[S-RIP] Semi-Regular Information Posting Donnie Barnes Mike Wangsmo V2.3, 26MAR98 1. Introduction This is the regular posting of the general mailing list information for all redhat.com lists. Sections include: o New Items o Mailing List Information o General Posting Policies o Other Sources of Information This document is maintained by Mike Wangsmo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. 2. New Items We have now created a new policy that will create a new mailing list for each Red Hat release. With the release of 5.0, we now have the hurricane-list which should be used for discussing problems and help with systems running 5.0. You can now subscribe to a special place that will allow you to post to any of the Red Hat mailing lists, but you will not receive any mail. This is for folks who read our mailing lists via local special gateways and such. If you don't understand this or why you would need it, you probably don't need it at all. See the ``post-only'' list instructions below if you'd like to subscribe to it. Yes, the ``post-only'' idea does make it easier for spammers to spam all our lists, but it does have a subscription confirmation mechanism on it so we should be able to track attempts at such activity. 3. Mailing List Information This is the periodic information posting for the Red Hat mailing lists. This posting is intended to help inform folks of sources of information other than these lists and to outline the policies governing these lists. First and foremost, we ask that participants of this list use their own resources before asking the list for help. The more useful of the resources are the list archives themselves since your questions may have been asked and answered already. The archives are located at http://www.redhat.com/mailing-lists There are several other valuable resources that should be investigated before asking questions on the mailing lists. These are the Red Hat Errata <http://www.redhat.com/RedHat-Errata>, Red Hat FAQ <http://www.redhat.com/RedHat-FAQ>, and the Red Hat Tips <http://www.redhat.com/RedHat-Tips>. Currently we have several lists, and you should subscribe to and use the list most appropriate for your questions. If you are unsure, please use the redhat-list only. Do not crosspost to more than one list at Red Hat. The lists we have are: o hurricane-list For issues specifically related to Red Hat 5.0 release o redhat-list For the general discussion of topics related to Red Hat Linux. o redhat-digest This is the digest version of the redhat-list. Instead of getting mail that goes to the redhat-list as individual messages, subscribers to this list receive periodic volumes that include several posts at once. o redhat-announce-list This is the single most important list. All Red Hat users should make it a point to subscribe. Here, security updates and new RPMs are announced. It is very low traffic and moderated for your convenience. o redhat-install-list For the general discussion of installation related topics only. This can include appropriate hardware, problems with hardware, package selection, etc. o redhat-ppp-list For the general discussion of PPP under Red Hat. This includes configuration, installation, changes, etc. o redhat-devel-list This is for general discussion of software development under Red Hat Linux. This is where we will announce the availability of ALPHA and BETA quality software that is being made available for testing purposes (with the exception of RPM since it has its own list). o sparc-list This is for SPARC specific issues only. This can be kernel development, SILO, etc. o axp-list This is for Alpha specific issues only. This can be kernel development, MILO, etc. o rpm-list This is for discussion of RPM related issues. This can be RPM usage in general, RPM development using rpmlib, RPM development using shell scripts, porting RPM to non Linux architectures, etc. o applixware-list For Applixware discussion only. Mostly related to installation, usage, macro writing, etc. o cde-list For CDE discussion only. Mostly related to installation and usage only. o forsale-list This list is for posting forsale and wanted items of a computer nature. This includes software and hardware and should be limited to items that work with Linux. o sound-list This list is set up to discuss the work being done for the modular sound drivers that Red Hat now ships with 5.0. More work is being done with these drivers and this list is a good source of information about getting them to work with various cards. o post-only This ``list'' is a fake list. It has no posting address, only a request address ([EMAIL PROTECTED]). You can subscribe to this list and then you will be allowed to post to any of the Red Hat mailing lists without receiving any mail from those lists. This is because we do not allow posts from folks who aren't subscribed to the list, but frequently people want to read the list via local gateways and so forth and don't need to subscribe themselves. This way you just subscribe to ``post-only'' and you are allowed to post to any list. So, how do you subscribe? For each of the lists above there is a subscription address. It is the list address with a ``-request'' on the end of it. For example, for the redhat-list you would send your subscription or unsubscription request to redhat-list- [EMAIL PROTECTED] For the RPM list, you would use rpm-list- [EMAIL PROTECTED] All you need to send is the word subscribe in the SUBJECT line of your message to subscribe, and unsubscribe in the subject line to unsubscribe. You may leave the body of the message empty. Note: To unsubscribe from the redhat-digest, please send your request to [EMAIL PROTECTED], NOT redhat-list-request. If you have trouble unsubscribing, feel free to mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> and someone will help you personally. 4. General Posting Policies First and foremost, think before you post. Also think before you reply to another post. Reply's for the above lists are set to be the list itself, NOT the person who posted. So, anything you automatically reply to could go to hundreds if not thousands of other folks out there. Think before you act. Next, observe proper ``netiquette''. I'm sure these rules are outlined in several places on the net, but I'll go through them here. o When posting to a list with a reply to a previous message, trim ALL irrelevant or unnecessary text from previous messages. Trim ALL other signatures of previous posters. Trim all signatures of the list itself. o When replying to a post, make sure any attributions in your message are correct. People get upset when you say that they said something that they never said. o If the entire content of your post is ``me too'' or ``thanks'', DO NOT POST IT. Send it to the original author if you like, but do not annoy the list members with it. o Do not respond to spam. Spam is defined as anything sent to the list NOT intended for discussion of issues relevant to the list. If someone posts spam to a list, please send a copy of the offending post to [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. Do not respond to the poster or his postmaster directly. We will handle that. o Do not post binaries of any type to the list. This includes attachments of MS Word documents or anything similar. o Do not ask sales related questions here. The Red Hat staff that periodically monitor this list have no idea about pricing, availability, or new product announcements. Please direct all of those type questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] o Do not ask ``Is there an RPM for program XYZ?'' to any Red Hat list without first checking ftp.redhat.com. Note that if you use a command line FTP client (ftp, ncftp, etc) you can run ``site exec'' commands. For more information on how those can help you, see ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/SITE-EXEC <ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/SITE- EXEC>. o If you must use Netscape as your mailer, please turn off the sending of both HTML and text versions of your mail. You are more than doubling the bandwidth used by the message you send, which is quite alot considering the number of people it goes to when you mail to this list. Please send plain text only. o Do not send compliments or complaints about Red Hat or our products to the mailing lists. We do want all the feedback we can get, but we prefer that to come directly to us (you can use [EMAIL PROTECTED] if you like). Folks on the list would rather not be bothered with this stuff, however. You can feel free to discuss something if you aren't quite sure whether to complain, but direct compliments and complaints should come to Red Hat. o Do not discuss the Red Hat code names for releases. We name releases because we hate to use the numbers over and over, but the code names are not official. Apart from that, these lists are for technical discussion and many folks couldn't care less what we name these releases. Also, we don't need any help coming up with new names. Thanks anyway. :-) o Do not ask or discuss which text editor is best. o Do not ask or discuss why Linux is better than NT. [ Okay, so those last two were selfish. I admit it. :-) ] Now for the disclaimer: Red Hat Software does not provide these lists as official support for our products. We provide them only as a voluntary service to the users of the lists. When time and resources permit, Red Hat will try to help with questions and issues that arise on these lists, but we make no guarantees of help. We make no claims about the accuracy of any information, or validity of any opinion, that appears on these lists. Each person who posts a message to any of these lists is solely responsible for its content. Red Hat accepts no responsibility for damage of any kind that might result from these lists, including damage resulting from the content of postings to these lists, and damage the list itself might cause, such as mailbox flooding. By subscribing to or posting a message to these lists, you accept these terms. Sometimes you do get what you pay for, but on these lists you usually get a hell of a lot more than that. Thanks to you loyal users for making these lists so great. 5. Other Sources of Information I can't say enough about the value of the WWW search engines that exist. I suggest anyone willing to spend some time should use those engines before posting many questions about more esoteric topics like SNMP, Sendmail setup, general networking, etc. Several good engines exist at www.lycos.com <http://www.lycos.com>, www.yahoo.com <http://www.yahoo.com>, and www.webcrawler.com <http://www.webcrawler.com>. Please give those a try when searching for the answers to questions that aren't necessarily Red Hat related. For Red Hat related items, you can search the Red Hat web site as well at www.redhat.com <http://www.redhat.com>. The archives of all the lists as well as all the other information on the site (Users Guide, etc) is searchable. Another source of good information is the comp.os.linux.* heirarchy of newsgroups available via Usenet News. Those are searchable as well at places like www.dejanews.com <http://www.dejanews.com>. The best Linux specific site to search for information is the home of the Linux Documentation Project at sunsite.unc.edu/LDP <http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP>. Here you will also find the best collection of links to other popular Linux sites around the world. For official support for Red Hat Linux, please send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. Copyright Notice This document and its contents are copyright protected. Red Hat is a registered trademark. Redistribution of this document is permitted as long as the content remains completely intact and unchanged. In other words, you may reformat and reprint or redistribute only. (c) 1998 -- PLEASE read the Red Hat FAQ, Tips, Errata and the MAILING LIST ARCHIVES! http://www.redhat.com/RedHat-FAQ /RedHat-Errata /RedHat-Tips /mailing-lists To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe" as the Subject.
