I may be wrong (pls correct me if so) but I believe this mail list _IS_ linked to the newsgroups. Check out linux.debian.user
ivan. At 11:30 AM 12/29/98 GMT, you wrote: >Ross Boylan ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote... >> Hi. I'm about to get a new machine and put Debian on it, and was wondering > >Congratulations!! > >Please don't take the following as criticism, it's meant more as >correcting some mis-knowledge you have. Share And Enjoy, and all >that. Feel free to respond :) > >> if someone could explain the relation between the Debian mailing lists and >> the comp.os.linux hierarchy in newgroups. >> My immediate practical question is which source I should use for help. > >Use the debian sources for debian-specific help like "Why doesn't this >.deb install properly?" and the *linux* newsgroups for more general >help. > >> My more general question is why this apparent split exists (if I'm correct >> that it does). > >So that the Debian-specific questions can be answered in a quieter >forum with less noise. Newsgroups tend to have much more off-topic >junk and spam than mailing lists. Those newsgroups are also for -all- >flavours of Linux, not just Debian. Many of the Debian people who >help here probably don't have the time or inclination to wander >through newsgroups full of questions that have nothing to do with >Debian. > >> First, why not use the newsgroups mechanism? Are there people without >> access to them, or is it just an historical holdover? I believe it is > >1. More noise, less 'signal' in the newsgroups. >2. More stuff not related to Debian. >3. News propogation isn't great, people will only get some of the > articles. It depends on -all- of the machines being up and > well-behaved, where mailing lists just depend on debian.org and the > recipient machine. >4. News is slower to propogate. >5. To start up a new newsgroup is a long and involved process, where > if Debian needs a new mailing list they can just start it. > >> possible to gateway between a mailing list and a newsgroup, so that posts >> to one come out in both forms. > >Gatewaying tends to be buggy and cause dupes. It also means that the >spam and junk that tends to get posted to newsgroups will end up in the >mailing list as well - > >> Newsgroups would allow searching and archiving via Deja News (among >> others), would be more visible to others, > >The archives are available to anybody on the Debian website. And >there's plenty of advertising that they exist. > >> and wouldn't fill up my disk so much :) > >:) True. But you -could- always read them from the website >archives! > >> Of course, Debian could use newgroups but keep them separate from the >> comp.os.linux groups. Is there any reason to do so? It seems to me doing >> so somewhat defeats the purpose of open software. It also makes Debian > >Why so? If the discussions weren't available to anybody then >probably it would defeat the purpose of open -support-, but the >mailing lists are open and the archives are on the web ... > >> appear somewhat rare, if one judges by traffic in the newsgroups. > >Is this a problem? Advertising isn't our game, and Debian has lots >of users. Taking over the world, or even the Linux world, isn't >their aim. > > >bekj > >-- >: --Hacker-Neophile-Eclectic-Geek-Grrl-Queer-Disabled-Boychick-- >: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.tertius.net.au/~gossamer/ >: It is the business of the future to be dangerous. -- Hawkwind > > >-- >Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null > >
