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What other official places can I go for getting help on Ubuntu if I do not get the help I wanted on Ask Ubuntu?

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    Btw there are many ubuntu/linux groups are available in facebook ,but these are not official :)
    – Tachyons
    May 4, 2012 at 1:38
  • @I'mnotthisperson: The ubuntu download page links you here after you get the precise iso, and I believe it's also linked to from the install process slideshow.
    – Daenyth
    May 4, 2012 at 19:23
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    best answer would be a merged answer of irrational_John + answer of desgua. But I guess stealing answers is not fair, and both of them should earn reputation. It would be nice if people could merge answers and share gained reputation.
    – math
    May 10, 2012 at 18:54
  • @Math make it a cw and then post it! it's for the community. :)
    – Alvar
    May 12, 2012 at 10:22

9 Answers 9

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Some places you can go when looking for help when using the RTFM method ...

The Official Ubuntu Documentation page where you can find the official documentation developed and maintained by the Ubuntu Documentation Project.

The Ubuntu Documentation Wiki, whose home page I can never seem to find with a search, is a community-driven and open area of the Ubuntu documentation website which anyone can edit.

The Ubuntu Wiki. (I'm never really sure what this site is about or where to look for things on it, but there it is all the same. It does have a somewhat pretty page containing Ubuntu Release Information)

Ubuntu Common Questions (aka FAQ) page

The Ubuntu Manpage Repository

The Ubuntu Index of all available pages (Supposedly a list/index of all community documentation pages.)

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+250

I feel the question is missing something. It's phrased in the manner of "I didn't get help here... where else can I go to find people to help me?" But Ask Ubuntu isn't really about helping people one-on-one. If that were the primary purpose, we wouldn't close questions because they are duplicates or bug reports. The primary purpose of Ask Ubuntu is to create a useful resource for people to look up their question and find answers.

So the proper answer to "I didn't get help here. What do I do next?" is:

"Do your research. Search for similar, related questions. Then if you still haven't gotten anywhere, edit and improve your question using the knowledge you have garnered."

Ideally you're supposed to have done this first. But often people do not. The FAQ actually suggests doing this.

First, search Ask Ubuntu. Experiment with different keywords. Use more restricted searches first, e.g. more specific keywords and also putting phrases in quotes, and then lighten the constraints if you aren't finding what you need.

Next, you can use Google to search for key terms. Even if you didn't get an answer from searching Ask Ubuntu, you might have gotten some ideas of what to search for. Google will find you hits from a variety of forums and is still generally considered the best search engine. You might also consider using Google's site specific search. Along with your keywords, just type in site:askubuntu.com, for example, to search only Ask Ubuntu. Or site:ubuntuforums.org to search Ubuntu forums (forum search can be pretty bad, so this really helps).

Finally after all that, if you still haven't found your answer, you're hopefully much better informed, and you should yet again consider posting here or at least updating your question.

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    This is as excellent answer. If you're not getting an answer here you need to keep working on your question and adding the efforts of your research into it. May 9, 2012 at 2:51
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    I viewed the question as asking, "What other resources should I look to when attempting to do my own research into my question?" May 10, 2012 at 0:33
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There is also the paid official support:

and others forums like:

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You can go to Ubuntu forums.

http://ubuntuforums.org/

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    This is my personal fav.
    – djangofan
    May 9, 2012 at 20:37
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    never been there...
    – Alvar
    May 24, 2012 at 18:21
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You might also check out the ubuntu IRC channels on freenode. http://www.ubuntu.com/support/community/chat

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I've used them all, and learned that you really need to be careful at some of them, even ubuntuforums.org; there is a lot of "the blind leading the blind" - people trying to be helpful who don't really know what they are doing, or why they did what they did, etc.

It seems like Stack Exchange has a lot of smart people, including a lot of people who work for Ubuntu, plus the voting helps you find good answers, and rewards people who provide good answers.

But one other resource that nobody mentioned yet is Reddit.com. They have a voting mechanism there that helps promote good answers, or helps you find good (or popular) answers and discussions.

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  • +1 One more thing about ubuntuforums is that search results are alot less relevant, harder to read as each comment is it's own post so that one question can go on for many pages before you get any useful info, and that some of the question are so old that the answer is only partly right anymore. Don't think I'm bashing, I have been able to glean some very useful information there, it's just sometimes alot of frustration in doing so.
    – TrailRider
    Jun 18, 2012 at 2:11
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The other answers all have good resources, but I must admit my first port of call is my favourite search engine - there are lots of blog posts and wiki pages out there describing how people have overcome various problems they have found. Nothing except a search engine is going to be able to find them all.

A basic tip is to put the text of an error message, surrounded by quotes, into the search box. That will return results that match the exact message you got. Has worked wonders for me on many occasions. Though note you should exclude anything specific to your system - time/date stamps, paths etc.

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    +1 here as well but like you said make sure your error message is surrounded by quotes and sometimes it is helpful to include your version after to avoid older errors.as in...."error 1234" "Ubnuntu 12.04"....
    – TrailRider
    Jun 18, 2012 at 2:17
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  1. https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu.
  2. http://ubuntuforums.org/

While the first officially supports asking and answering in several languages, the second has some localized versions. You can read about the language issue here (from 2010): Are there any plans for localized Ask Ubuntu instances?. (Thanks to Elijah Kazan for suggesting the edit.)

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    +1 These sites provide some advantages that make them better than AskUbuntu for some purposes. Ubuntu Forums is not limited to posts asking answerable questions. And Launchpad Answers supports asking and answering questions in any language, not just English. (Here on AskUbuntu, people post questions in other languages, but they get translated into English and answered in English, and AskUbuntu is officially English-only.) You may want to edit this answer to incorporate some of that information. May 9, 2012 at 0:09
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sudo apt-get install xchat

There are plenty of helpful people you can ask in #Ubuntu. In Xchat select freenode from the list and join #Ubuntu

you can also do this by typing into Xchat:

/server chat.freenode.net

and then

/join #Ubuntu

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