FAQ, The Archives & Asking for help

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Mpemba Effect

Mpemba Effect

Mpemba Effect

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Joined
18 Oct 2002
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Mpemba Effect

Mpemba Effect

Mpemba Effect

Man of Honour
OP
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
7,097
Asking for help

1. Be specific
2. Post up any error messages exactly
3. Post up any relevent infomation. Example: If you are having problems with hardware be sure to include your system spec.

Be specific
Avoid questions such as "what software is avaliable for linux?", the answer for such as question is far beyond the scope of this forum. Asking for a recommendation for an application for a specifc job would be a better approach.

Post up any error messages exactly
Post up any error messages exactly. Example:
Code: 
Detected operating system: Linux
Detected host architecture: i386
Checking for cc version ... not found
Checking for gcc version ... not found
Checking for gcc-3.3 version ... not found
Checking for gcc-3.2 version ... not found
Checking for gcc-3.1 version ... not found
Checking for gcc3 version ... not found
Checking for gcc-3.0 version ... not found
Checking for cc version ... not found

*** Please downgrade/upgrade C compiler to version gcc-2.95.x or gcc-3.x! ***
For the *nix uninitiated you may see the last line and assume you need to upgrade your GCC, but in fact the problem is GCC is not installed. So be sure to include as much of the error message as possible

Post up any relevent infomation
In addition to any error messages include any relevent information (obviously if you're new to linux you may not know what infomation may or may not be relevent so don't worry too much). If you have a hardware problem post up the output of
Code: 
[b]dmesg[/b]
when typed in a linux commandline. System specs could be useful such as, chipsets, model make and numbers of the probmatic device.

If you have a problem configuring software do include the configuration files if you know which ones they are. Example: /etc/X11/XF86Config and /var/log/XFree.0.log for issues regarding XFree86.
 

Mpemba Effect

Mpemba Effect

Mpemba Effect

Man of Honour
OP
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
7,097
Capturing error messages

dmesg and kernel starup messages
Kernel startup messages can be displayed using 'dmesg', instead of using copy and paste (since the output may scroll too fast on your screen or may exceed the number of scrollback line on your console to see the whole message) you can redirect the message to a file.
Code: 
dmesg > /tmp/dmesg.txt
The file 'dmesg.txt' will be found in the /tmp directory.

Logging an entire session
It is possible to log the entire terminal session using the 'script' command, which will log everything you do and all the messages which are printed on-screen, this can be review later should something go wrong.
Code: 
# [b]script[/b]
Script started, file is typescript
# [b]./configure[/b]
loading cache ./config.cache
checking for a BSD compatible install... (cached) /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes

....

checking for yywrap in -ll... no
checking lex output file root... lex: not found
configure: error: cannot find output from lex; giving up
# [b]exit[/b]
Script done, file is typescript
 

Mpemba Effect

Mpemba Effect

Mpemba Effect

Man of Honour
OP
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
7,097
Distribution Suppliers

The following users have kindly offered to supply on a non-profit basis, free *nix distribution CDs for those with slow internet connections. Send off a politely worded, undemanding email to one of these kind individuals and they'd be more than happy to mail you your distribution(s) of choice. Please note that these individuals could have little spare time or few spare CDs on occasion so please be forbearing.

arty - [email protected]
cb_linus - [email protected]
Davyb - [email protected]
deano - [email protected]
Deathwish - [email protected]
FishFluff - [email protected]
MiggyMan - [email protected] (Single CD Distributions only)
M0KUJ1N - [email protected] (Fedora, Debian or Debian Derivatives & Gentoo)
Mpemba Effect - [email protected] (Gentoo, Ubuntu, Yoper, Freebsd, Arch Linux)
William Wallace - [email protected]
 
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