Forums FAQ list

[nanotube]

Hey everybody
So I decided to start an "Ubuntu Forums FAQ" page where I put all the questions that I have seen frequently on these forums. The idea is that whenever I (or any of you) see these questions, all you have to do is post "look at this faq here buddy", rather than repost a solution, or look for a previous thread with a solution, remember what webpage had the solution, etc.

So, please check out the current version of it here: http://pykeylogger.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Ubuntu:Forums_FAQ
give me your comments, and feel free to add things to the faq yourself - it is on a publicly editable wiki.

Any feedback appreciated. :)

[adamkane]

The thirteenth labor of Hercules!

Make sure you create sections, many sections.

[zluka]

not a bad idea.. but i guess the classification should be a little bit different.. like "root pwd problems", and "video problems" or "x server thingies", dunno. there are just 3 topics yet, but when it gets larger, it'd cause problems, i think ;)

and a few topics to add ;)
-cups root pwd problem
-xgl (with links to how-to's or a general explanation)
-a general wireless how-to (i don't have it, thank god, but lots of questions about it)

well, that's about it for now, hope i got what you mean, or am i far away? :confused:

[nanotube]

The thirteenth labor of Hercules!

Make sure you create sections, many sections.
hehe yea, when i have more stuff in there, definitely will have sections :)

[nanotube]

not a bad idea.. but i guess the classification should be a little bit different.. like "root pwd problems", and "video problems" or "x server thingies", dunno. there are just 3 topics yet, but when it gets larger, it'd cause problems, i think ;)

and a few topics to add ;)
-cups root pwd problem
-xgl (with links to how-to's or a general explanation)
-a general wireless how-to (i don't have it, thank god, but lots of questions about it)

well, that's about it for now, hope i got what you mean, or am i far away? :confused:
hey thanks for your feedback! the classification and sectioning is certainly a good idea, but with just 3 questions so far, it doesn't yet make sense.
and thanks for your suggestions. but i have never seen the "cups root pwd problem". what is it? :)

any other suggestions (or even contributions to the wiki page) are appreciated!

[zluka]

i live but to serve ;)

i mean the cups management screen (localhost:631) which doesn't allow you to manage anything, for in ubuntu you never see the root pwd if you don't go looking for it :-k

i don't want to start blasphemous rumours ;) about the usefulness or the security of the thing, i just mean that the "system -> administration -> printing" thing doesn't work perfectly, and in the end you need the cups web interface (or whatever). and it doesn't accept the default user pwd, so one has to bang his head to find about the "shadow" group, whom to add there, and how to do that to change the default page size ;)

by the way, a new thought.. you might add a how-to about multimedia codecs and else, or just mention about Automatix and BUMPS. i remember what a disappointment it was when i first installed ubuntu, more or less without any linux knowledge, and found out it couldn't play mp3 :o. of course it's simpler now, but for me, and after losing hours in the forums and googling.. synaptic is a great tool, but it's no teacher ;)

keep up the good job

[adamkane]

Have you thought about how you are going to deal with competing methods for doing the same thing? There's often 2 schools of thought about "the best way" to do something. (I'm usually the only one in the competing school, but surely there are other examples.)

Example:
The proprietary way versus the non-proprietary way to install something. - Just include both (I guess).

[Clay85]

I come from the land of the 'absolute beginner forum' where no one is an absolute beginner except myself. I'm asking questions like 'How do I make desktop icons?'. Everyone else is asking questions like...I can't think of an example, but something difficult that I don't even have an idea about what is going on.

That really didn't have much to do about anything. I'm tired. JUST GIVE ME THE BEANS!

[nanotube]

i live but to serve ;)

i mean the cups management screen (localhost:631) which doesn't allow you to manage anything, for in ubuntu you never see the root pwd if you don't go looking for it :-k

i don't want to start blasphemous rumours ;) about the usefulness or the security of the thing, i just mean that the "system -> administration -> printing" thing doesn't work perfectly, and in the end you need the cups web interface (or whatever). and it doesn't accept the default user pwd, so one has to bang his head to find about the "shadow" group, whom to add there, and how to do that to change the default page size ;)

by the way, a new thought.. you might add a how-to about multimedia codecs and else, or just mention about Automatix and BUMPS. i remember what a disappointment it was when i first installed ubuntu, more or less without any linux knowledge, and found out it couldn't play mp3 :o. of course it's simpler now, but for me, and after losing hours in the forums and googling.. synaptic is a great tool, but it's no teacher ;)

keep up the good job


heh, i never had any problems with cups when setting up my network printer... so i still don't know what you mean. can you link to a representative thread? :)

as to automatix/bumps/easyubuntu/codecs - that sounds like a good addition to the faq, too.

[nanotube]

Have you thought about how you are going to deal with competing methods for doing the same thing? There's often 2 schools of thought about "the best way" to do something. (I'm usually the only one in the competing school, but surely there are other examples.)

Example:
The proprietary way versus the non-proprietary way to install something. - Just include both (I guess).
i think i agree with you - include both, describe advantages/disadvantages, and let them choose. (but of course, steer them, in an unbiased sort of way, to my preferred solution :D)

[nanotube]

I come from the land of the 'absolute beginner forum' where no one is an absolute beginner except myself. I'm asking questions like 'How do I make desktop icons?'. Everyone else is asking questions like...I can't think of an example, but something difficult that I don't even have an idea about what is going on.

That really didn't have much to do about anything. I'm tired. JUST GIVE ME THE BEANS!
hehe, how do i make desktop icons - that's a good one to add to the faq. keep 'em comin! :)

[Lord Illidan]

Not to offend you or pour cold water on the project, but don't we have the Wiki already? Improving the wiki would be a better job than starting a whole new project!
Official Wiki (http://wiki.ubuntu.com/)

[nanotube]

Not to offend you or pour cold water on the project, but don't we have the Wiki already? Improving the wiki would be a better job than starting a whole new project!
Official Wiki (http://wiki.ubuntu.com/)

yes, we do have the wiki - but the wiki has hundreds if not thousands of articles. this is supposed to be a list of /frequently/ asked questions, maybe a few dozen, not more. just to be "at the ready" when someone asks one of those questions, for quick reference.

ah, actually, the wiki has 681 articles in category documentation (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CategoryDocumentation)

so i think it would serve a useful, and separate, purpose. given this reasoning, do you still think the FAQ has no added value? I'd be interested to hear more of your feedback. :)

[aysiu]

I'm with nanotube on this.

The Wiki has some great articles and HowTos in it--I link to them all the time.

From a navigational standpoint, though, it's a mess.

When I was starting out with Ubuntu, I couldn't find anything in the Wiki (yes, I was too dumb to use the search function). I liked the (no longer updated) Ubuntu Guide because it was all one page with a lot of frequently asked stuff.

nanotube's guide looks good because it has a lot of frequently asked questions. I like, too, that despite a few links to HowTos, it also seems to be troubleshooting-oriented (the black screen... what do I do?).

[nanotube]

thanks for your vote of confidence, aysiu. :)
you do a lot of posting on here, so you must have a good idea as to what are some of the really frequently asked questions. please feel free to make suggestions, or even just add them to the faq wiki page.

p.s. it seems your "number of beans" line went away... is it because you finally went over 10000 beans? ;)

[aysiu]

Even though the FAQ's homepage has this explanation:
t is primarily designed for personal backup purposes, rather than stealth keylogging. Thus, it does not make explicit attempts to hide its presence from the operating system or the user. I think the FAQ's URL is going to scare people away--keylogger? Why am I going to a place that's going to install a keylogger on my Ubuntu? You know how paranoid some people can get.

This FAQ can't be hosted on the main Ubuntu Wiki...?


thanks for your vote of confidence, aysiu. :)
you do a lot of posting on here, so you must have a good idea as to what are some of the really frequently asked questions. please feel free to make suggestions, or even just add them to the faq wiki page. To the multimedia thing, I'd add in something about Easy Ubuntu, BUMPS, and Automatix, just so people know those options are available.

We also get a lot of questions like:

Is GIMP a good substitute for Photoshop? What's the difference?
What's the difference between Kubuntu and Ubuntu? How do I install KDE?
Can I run __________ in Wine?
Do I need a firewall, anti-virus, defragmentation?
Will Ubuntu work on such-and-such a configuration?

That's all I can think of right now.



p.s. it seems your "number of beans" line went away... is it because you finally went over 10000 beans? ;) I changed the option in my User CP to hide them.

[nanotube]

Even though the FAQ's homepage has this explanation: I think the FAQ's URL is going to scare people away--keylogger? Why am I going to a place that's going to install a keylogger on my Ubuntu? You know how paranoid some people can get.
This FAQ can't be hosted on the main Ubuntu Wiki...?

heh well, since i made pykeylogger, and i had the wiki set up there, i figured i'd put it there. i suppose it is not beyond reason to host it on the ubuntu wiki, but i am not even sure that the ubuntu wiki people will take kindly to it - since it is mostly a collection of stuff that may already be present on the wiki, scattered across the various pages...

and of course there is also the nice feeling that i have something useful on "my" website - probably same reason you host all your nice ubuntu howtos on your psychocats site, rather than on the official ubuntu wiki. :)



To the multimedia thing, I'd add in something about Easy Ubuntu, BUMPS, and Automatix, just so people know those options are available.

do i have a multimedia thing? ... oh looks like some kindly forum member has contributed a multimedia section! heh, nice. well, i will add easyubuntu+friends to that, as well.



We also get a lot of questions like:

Is GIMP a good substitute for Photoshop? What's the difference?
What's the difference between Kubuntu and Ubuntu? How do I install KDE?
Can I run __________ in Wine?
Do I need a firewall, anti-virus, defragmentation?
Will Ubuntu work on such-and-such a configuration?

That's all I can think of right now.

ooh, those are some nice ones! i will add them in. :)



I changed the option in my User CP to hide them.
heh, that makes me curious enough to ask a followup question - how come you decided to hide them? :)

thanks a lot for all your comments and feedback, aysiu!

[aysiu]

heh well, since i made pykeylogger, and i had the wiki set up there, i figured i'd put it there. i suppose it is not beyond reason to host it on the ubuntu wiki, but i am not even sure that the ubuntu wiki people will take kindly to it - since it is mostly a collection of stuff that may already be present on the wiki, scattered across the various pages...

and of course there is also the nice feeling that i have something useful on "my" website - probably same reason you host all your nice ubuntu howtos on your psychocats site, rather than on the official ubuntu wiki. :) No, you're right on. We've got Automatix on beerorkid, a great software installation guide on monkeyblog, and all my crap on psychocats. Weird domain names. I just thought keylogger might scare off some people, but who knows? Maybe beerorkid will, too...



heh, that makes me curious enough to ask a followup question - how come you decided to hide them? :) I don't like people thinking I'm some kind of Ubuntu guru just because I have a lot of posts.

[nanotube]

No, you're right on. We've got Automatix on beerorkid, a great software installation guide on monkeyblog, and all my crap on psychocats. Weird domain names. I just thought keylogger might scare off some people, but who knows? Maybe beerorkid will, too...

heh well, that's the site i've got, so that's the one i'm using. :) though on second thought, maybe i should have named by sf project something like "cutekittens" ...



I don't like people thinking I'm some kind of Ubuntu guru just because I have a lot of posts.
hmm, ic. well, you /are/ pretty knowledgeable, i don't see anything wrong with people thinking you know some stuff. but thanks for your explanation. :)

[zluka]

there you go about cups thingies:

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=176826&highlight=cups+problem
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=163140&highlight=cups+problem
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=158774&highlight=cups+problem

actually, i should put it that way.. cups is a problem kid, and in a lot of threads people are directed to use the cups interface to change-fix something. but noone explains about the password thing, for localhost:631 (as default) does not accept the root or user pwd.

solution (i know it's simple, but takes too much time to find):
and read till the end please ;)

http://ubuntu.wordpress.com/2005/10/13/enabling-cupsys-web-admin-interface/

[nanotube]

ah ok, thanks zluka. i will add it to the FAQ. :)

[zluka]

so nanotube, did you give up on the thing? or working on it?

[nanotube]

so nanotube, did you give up on the thing? or working on it?
hehe no i didn't give up... just haven't had time to work on it, been working on studying for an exam, and on the install firefox script (see first link in my sig, under install firefox)

so feel free to add stuff to the faq yourself, if you are impatient :)

[Engnome]

See my signature, it has a faq section for each dist that is quite good. If you want just steal/rip it off as it is published under GNU Free Documentation License 1.2.

[nanotube]

See my signature, it has a faq section for each dist that is quite good. If you want just steal/rip it off as it is published under GNU Free Documentation License 1.2.
well, my wiki is under the GFDL too. :) but anyway, it doesn't make much sense to just copy your stuff - it is quite good, and i will refer people to it, but i think i will keep my faq to things that are not mentioned in your faq (if such things exist, i'll have to check...).

or maybe, even better, you can sift this thread for faq suggestions, see if anythnig here is not already in your easylinux.info faq, and add it to your faq. that way i don't have to create a separate faq. :)

[nanotube]

well, as you can see, the FAQ is going live in my sig. Feel free to check it out, comment, and, of course, use it. :)