here or at least updating your question.

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  4. You can go to Ubuntu forums.

    http://ubuntuforums.org/

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  5. You might also check out the ubuntu IRC channels on freenode. http://www.ubuntu.com/support/community/chat

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  6. I've used them all, and learned that you really need to be careful at some of them, even ubuntuforums.org; there is a lot of "the blind leading the blind" - people trying to be helpful who don't really know what they are doing, or why they did what they did, etc.

    It seems like Stack Exchange has a lot of smart people, including a lot of people who work for Ubuntu, plus the voting helps you find good answers, and rewards people who provide good answers.

    But one other resource that nobody mentioned yet is Reddit.com. They have a voting mechanism there that helps promote good answers, or helps you find good (or popular) answers and discussions.

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    1. https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu.
    2. http://ubuntuforums.org/

    While the first officially supports asking and answering in several languages, the second has some localized versions. You can read about the language issue here (from 2010): Are there any plans for localized Ask Ubuntu instances?. (Thanks to Elijah Kazan for suggesting the edit.)

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  8. The other answers all have good resources, but I must admit my first port of call is my favourite search engine - there are lots of blog posts and wiki pages out there describing how people have overcome various problems they have found. Nothing except a search engine is going to be able to find them all.

    A basic tip is to put the text of an error message, surrounded by quotes, into the search box. That will return results that match the exact message you got. Has worked wonders for me on many occasions. Though note you should exclude anything specific to your system - time/date stamps, paths etc.

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  9. sudo apt-get install xchat

    There are plenty of helpful people you can ask in #Ubuntu. In Xchat select freenode from the list and join #Ubuntu

    you can also do this by typing into Xchat:

    /server chat.freenode.net

    and then 

    /join #Ubuntu
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