(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

I'm posting here for several reasons. Most importantly to keep people thinking about how best to help each other and how best to ask for help in return.

I'm going to spell out a few guidelines that I personally feel are worth following on any forum, especially where you have people with such varied interests and talents as we have here.

1: If you are new and are having problems, please at least read the documentation before you post demanding answers to your questions. Puppy has the best documentation of any of the small distros, which is one of the greatest things about it. If you rtfm you may well be able to fix it yourself.

2: If you are an experienced user, realize that rule 1 is often ignored. Please steer people GENTLY towards finding an appropriate answer.

3: If you have been helped by someone on the forum, help someone else in return. Many people on this forum have helped me a great deal-thanks guys.

4: If you need X application to run in Puppy and it isn't available yet, ask nicely and offer to help in any way you can. Everyone should pitch in, especially if you are asking someone to make something work because YOU need it.

5: Puppy is meant to b friendly to newbies. Be friendly to them on the forum by stearing them in the right direction and not posting answers that are over their heads. They will appreciate it, some will stick around, and eventually they will be experienced users. We need as many people to adopt this puppy as possible, so don't drive someone back to the evil empire that is MS.

There is a lot more that could be added but this is a good start. Everyone will probably break some of these guidelines at some time. I've been guilty of a few infractions myself. Just remember to try and keep this community open and helpful, as this forum is a major tool in developing the future of Puppy Linux. We need each other to make it a community.

Nathan

Nathan F wrote:I

5: Puppy is meant to b friendly to newbies. Be friendly to them on the forum by steering them in the right direction and not posting answers that are over their heads. They will appreciate it, some will stick around, and eventually they will be experienced users. We need as many people to adopt this puppy as possible, so don't drive someone back to the evil empire that is MS.

Nathan

All very well said Nathan.

New users very quickly become experienced Puppys. We talk about dotpups or pup001 or using a terminal or . . .

New users are often bewildered. They may have entered a new world. Never used a forum or Linux. Never used English - whatever. They may be old or very young (or in my case very stupid). They may be too smart for their own good. Most are a great diversity of "average" users. We have much to learn from our new coming, future friends of Puppy . . .

New Pups may also have unrealistic expectations, forgetting how much they had to learn to use the broken Windows.
I must say I still like MS - I feel they have done an incredible job (and been richly rewarded) but Windows no longer works for me. Individually they are not bad (though CEO Steve 'Monkey Boy' Ballmer is either a coke fiend or insane).
Windows takes too long to install (even if that is possible) It is too expensive. It is comprised and unstable and so on.

I am using Puppy now. Full time. It works. Puppy is the easiest and best and fastest (did I mention cutest) distro.

Puppy offers support. Puppy has a future. It is friendly.

Go Puppy Go

To add


Please just don't say "it don't work"

Explain what you have done, the commands, the errors that are being psat at you and what you would like to achieve.

You may have just a tiny syntax error, what you are trying to do may not be possible or there just well be a better way to do it.

Please don't start multiple threads and PLEASE BE PATIENT.

Bladehunter, I couldn't agree more. Thanks.

I agree with Bladehunter too, about being patient.

This forum isn't a call centre with all the answers and a 24/7 tech support staff.
It's just puppy users helping out others as and when they can and have the free time. a Please and Thankyou goes a long way too .

All of the above is right on the mark.
I would like to add just one thing, if people could post a message when they find a solution to their problem it would help the guys who are trying to sort and catalogue the problems to make it easier for people trying to find a solution to their problem.

Sometimes the problem is not described plainly as people might not understand what the problem is but after enough questions have been asked and answers put forward the problem is usually revealed and a solution found eventually.

To sum things up, as stated above, Patience is the key.

It is of no use people trying to force an answer from anyone as it only causes friction and bad feeling and as Barry has said Puppy is about having fun and enjoying yourself doing something that gives you a feeling of satisfaction in achieving something, be it large or small.

Ian wrote:All of the above is right on the mark.
I would like to add just one thing, if people could post a message when they find a solution to their problem it would help the guys who are trying to sort and catalogue the problems to make it easier for people trying to find a solution to their problem.

I have been prodded about this once or twice already, and should have put it in my original post. To sum up:

If you have found a solution to a problem, a shortcut, or anything else that someone might find useful, share it by writing a tutorial or whatever you feel is appropriate. This applies to everyone, including new users, as the more experienced may take for granted some things that a new user may not understand.

Going along with this, please be specific and try to include ALL of the steps that you took.

Another thing...even tho there are many knowledgable people on the forum you may have a problem with some hardware\software that the forum regs may have no knowledge of. Don't be affraid to use external resources and if you do find a solution or some piece of information that you may think might work and you are not too sure just post a link and up and ask "Would this be of use ?".

bladehunter wrote:Another thing...even tho there are many knowledgable people on the forum you may have a problem with some hardware\software that the forum regs may have no knowledge of. Don't be affraid to use external resources and if you do find a solution or some piece of information that you may think might work and you are not too sure just post a link and up and ask "Would this be of use ?".

At this point. I would like to add.

Puppy Linux is a great OS I plan on using it for a long time to come. Am in the proccess of setting a LapTop up just for it, IBM ThinkPad T22 800mhz 512mgzram Puppy runs like ZOOOOOooooom on it . And there are many very experianced Puppy users here, but if ever you need help with it, or just Linux, Mac or Windows related items, feel free to stop by the Linspire Community forum and ask any questions you may have. But please remember the etiquete mentioned here, and use it there as well. They have a great group of users/members Mods and employees just like here at the Puppy forum, there are however a great many more people there and therefore more minds to pick for answers.

Allow me to add one more item of forum etiquette: when posting a picture or screen shot, please be thoughtful enough to crop it to only the area of interest, and reduce its resolution to the minimum that will get your point across.

Not every screen shot is a masterpiece requiring museum-quality detail. Most shots of a full-screen seem to be meant to indicate the broad idea of a concept, as of a window theme, and might better serve that purpose if they were, say, 640x480, or even smaller.

Please, consider those less fortunate puppies with dial-up connections; how long they must wait when they inadvertently click on a forum post that includes a large image that is mostly blue sky. Not to mention the room those large images take up on JohnM's server.....

Thanks.

Once again...


PLEASE BE MORE DESCRIPTIVE, DO ONT JUST SAY IT DON'T WORK.IF YOU ARE NOT PREPARED TO SPEND THE TIME DESCRIBING A PROBLEM HOW IN THE (insert cuss words here) WORLD DO YOU EXPECT ANYONE ELSE TO TRY AND DIAGNOSE YOUR PROBLEM, OR EVEN WANT TO!!!!!

Telepath?
Empathy?
GuessworK?
Intuition?



oh . . . you were not actually asking . . .

Check out my Salavador Dali question under Beginners - I even include a visit to an art gallery just in case it is relevant . . .

Nathan F wrote:
1: If you are new and are having problems, please at least read the documentation before you post demanding answers to your questions. Puppy has the best documentation of any of the small distros, which is one of the greatest things about it. If you rtfm you may well be able to fix it yourself.

Nathan

Please explain rtfm. Thank you.

It's a rather nasty comment often used by Linux and Unix geeks who have little patience for newbies. The actual meaning is "Read the F*ing Manual", and while I do not believe in being that rude myself, the concept of reading the documentation yourself before asking for help is not a bad one.

Certain groups have been criticized in the past because when a newbie posted a question the only response given was "RTFM", or often as not other derogatory remarks about the person's fitness to be operating a computer at all. This has at times given Linux a bad name, but it is also a part of it's history and culture, which is why I included it in my post more as an inside joke than any actual feeling or opinion on my part.

Hope that answers your question.

Nathan

The funny thing is that as soon as people start to read the manual they see that often it's far quicker and easier than asking anyway, so fall into the RTFM mindset themselves.
Of course, Puppy doesn't have a proper man system, so you don't tend to get as much of that on this forum.

Oh, and on the question of the unsavoury language, I agree, but unfortunately 'RTM' already has a meaning.

There are two popular "translations" of RTFM prevalent. One is as described and one is Read The Fine Manual. It seems to me that there are also two kinds of responders and their meaning is usually related to their egos and motivation for posting in a help forum.

People who spend a lot of time trying to help others in forums often lose patience with newbie questions and people who ask before they've even tried to find something on their own, which is clearly and simply explained in the manual or, as with Puppy, something that is explained in the "help" right there on the menu.

I don't think there is anything wrong with trying to steer people into good habits which will help them in the future, like reading the manual. However, there is a difference of "tone" between, "read the FM, you idiot" and "have a look at the manual pages for complete information" along with an appropriate URL or link.

My experience with Puppy is that, by far, posters are of the second category and are trying to help, and usually a URL is provided. It's not like that everywhere, I learned to RTFM on newsgroups, that's a bit like learning to swim by being cast into water over your head, but now RTFM is the first thing I think to do.

If beginners would just notice the second sticky post in the beginner forum, or learn to use the forum search, lots of questions might be saved. The nice thing about repeat questions, they become easier to answer.

Edit: Oops, I just noticed that a moderator with sufficient permission moved the sticky to the first post location. I suppose it was Flash. Now if I could just remember how many times I've advised that it is the "second" post I might be able to find them and correct. It's a very useful post in any case.

nipper wrote:.... Oops, I just noticed that a moderator with sufficient permission moved the sticky to the first post location. I suppose it was Flash. Now if I could just remember how many times I've advised that it is the "second" post I might be able to find them and correct. It's a very useful post in any case.

Someone must have posted to that thread, which moved it to the top. Stickies are ordered just like regular threads, by the order of the latest post. I know, it seems inconsistent with the idea of a sticky, but that's the way it works.

If you want to refer to a post, it's best to simply put a link to that post.

I would like to add another one.
When someone references a link, please, out of courtesy, make it clickable.

Nathan F wrote:If you have found a solution to a problem, a shortcut, or anything else that someone might find useful, share it by writing a tutorial or whatever you feel is appropriate. This applies to everyone, including new users, as the more experienced may take for granted some things that a new user may not understand.

Going along with this, please be specific and try to include ALL of the steps that you took.

Even more importantly, if you started a thread to find the solution to a problem and the solution was forthcoming, please edit your original post to add [Solved] to the subject line.

That achieves two things:

1. Those who are prowling the forum looking for people who need help - including me - won't waste time reading a thread where the answer has already been provided, and

2.Those who need help with the same problem will know instantly that their answer lies within; a very comforting discovery as most of us have found out at one time or another.

Remember, we all love the Puppy or we wouldn't be spending our free, and sometimes borrowed, time here.

Béèm wrote:I would like to add another one.
When someone references a link, please, out of courtesy, make it clickable.

I'd like to know why they are no longer automatically clickable, as they once were.