Fix ur own damn problems

sniggit · Posted: Wed Nov 30, 2005 5:25 am Post subject: Fix ur own damn problems

Hi.

Im not as angry as the title of this topic might make u think, not angry at all actually.
Actually im on the other side of the fence, the guy who asks for help to fix his problem.
I would really like to fix my own system when it breaks, instead of coming crying to this forum, but I have no idea where to start.
Its possible this is to vague to give a good answer but here goes.

How do u go about tracking down and fixing an error when it occurs?
Like now for instance im having a problem with my grub config(check the grub sticky thread in the install section) and have tried
different settings to see if I can get it to work. Basically Im just firing in the dark.
Any standard routines or cammands u guys use to track an error down?
If so it would make me very happy if u would share them with me.
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Let the money shine!

badchien · Guru Joined: 16 Feb 2004 Posts: 415 Location: doghouse

Experience, experience, experience.

The more problems you solve (with help, if need be), the easier it will be to deduce things on your own without asking others. There are no shortcuts to becoming a master problem-solver. Just hang in there and keep racking up that experience.

krazykit · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 28 Aug 2004 Posts: 91

Also, online documentation, searching, and the man pages come in useful.

Headrush · Posted: Wed Nov 30, 2005 5:54 am Post subject:

The key thing that even some of the so called "educated" tech people don't do is learn to isolate and break down problems.

Example: If you are having a printer problem, you do a printer self test first to separate a hardware problem from a software problem. The next step would be determing whether a driver problem of a software program problem. You continue to break things down like that until you narrow the scope and determine the problem.

Avoid trying multiple changes/solutions at once. Making many changes at once, like kernel configuration, does have its place for things like narrowing down a problem module, but more often than not noobies try several solutions at the same time and this leads to even more problem and makes diagnosing and helping them especially hard and confusing.

allucid · Veteran Joined: 02 Nov 2002 Posts: 1314 Location: atlanta

google, man pages, forum search, bugzilla search, etc.

Letharion · Veteran Joined: 13 Jun 2005 Posts: 1344 Location: Sweden

As you probably already know, you must be willing to experiment.
If you are afriad to mess things up, you won't learn anything.
Make backups, and keep firing :-)

Also, forums are for the purpose of communication, no one can know everything, so until we solve all gentoo
problems and AI make computers become self reliant (yeah right) I think you should keep asking.

Half a year ago I bought a new computer, and the first thing I did was to kick windows out, and determined
not to look back, I spent two weeks just getting a desktop, and today my computer behaves as I want it to, but
more importently, I learned a great deal about Linux, computers and patience doing this. :-)

But I still have to ask questions.

EDIT: And even if computers become self reliant, keep asking anyway, it's healthy :-P

NTT · Apprentice Joined: 26 Dec 2002 Posts: 188

Experience, Analytical thinking and Google.

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20067

Moved from Other Things Gentoo
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Quis separabit? Quo animo?

amne · Posted: Wed Nov 30, 2005 8:46 am Post subject:

Some good hints can be found in How To Ask Questions The Smart Way.
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Dinosaur week! (Ok, this thread is so last week)

Krogen · Posted: Wed Nov 30, 2005 10:57 pm Post subject:

Always try to search google and forums first. Don't try being too specific. You might find a lot of results because of this, but if you look at everything, you WILL learn a lot, and you won't cut out too many topics off the list for being too specific. If you won't find a solution, you will probably find hints on where to start. If you know where to start, it all goes down from there.

And than, well, experience, like other people pointed out.

I always learn the hard way, sometimes making the same stupid mistake numerous times. But YOU DO learn from your mistakes, and you learn way more than just from reading.

Decibels · Veteran Joined: 16 Aug 2002 Posts: 1623 Location: U.S.A.

Blood Fluke · Apprentice Joined: 15 Sep 2005 Posts: 224

burn ur dictunry; spell lik a moron

any standad routines u use 2 fix ur spelling? if so i wud lik to see dem

Krogen · Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2005 1:21 am Post subject:

Headrush · Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2005 3:38 am Post subject:

All these answers about search here, or search there, read this are all good suggestions, but they all proceed from the assumption that the noobie knows what the problem is. Just listing your symptoms in a search engine can work sometimes, especially for really common errors, but at other times can be and endless search.

How many times in the gentoo forums has some user said: "software XYZ is crap and doesn't work!", yet the problem ends up being something totally different. Learning how to perform a few simple tests to narrow down problems will generally result in better search results and will help more experienced users to get you to the solution you need faster.

And here is another one: check bugzilla for that package first. Especially for a noobie, the chance that you are the first to see the error is remote and someone else probably has and a solution might exist already.