    How to get best results from the FreeBSD-questions mailing list

  Greg Lehey

   <grog@FreeBSD.org>

   $FreeBSD:
   release/8.4.0/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/freebsd-questions/article.xml
   39632 2012-10-01 11:56:00Z gabor $

   $FreeBSD:
   release/8.4.0/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/freebsd-questions/article.xml
   39632 2012-10-01 11:56:00Z gabor $

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   Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to
   distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those
   designations appear in this document, and the FreeBSD Project was
   aware of the trademark claim, the designations have been followed
   by the "(TM)" or the "(R)" symbol.

   This document provides useful information for people looking to
   prepare an e-mail to the FreeBSD-questions mailing list. Advice
   and hints are given that will maximize the chance that the reader
   will receive useful replies.

   This document is regularly posted to the FreeBSD-questions mailing
   list.

     --------------------------------------------------------------

1 Introduction

   FreeBSD-questions is a mailing list maintained by the FreeBSD
   project to help people who have questions about the normal use of
   FreeBSD. Another group, FreeBSD-hackers, discusses more advanced
   questions such as future development work.

     Note: The term "hacker" has nothing to do with breaking into
     other people's computers. The correct term for the latter
     activity is "cracker", but the popular press has not found out
     yet. The FreeBSD hackers disapprove strongly of cracking
     security, and have nothing to do with it. For a longer
     description of hackers, see Eric Raymond's How To Become A
     Hacker

   This is a regular posting aimed to help both those seeking advice
   from FreeBSD-questions (the "newcomers"), and also those who
   answer the questions (the "hackers").

   Inevitably there is some friction, which stems from the different
   viewpoints of the two groups. The newcomers accuse the hackers of
   being arrogant, stuck-up, and unhelpful, while the hackers accuse
   the newcomers of being stupid, unable to read plain English, and
   expecting everything to be handed to them on a silver platter. Of
   course, there is an element of truth in both these claims, but for
   the most part these viewpoints come from a sense of frustration.

   In this document, I would like to do something to relieve this
   frustration and help everybody get better results from
   FreeBSD-questions. In the following section, I recommend how to
   submit a question; after that, we will look at how to answer one.

     --------------------------------------------------------------

2 How to subscribe to FreeBSD-questions

   FreeBSD-questions is a mailing list, so you need mail access.
   Point your WWW browser to the information page of the
   FreeBSD-questions mailing list. In the section titled "Subscribing
   to freebsd-questions" fill in the "Your email address" field; the
   other fields are optional.

     Note: The password fields in the subscription form provide only
     mild security, but should prevent others from messing with your
     subscription. Do not use a valuable password as it will
     occasionally be emailed back to you in cleartext.

   You will receive a confirmation message from mailman; follow the
   included instructions to complete your subscription.

   Finally, when you get the "Welcome" message from mailman telling
   you the details of the list and subscription area password, please
   save it. If you ever should want to leave the list, you will need
   the information there. See the next section for more details.

     --------------------------------------------------------------

3 How to unsubscribe from FreeBSD-questions

   When you subscribed to FreeBSD-questions, you got a welcome
   message from mailman. In this message, amongst other things, it
   told you how to unsubscribe. Here is a typical message:

 Welcome to the freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list!

 To post to this list, send your email to:

   freebsd-questions@freebsd.org

 General information about the mailing list is at:

   http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions

 If you ever want to unsubscribe or change your options (e.g., switch to
 or from digest mode, change your password, etc.), visit your
 subscription page at:

 http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/options/freebsd-questions/grog%40lemsi.de

 You can also make such adjustments via email by sending a message to:

   freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org

 with the word `help' in the subject or body (don't include the
 quotes), and you will get back a message with instructions.

 You must know your password to change your options (including changing
 the password, itself) or to unsubscribe.  It is:

   12345

 Normally, Mailman will remind you of your freebsd.org mailing list
 passwords once every month, although you can disable this if you
 prefer.  This reminder will also include instructions on how to
 unsubscribe or change your account options.  There is also a button on
 your options page that will email your current password to you.

   From the URL specified in your "Welcome" message you may visit the
   "Account management page" and enter a request to "Unsubscribe" you
   from FreeBSD-questions mailing list.

   A confirmation message will be sent to you from mailman; follow
   the included instructions to finish unsubscribing.

   If you have done this, and you still can not figure out what is
   going on, send a message to
   <freebsd-questions-request@FreeBSD.org>, and they will sort things
   out for you. Do not send a message to FreeBSD-questions: they can
   not help you.

     --------------------------------------------------------------

4 Should I ask -questions or -hackers?

   Two mailing lists handle general questions about FreeBSD,
   FreeBSD-questions and FreeBSD-hackers. In some cases, it is not
   really clear which group you should ask. The following criteria
   should help for 99% of all questions, however:

    1. If the question is of a general nature, ask FreeBSD-questions.
       Examples might be questions about installing FreeBSD or the
       use of a particular UNIX(R) utility.

    2. If you think the question relates to a bug, but you are not
       sure, or you do not know how to look for it, send the message
       to FreeBSD-questions.

    3. If the question relates to a bug, and you are sure that it is
       a bug (for example, you can pinpoint the place in the code
       where it happens, and you maybe have a fix), then send the
       message to FreeBSD-hackers.

    4. If the question relates to enhancements to FreeBSD, and you
       can make suggestions about how to implement them, then send
       the message to FreeBSD-hackers.

   There are also a number of other specialized mailing lists, for
   example FreeBSD-isp, which caters to the interests of ISPs
   (Internet Service Providers) who run FreeBSD. If you happen to be
   an ISP, this does not mean you should automatically send your
   questions to FreeBSD-isp. The criteria above still apply, and it
   is in your interest to stick to them, since you are more likely to
   get good results that way.

     --------------------------------------------------------------

5 Before submitting a question

   You can (and should) do some things yourself before asking a
   question on one of the mailing lists:

     * Try solving the problem on your own. If you post a question
       which shows that you have tried to solve the problem, your
       question will generally attract more positive attention from
       people reading it. Trying to solve the problem yourself will
       also enhance your understanding of FreeBSD, and will
       eventually let you use your knowledge to help others by
       answering questions posted to the mailing lists.

     * Read the manual pages, and the FreeBSD documentation (either
       installed in /usr/doc or accessible via WWW at
       http://www.FreeBSD.org), especially the handbook and the FAQ.

     * Browse and/or search the archives for the mailing list, to see
       if your question or a similar one has been asked (and possibly
       answered) on the list. You can browse and/or search the
       mailing list archives at http://www.FreeBSD.org/mail and
       http://www.FreeBSD.org/search/search.html#mailinglists
       respectively. This can be done at other WWW sites as well, for
       example at http://marc.theaimsgroup.com.

     * Use a search engine such as Google or Yahoo to find answers to
       your question. Google even has a BSD-specific search
       interface.

     --------------------------------------------------------------

6 How to submit a question

   When submitting a question to FreeBSD-questions, consider the
   following points:

     * Remember that nobody gets paid for answering a FreeBSD
       question. They do it of their own free will. You can influence
       this free will positively by submitting a well-formulated
       question supplying as much relevant information as possible.
       You can influence this free will negatively by submitting an
       incomplete, illegible, or rude question. It is perfectly
       possible to send a message to FreeBSD-questions and not get an
       answer even if you follow these rules. It is much more
       possible to not get an answer if you do not. In the rest of
       this document, we will look at how to get the most out of your
       question to FreeBSD-questions.

     * Not everybody who answers FreeBSD questions reads every
       message: they look at the subject line and decide whether it
       interests them. Clearly, it is in your interest to specify a
       subject. "FreeBSD problem" or "Help" are not enough. If you
       provide no subject at all, many people will not bother reading
       it. If your subject is not specific enough, the people who can
       answer it may not read it.

     * Format your message so that it is legible, and PLEASE DO NOT
       SHOUT!!!!!. We appreciate that a lot of people do not speak
       English as their first language, and we try to make allowances
       for that, but it is really painful to try to read a message
       written full of typos or without any line breaks.

       Do not underestimate the effect that a poorly formatted mail
       message has, not just on the FreeBSD-questions mailing list.
       Your mail message is all people see of you, and if it is
       poorly formatted, one line per paragraph, badly spelt, or full
       of errors, it will give people a poor impression of you.

       A lot of badly formatted messages come from bad mailers or
       badly configured mailers. The following mailers are known to
       send out badly formatted messages without you finding out
       about them:

          * cc:Mail

          * Eudora(R)

          * exmh

          * Microsoft(R) Exchange

          * Microsoft Internet Mail

          * Microsoft Outlook(R)

          * Netscape(R)

       As you can see, the mailers in the Microsoft world are
       frequent offenders. If at all possible, use a UNIX mailer. If
       you must use a mailer under Microsoft environments, make sure
       it is set up correctly. Try not to use MIME: a lot of people
       use mailers which do not get on very well with MIME.

     * Make sure your time and time zone are set correctly. This may
       seem a little silly, since your message still gets there, but
       many of the people you are trying to reach get several hundred
       messages a day. They frequently sort the incoming messages by
       subject and by date, and if your message does not come before
       the first answer, they may assume they missed it and not
       bother to look.

     * Do not include unrelated questions in the same message.
       Firstly, a long message tends to scare people off, and
       secondly, it is more difficult to get all the people who can
       answer all the questions to read the message.

     * Specify as much information as possible. This is a difficult
       area, and we need to expand on what information you need to
       submit, but here is a start:

          * In nearly every case, it is important to know the version
            of FreeBSD you are running. This is particularly the case
            for FreeBSD-CURRENT, where you should also specify the
            date of the sources, though of course you should not be
            sending questions about -CURRENT to FreeBSD-questions.

          * With any problem which could be hardware related, tell us
            about your hardware. In case of doubt, assume it is
            possible that it is hardware. What kind of CPU are you
            using? How fast? What motherboard? How much memory? What
            peripherals?

            There is a judgement call here, of course, but the output
            of the dmesg(8) command can frequently be very useful,
            since it tells not just what hardware you are running,
            but what version of FreeBSD as well.

          * If you get error messages, do not say "I get error
            messages", say (for example) "I get the error message 'No
            route to host'".

          * If your system panics, do not say "My system panicked",
            say (for example) "my system panicked with the message
            'free vnode isn't'".

          * If you have difficulty installing FreeBSD, please tell us
            what hardware you have. In particular, it is important to
            know the IRQs and I/O addresses of the boards installed
            in your machine.

          * If you have difficulty getting PPP to run, describe the
            configuration. Which version of PPP do you use? What kind
            of authentication do you have? Do you have a static or
            dynamic IP address? What kind of messages do you get in
            the log file?

     * A lot of the information you need to supply is the output of
       programs, such as dmesg(8), or console messages, which usually
       appear in /var/log/messages. Do not try to copy this
       information by typing it in again; it is a real pain, and you
       are bound to make a mistake. To send log file contents, either
       make a copy of the file and use an editor to trim the
       information to what is relevant, or cut and paste into your
       message. For the output of programs like dmesg(8), redirect
       the output to a file and include that. For example,

 % dmesg > /tmp/dmesg.out

       This redirects the information to the file /tmp/dmesg.out.

     * If you do all this, and you still do not get an answer, there
       could be other reasons. For example, the problem is so
       complicated that nobody knows the answer, or the person who
       does know the answer was offline. If you do not get an answer
       after, say, a week, it might help to re-send the message. If
       you do not get an answer to your second message, though, you
       are probably not going to get one from this forum. Resending
       the same message again and again will only make you unpopular.

   To summarize, let's assume you know the answer to the following
   question (yes, it is the same one in each case). You choose which
   of these two questions you would be more prepared to answer:

   Example 1. Message 1

 Subject: HELP!!?!??
 I just can't get hits damn silly FereBSD system to
 workd, and Im really good at this tsuff, but I have never seen
 anythign sho difficult to install, it jst wont work whatever I try
 so why don't you guys tell me what I doing wrong.

   Example 2. Message 2

 Subject: Problems installing FreeBSD

 I've just got the FreeBSD 2.1.5 CDROM from Walnut Creek, and I'm having a lot
 of difficulty installing it.  I have a 66 MHz 486 with 16 MB of
 memory and an Adaptec 1540A SCSI board, a 1.2GB Quantum Fireball
 disk and a Toshiba 3501XA CDROM drive.  The installation works just
 fine, but when I try to reboot the system, I get the message
 "Missing Operating System".

     --------------------------------------------------------------

7 How to follow up to a question

   Often you will want to send in additional information to a
   question you have already sent. The best way to do this is to
   reply to your original message. This has three advantages:

    1. You include the original message text, so people will know
       what you are talking about. Do not forget to trim unnecessary
       text out, though.

    2. The text in the subject line stays the same (you did remember
       to put one in, did you not?). Many mailers will sort messages
       by subject. This helps group messages together.

    3. The message reference numbers in the header will refer to the
       previous message. Some mailers, such as mutt, can thread
       messages, showing the exact relationships between the
       messages.

     --------------------------------------------------------------

8 How to answer a question

   Before you answer a question to FreeBSD-questions, consider:

    1. A lot of the points on submitting questions also apply to
       answering questions. Read them.

    2. Has somebody already answered the question? The easiest way to
       check this is to sort your incoming mail by subject: then
       (hopefully) you will see the question followed by any answers,
       all together.

       If somebody has already answered it, it does not automatically
       mean that you should not send another answer. But it makes
       sense to read all the other answers first.

    3. Do you have something to contribute beyond what has already
       been said? In general, "Yeah, me too" answers do not help
       much, although there are exceptions, like when somebody is
       describing a problem he is having, and he does not know
       whether it is his fault or whether there is something wrong
       with the hardware or software. If you do send a "me too"
       answer, you should also include any further relevant
       information.

    4. Are you sure you understand the question? Very frequently, the
       person who asks the question is confused or does not express
       himself very well. Even with the best understanding of the
       system, it is easy to send a reply which does not answer the
       question. This does not help: you will leave the person who
       submitted the question more frustrated or confused than ever.
       If nobody else answers, and you are not too sure either, you
       can always ask for more information.

    5. Are you sure your answer is correct? If not, wait a day or so.
       If nobody else comes up with a better answer, you can still
       reply and say, for example, "I do not know if this is correct,
       but since nobody else has replied, why don't you try replacing
       your ATAPI CDROM with a frog?".

    6. Unless there is a good reason to do otherwise, reply to the
       sender and to FreeBSD-questions. Many people on the
       FreeBSD-questions are "lurkers": they learn by reading
       messages sent and replied to by others. If you take a message
       which is of general interest off the list, you are depriving
       these people of their information. Be careful with group
       replies; lots of people send messages with hundreds of CCs. If
       this is the case, be sure to trim the Cc: lines appropriately.

    7. Include relevant text from the original message. Trim it to
       the minimum, but do not overdo it. It should still be possible
       for somebody who did not read the original message to
       understand what you are talking about.

    8. Use some technique to identify which text came from the
       original message, and which text you add. I personally find
       that prepending "> " to the original message works best.
       Leaving white space after the "> " and leave empty lines
       between your text and the original text both make the result
       more readable.

    9. Put your response in the correct place (after the text to
       which it replies). It is very difficult to read a thread of
       responses where each reply comes before the text to which it
       replies.

   10. Most mailers change the subject line on a reply by prepending
       a text such as "Re: ". If your mailer does not do it
       automatically, you should do it manually.

   11. If the submitter did not abide by format conventions (lines
       too long, inappropriate subject line), please fix it. In the
       case of an incorrect subject line (such as "HELP!!??"), change
       the subject line to (say) "Re: Difficulties with sync PPP
       (was: HELP!!??)". That way other people trying to follow the
       thread will have less difficulty following it.

       In such cases, it is appropriate to say what you did and why
       you did it, but try not to be rude. If you find you can not
       answer without being rude, do not answer.

       If you just want to reply to a message because of its bad
       format, just reply to the submitter, not to the list. You can
       just send him this message in reply, if you like.

     --------------------------------------------------------------
