690 lines
24 KiB
Plaintext
690 lines
24 KiB
Plaintext
HOWTO: How to stay updated
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Kjetil Bakkeskaug, Kjell Sundby and Stein Gjoen,
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sgjoen@nyx.net
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v0.32, 20 May 2002
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This document describes how to stay updated and abreast of the devel
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opment that takes place in the Linux world of development. Although
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most of this text is Linux specific there is also a lot of general
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information on searching efficiently for specific information that can
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be useful for a wider audience.
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______________________________________________________________________
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Table of Contents
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1. Introduction
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1.1 Copyright
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1.2 Disclaimer
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1.3 News
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1.4 Credits
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2. Documentation Installed on Your Hard Disk
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3. Subscription
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3.1 Usenet News
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3.2 Mailing Lists
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3.3 Magazines
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4. Meetings
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5. Searching
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6. Conclusion
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______________________________________________________________________
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1. Introduction
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Development in the world of Linux takes place at an incredible speed
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and it can be difficult to keep abreast with the latest development.
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This HOWTO gives you a few guidelines on how to get the information
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you need, fast and efficiently. Most are quite familiar with using the
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World Wide Web (WWW) and Usenet News but as will be shown here there
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are many other methods that can be as good or even better.
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There are now many new translations available and special thanks go to
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the translators for the job and the input they have given:
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· Polish translation
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<http://www.ict.pwr.wroc.pl/jtz/Html/mini/Update.pl.html> by Tomasz
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Sienicki tsca (at) cryogen.com
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· French Translation <http://www.freenix.org/unix/linux/HOWTO/> by
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Jean-Albert Ferrez Jean-Albert.Ferrez (at) epfl.ch
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· Portuguese Translation <http://www.poli.org/LDP-PT/mini-HOWTO/> by
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Duarte Loreto dnloreto (at) esoterica.pt
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· Japanese translation <http://www.linux.or.jp/JF/> by Satoru
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Takahashi hisai (at) din.or.jp
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1.1. Copyright
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This HOWTO is copyrighted 1998 Kjell Sundby, Kjetil Bakkeskaug and
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Stein Gjoen. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify
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this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License,
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Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software
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Foundation with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no
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Back-Cover Texts.
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If you have any questions, please contact <{linux-
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howto@metalab.unc.edu}>
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1.2. Disclaimer
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Use the information in this document at your own risk. We disavow any
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potential liability for the contents of this document. Use of the
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concepts, examples, and/or other content of this document is entirely
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at your own risk.
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All copyrights are owned by their owners, unless specifically noted
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otherwise. Use of a term in this document should not be regarded as
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affecting the validity of any trademark or service mark.
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Naming of particular products or brands should not be seen as
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endorsements.
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You are strongly recommended to take a backup of your system before
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major installation and backups at regular intervals.
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1.3. News
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Updated links to LinuxNetMag
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Did a major link check but linkrot sets in quickly.
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Added link to Penguin Magazine.
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Added more information on the workings of mailing lists. Also proper
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indexing is now added.
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Renamed Dejanews to Deja and one chapter title. Also added note on
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translation now underway. Minor typos fixed.
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Added link to Polish translation
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Added link to Linux Focus and Linux Magazine.
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Added links to French and Japanese translations as well as several
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online resources.
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Link rot is setting in, numerous corrections made. Also expanded on
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searching choices.
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1.4. Credits
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Tomasz Sienicki | tsca <tsca (at) cryogen.com>
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Satoru Takahashi <hisai (at) din.or.jp>
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2. Documentation Installed on Your Hard Disk
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When you start out with a Linux installation you will normally get
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quite a bit of information along, not just the installation pamphlet
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but also substantial online help and information files as well as
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HOWTO files. This gives you a good starting point but after a while
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you will find yourself interested in knowing more, updating your
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system and basically staying informed. For simplicity this kind of
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information is here divided into several types, the type you subscribe
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to, information you search for as well as a bit on getting more
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specific help efficiently.
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Even if you don't get printed information of some kind with your Linux
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packages you will along with any self respecting distribution get a
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number of directories with documentation of some kind, ranging from
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the tersest README files for most software packages to the more in
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depth HOWTOs, of which this is one.
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Have a look in the document archive <file:///usr/doc> where most
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packages store their main documentation and README files etc. Also
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you will here find the HOWTO archive <file:///usr/doc/HOWTO> of ready
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formatted HOWTOs and also the mini-HOWTO archive
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<file:///usr/doc/HOWTO/mini> of plain text documents.
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The kernel source <file:///usr/src/linux> is, of course, the ultimate
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documentation. In other words, use the source, Luke. It should also
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be pointed out that the kernel comes not only with source code which
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is even commented (well, partially at least) but also an informative
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documentation directory <file:///usr/src/linux/Documentation>. If you
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are about to ask any questions about the kernel you should read this
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first, it will save you and many others a lot of time and possibly
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embarrassment.
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The online documentation is excellent for browsing and searching but
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don't dismiss the printed version altogether; if you cannot even get
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the machine to boot, how are you going to be able to read that piece
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of information you need to get the system going again?
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3. Subscription
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This basically means you set up a subscription of some sort and then
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follow the news as they come in. Be careful not to bite over more than
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you can chew, information overload is more than a buzzword. There is
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also rather more junk out there than is just annoying, it is a real
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problem these days. Read critically and be prepared to unsubscribe.
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There are two distinct medias for getting continuous updates: news and
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mailing lists, though sometimes news is gatewayed to mail and vice
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versa. In general news is a larger volume, larger noise source
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compared to mailing lists. Trying to follow too many newsgroups is
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like drinking from a fire hose.
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3.1. Usenet News
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Getting access to Usenet News is outside the scope of this HOWTO,
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there are others that will help you with getting and reading News
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directly from a Linux system. If you have never used News before you
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should be careful to read the introductory information thoroughly. In
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spite of looking like an anarchy it does have its own distinct
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culture, follow a newsgroup for some time before posting yourself.
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Most importantly, look out for postings called Frequently Asked
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Questions or FAQ as they will show you the ropes for the group it is
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posted to, and most likely give you the answer to what you are looking
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for. Asking an FAQ will earn you severe negative credibility points as
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well as a place in many killfiles.
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FAQs should be posted regularly but if you cannot find it you can
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always find it at the main FAQ archive <ftp://rtfm.mit.edu> at MIT.
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These are also available as web pages <http://www.faqs.org/>.
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Still, there is a lot of noise, spam and junk in News and this is
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where killfiles come in. You will need a news reader with killfile
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capability and when properly set up it will scan through a newsgroup
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according to a search key of your own design and mark all flagged
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postings as already read so you don't have to be bothered by the
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noise. This improves the signal-to-noise ratio and lets you
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concentrate on the important parts. Similarly, if you make noise in
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News others will killfile you so if you later were to ask for help
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they will never see your post.
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Now to business: the following is a list of useful newsgroups:
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· announcements <news:comp.os.linux.announce>
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· answers, HOWTOs, FAQs etc. <news:comp.os.linux.answers>
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· development of applications <news:comp.os.linux.development.apps>
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· development of the system <news:comp.os.linux.development.sys>
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· hardware <news:comp.os.linux.hardware>
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· misc <news:comp.os.linux.misc>
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· networking <news:comp.os.linux.networking>
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· setting up linux <news:comp.os.linux.setup>
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· X11 on linux <news:comp.os.linux.x>
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Many national hierarchies also have Linux groups, such as the
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Norwegian <news:no.linux> Linux groups. If you cannot find your
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national or local group you might be able to use Deja
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<http://www.deja.com> to find the names for you.
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3.2. Mailing Lists
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Unlike Usenet News a mailing list is centralised, someone sends a mail
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to the server and the server in return mails everyone that is
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subscribed to that particular list. These lists are generally low
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volume but also very low noise. Any breaches of the charter will be
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looked harshly upon. Equally seriously it will delay the development
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or the project that the list is dedicated to. When you subscribe you
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will normally get an introductory mail describing the charter, again
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you are strongly recommended to read this very carefully.
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There are many types of mail servers that can handle a list and you
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will need some information on how and where you can subscribe.
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One of the most common list servers is Majordomo which is what the
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list server at vger.rutgers.edu <mailto:majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu> is
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running. To learn how it works you send a mail message with the word
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help in the body. If you send it something it cannot parse you will
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get this help message anyway. If you instead mail it the word lists
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you will be returned a list of all mailing lists it serves, and that
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can be a considerable number.
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Other mailing lists use several addresses, one where you send your
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requests such as subscribe and unsubscribe, and one where you send
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your contributions to the list which is usually also the address from
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which the list is also redistributed to you. Again, sending it the
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message help or something it cannot parse will give you the help
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information. An example: you send the word subscribe to the address
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corned-beef-requests@somelistserver.org and then you get mail from and
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contribute to the list address corned-beef-list@somelistserver.org
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until you unsubscribe.
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A few tips before you start sending in to mailing lists:
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· Do not send subscribe etc. to the list itself, only to the server
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address, otherwise you will look silly and you will annoy people.
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There can be several thousand subscribers to a list and if such
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errors were to pour in the noise would be too much.
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· When you subscribe you will often get an introductory message sent
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to you automatically. Read it carefully as this should answer most
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of the initial questions.
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· Do not gateway mailing lists to news without asking first as this
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can cause mailing loops as well as spam.
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As mentioned above, vger.rutgers.edu
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<mailto:majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu>. is one of the main mailing list
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servers and here is an abbreviated index of what is available for the
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Linux community:
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· linux-8086 (Linux on Intel 8086 processors)
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· linux-admin (Administration of Linux systems)
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· linux-alpha (Linux on the Alpha processor platform)
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· linux-apps (Applications)
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· linux-arm (Linux on the Arm processor platform)
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· linux-bbs (Linux Bulletin Board Systems)
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· linux-c-programming (C-programming with Linux)
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· linux-config (Configuration)
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· linux-console (Console)
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· linux-diald (Dial on demand daemon)
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· linux-doc (Linux documentation)
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· linux-fido (Linux fido network)
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· linux-fsf (Linux and the Free Software Foundation)
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· linux-ftp (Linux File Transfer Protocol)
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· linux-gcc (Linux and the GNU C compiler)
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· linux-gcc-digest (Digests of the above)
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· linux-hams Amateur Radio and Linux discussions
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· linux-hppa (Linux on the HP Precision Architecture
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processor platform)
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· linux-ibcs2 (Linux and the Intel Binary Compatibility
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system)
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· linux-ipx (Linux and Novell IPX networking protocol)
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· linux-isdn (Linux and Integrated Services Digital
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Network)
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· linux-japanese (Linux and Japanese extensions)
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· linux-kernel (Linux kernel)
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· linux-kernel-announce (Announcements for the above)
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· linux-kernel-digest (Digests of the linux-kernel list)
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· linux-kernel-patch (Linux kernel patches)
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· linux-laptop (Linux on laptops)
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· linux-linuxss
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· linux-lugnuts (Linux User Groups)
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· linux-mca (Linux and the IBM Micro Channel Architecture
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bus)
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· linux-mips (Linux on the MIPS processor platform)
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· linux-msdos (Linux and MSDOS)
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· linux-msdos-devel (Linux - MSDOS development)
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· linux-msdos-digest (Digest of the linux-msdos list)
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· linux-net (Linux and networking)
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· linux-new-lists (New mailing lists for Linux)
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· linux-newbie (Linux and the inexperienced)
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· linux-newbiew
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· linux-nys
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· linux-oasg
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· linux-oi
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· linux-opengl (Linux and the OpenGL graphics system)
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· linux-pkg
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· linux-ppp (Linux and the Point-to-Point Protocol)
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· linux-pro
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· linux-qag
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· linux-raid (Linux and Redundant Array of Inexpensive
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Drives)
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· linux-scsi (Linux and Small Computer Systems Interface)
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· linux-serial (Linux and the serial system)
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· linux-seyon (Linux terminal system)
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· linux-smp (Linux Symmetric Multi Processing)
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· linux-sound
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· linux-standards
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· linux-svgalib (Linux and the SVGA library)
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· linux-tape (Linux and tape storage)
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· linux-term (A Linux communications program)
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· linux-userfs (Linux User File System)
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· linux-word
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· linux-x11 (Linux and the X Window System, Version 11)
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· linux-x25 (Linux and the X25 Networking Protocol)
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· sparclinux (Linux on the SPARC processor platform)
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· ultralinux (Linux on the Ultra-SPARC processor platform)
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There are of course a number of other lists on other server. As this
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is in a constant state of flux there is little point in naming all but
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the most important here. Instead you could check out a web page that
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maintains such a list of lists
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<http://oslab.snu.ac.kr/~djshin/linux/mail-list/index.shtml> on
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various servers of interest to Linux users. It also offers an user
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friendly interface to subscribe or unsubscribe to the various lists
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directly.
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There is also a web page listing a huge number of lists concerning
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much more than Linux at Publicly Available Mailing Lists
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<http://paml.net/>.
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3.3. Magazines
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Many have been disappointed at the lack of information on Linux in the
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trade press. This is probably because certain commercial products
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would not stand up for any comparison and the advertisers would not
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stand it at all. Fortunately there is one Linux specific journal,
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called the Linux Journal. More information on subscription etc. can be
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found at the SSC <http://www.ssc.com> home page. A table of contents
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is usually also available online.
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Another commercial paper magazine is the Linux Magazine
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<http://www.linux-mag.com> which also offers table of contents and
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some excerpts online.
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Also Unix Review <http://www.unixreview.com> (formerly known as
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Performance Computing) gives a lot of Linux coverage.
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Some popular e-zines are
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· Linux Gazette <http://www.linuxgazette.com/>
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· Linux Focus <http://www.linuxfocus.org/> (available in a number of
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languages)
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· Linux Research <http://www.linuxresearch.de/>
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· Linux Today <http://linuxtoday.com/>
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· Linux News <http://www.linuxnews.com>
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· Linux Netmag (English) <http://www.linuxnetmag.com> and Linux
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Netmag (German) <http://www.linuxnetmag.de>
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· Penguin Magazine <http://www.penguinmagazine.com>
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and probably a few others as new ones seem to pop quite frequently.
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Check out LinuxHQ <http://www.linuxhq.com> for up to date information
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on current news services.
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New web pages with literally daily news on linux are popping up
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everywhere, many are quite professional in layout as well as in scope.
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One of the bigger ones is Freshmeat <http://freshmeat.net> which
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serves out news daily.
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For those who cannot afford the time to follow the net on an hourly
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basis yet need the important news quickly there is the Linux Weekly
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News <http://lwn.net>, which gives you a weekly update of important
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news, including securities alerts and also announcements of new and
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updated software.
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You can also find directions to IRC online chat lines at Linux.com
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<http://linux.com>.
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There are also a number of more hardware oriented web sites worth
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visiting, such as Toms Hardware <http://www.tomshardware.com>,
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Anandtech <http://www.Anandtech.com> for general hardware reviews, and
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Storage review <http://www.storagereview.com> for the latest in disk,
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tape and other storage technology..
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4. Meetings
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Linux has been created through a massive networked effort, mostly by
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heavy use of the Internet. Still, there is the chance of meeting real
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people, face to face, in Linux user groups (LUG) that are all over the
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world. Search the lists that are published regularly, there could be
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one near you.
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Conferences, install fests, creating new user groups and more is
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regularly announced on Usenet News announcements
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<news:comp.os.linux.announce>. Such events are excellent venues for
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staying on top of events and also for getting help.
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5. Searching
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There are many avenues open when searching for something particular.
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Remember you can also use the web search engines and that some, like
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· Altavista <http://www.altavista.com/>
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· Excite <http://www.excite.com>
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· Hotbot <http://hotbot.lycos.com/>
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can also search Usenet news.
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There are numerous search engines available but they are not all equal
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neither in method of rating relevance nor in size of database. For
|
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established, authoritative pages I recommend using Google
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<http://www.google.com> since it scores pages by the number of links
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pointing to them. People often link to pages they find important or
|
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useful and Google uses this.
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Google takes time to score a page properly so it is not that useful
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for searching for the newest or more exotic topics. For that I
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normally recommend either the very fast and wide spanning AllTheWeb
|
||
<http://www.alltheweb.com> or meta engines, web systems that forwards
|
||
your request to a number of other search engines, receives the
|
||
results, collates and scores before presenting you with the result.
|
||
My favourite meta engine is Go2Net <http://www.go2net.com> formerly
|
||
known as MetaCrawler.
|
||
|
||
Such preferences are all subjective and the systems improve
|
||
continuously so you need to experiment yourself. There is no perfect
|
||
search engine and as less than 10 percent of all pages are indexed you
|
||
need to try several engines if you don't succeed at first.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Also remember that Deja <http://www.deja.com> is a dedicated news
|
||
searcher that keeps a news spool from early 1995 and onwards.
|
||
|
||
Even though more and more things take place of the web these days, do
|
||
not forget that there is a lot of information available on the various
|
||
ftp servers around the world. Some web search engines also index ftp
|
||
servers but the tool of choice is still the Archie servers, systems
|
||
that regularly scan major ftp servers around the world and keep lists
|
||
of files. These can be accessed in many ways, either by Archie clients
|
||
like archie or the X11 version xarchie which should be available on
|
||
any well maintained linux system. Failing that you can access archie
|
||
servers using telnet to any of the servers listed
|
||
|
||
|
||
· Australia <telnet://archie.au>
|
||
|
||
· Austria <telnet://archie.univie.ac.at>
|
||
|
||
· Belgium <telnet://archie.belnet.be>
|
||
|
||
· Finland <telnet://archie.funet.fi>
|
||
|
||
· Germany <telnet://archie.th-darmstadt.de>
|
||
|
||
· Korea <telnet://archie.kornet.nm.kr>
|
||
|
||
· Italy <telnet://archie.unipi.it>
|
||
|
||
· Japan <telnet://archie.kuis.kyoto-u.ac.jp>
|
||
|
||
· Poland <telnet://archie.icm.edu.pl>
|
||
|
||
· Sweden <telnet://archie.luth.se>
|
||
|
||
· Spain <telnet://archie.rediris.es>
|
||
|
||
· United Kingdom <telnet://archie.doc.ic.ac.uk>
|
||
|
||
· United States <telnet://archie.bunyip.com>
|
||
|
||
· United States <telnet://archie.internic.net>
|
||
|
||
|
||
Of course you should try to use the server closest to you, and to see
|
||
the list of current server you can either start the Archie client with
|
||
no arguments or, if telnetting, by querying the server. Online help is
|
||
available. Unfortunately not all servers are synchronised, so you
|
||
might have to search a few before finding what you are looking for.
|
||
|
||
Recently a more user friendly ftp index server entered the net, the
|
||
ftpsearch <http://ftpsearch.lycos.com/> engine, featuring many options
|
||
and with a rather stark interface, in the best Unix tradition.
|
||
|
||
Most of these offer help on efficient searching techniques, reading
|
||
this can speed up your searches enormously. Investing a little time
|
||
here will pay off in the long run.
|
||
|
||
If you have trouble getting onto the Internet but have mail then you
|
||
should have a look at the access via mail FAQ. Naturally you can get
|
||
it over e-mail using the US, Canada and South America server
|
||
<mailto:mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu> entering only this line in the BODY
|
||
of the note:
|
||
|
||
send usenet/news.answers/internet-services/access-via-email
|
||
|
||
or Europe, Asia etc server <mailto:mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk> entering
|
||
only this line in the BODY of the note:
|
||
|
||
send lis-iis e-access-inet.txt
|
||
|
||
or look through your news spool if you have one locally in
|
||
news.answers newsgroup <news:news.answers>.
|
||
|
||
Finally, you might wish to get more information from a person, say an
|
||
author of a software package. usually you can find the e-mail address
|
||
in the accompanying documentation which normally would be in the
|
||
documentation subdirectory <file:///usr/doc/> but failing that and
|
||
also if the given address is no longer valid you could find help in
|
||
the FAQ for finding e-mail addresses
|
||
<http://www.qucis.queensu.ca/FAQs/email/finding.html>.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
6. Conclusion
|
||
|
||
Finding information fast and efficiently is more of an art than a
|
||
science and we still have not touched on the really difficult part:
|
||
how do you determine the actual quality of the information? It is
|
||
outside the scope of this HOWTO to tell you that but it is still
|
||
something you should keep in mind. You should at least check the
|
||
information is recent enough to be current to your problem.
|
||
|
||
As a bare minimum you should ensure a minimum of validity of the
|
||
documentation to avoid misleading or malicious advice. A surprising
|
||
number of people suggests things like rm -rf / as a solution for a
|
||
given problem. Some see it as an obvious prank, the unaware can end up
|
||
destroying his or her setup. Just to avoid such things you should
|
||
check out a few things before rushing ahead:
|
||
|
||
|
||
· Is there a name attached to the document? If people are serious
|
||
about what they write it should not be anonymous.
|
||
· Is it dated? Documents tend to evolve as the technology advances.
|
||
Be sure you are reading the latest version. Internet search engines
|
||
can help you here.
|
||
|
||
· Are there any followups? Be sure to check any followups or comments
|
||
to what you read, otherwise you might miss a warning or a
|
||
correction.
|
||
|
||
If you keep this in mind you should not fall for too many of the scams
|
||
that circulate on the net, from get well-cards for Craig Shergold,
|
||
chain letters to the more recent problems of Trojans for Linux that
|
||
tries to trick you into mailing off your password.
|
||
|
||
There is a number of FAQs available that deals with more serious
|
||
research method topics and you can also see a comprehensive on-line
|
||
version <http://cn.net.au>.
|
||
|
||
Finally, do not forget the Linux Documentation Project
|
||
<http://www.LinuxDoc.org/> site that coordinates documentation for
|
||
Linux. Updates and new documents are issued regularly, reflecting the
|
||
development in the field.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Quoted from someone's signature:
|
||
|
||
Be alert! The world needs more lerts.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|