I wouldn't apologise for your English, you certainly write it much better than a lot of people who claim it's their first language! I for one find would find it very offensive if people made you feel bad about struggling over a second language!

I've not been using Linux long myself but work in Technical support so I just take a chance when answering a cry for help, I'm sure if I was wrong someone would just correct me!

I used Linux at work (placement from Uni) but since finishing the placement have no access to a Linux machine (or money to get my Old PIII500 running as one) so am not using Linux at present (Dual Booting is far too much hassle for me).

I have been using Linux for over seven years and I am still learning. I am not an LQ Lurker but visit occasionally to research questions for which I do not know the answers.

When I first started with GNU/Linux, as with many other users, I spent many hours reading the documentation, searching the Internet for answers and learning about GNU/Linux. Unlike most new users I did not come from a MS Windows environment but came from the IBM OS/2 environment and therefore was not a stranger to researching questions.

I believe that the LQ forums have important roles to play in the future of GNU/Linux and while I acknowledge that a user may occasionally need answers to questions. I believe that if possible these questions should be answered by pointing the users to the appropiate documentation and leaving it for them to do the necessary research. ie be guides to help users not EXPERTs to provide answers.

Personally I object to making the GNU/Linux environment a "point and click" environment as I believe that this will give the GNU/Linux environment a reputation as an insecure working environment.

I do believe that the GNU/Linux distributors can provide a security hardened "point and click" environment but it will come at the expense of very thing GNU/Linux is known for, freedom and flexibility.

I'm often not sure what question I need to ask - so I research and read my books in order to ferret out what and where the problem is and often discover the answer on my own. And like an earlier poster, I don't want to be a nuisance.

I've posted a few times, but only when I cannot find my question already previously answered. The site is a gold mine for already answered questions.

And I have to say that this site has been an invaluable resource. This site IS the reason I have been able to stick with Linux as my sole OS, and have become more proficient at work on Solaris too. I even do most of my gaming in Linux. I go into win to play a game like once a month now.

Reasons I dont Post:

a. Lack of time recently
b. I have my own Linux forums
c. This board is too busy
d. Im not a big fan of the vBulletin software (nothing personal, just prefer phpbb boards)
e. the adverts slow the page down
f. the adverts are really annoying
g. i dislike adverts
e. questions followed by !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, ???????????????????? + varients are annoying


No offence ment...
if you dont like the answer you shouldnt ask the question IMO

Jason

I am a beginner in Linux and for the time being I had just rather read all the posts and see what I can learn. I really do not know enough to ask questions.

For instance I use Mandrake 9.1 and I have WINE installed, but I have no idea how to get to it, nor do I have any idea how to get Photoshop to load into it so it is useable if I should be able to bring WINE up. Also I would like to be able to see if NoteTab Pro would run using WINE. But first I must be able to bring WINE up and then learn how to hook up an app to it. And when I have previously asked this question on linux lists the answers are so far above my understanding that they might as well be in a foreign language.
Thanks
Ed

I agree with rodviking. The answers to my questions can already be found in linuxquestions database.

As has been said, I usually can find what I need by searching. In addition, I wish fewer people would post _new_ threads and more people would post by answering threads. There are so many new threads that I can't even hope to keep up. In addition, it would be nice if people who do post did a little investigation into their issue before posting, and provide more information on their problem. It is very difficult to respond to lazy posts - but those with log files or configuration files - those give you something to go on.

Linux is vast and complicated. Most people just don't know the answer to a lot of these posts off the top of their head, and I don't want to go do the reasarch for those posting...

I'm basically like most of the infrequent posters. I'm relatively new to Linux and find that my questions are very rudimentary and have already been asked by someone else whithin the last week.
Most of my posts are (almost) answers to others who have asked a question that I have seen the answer to earlier. I simply direct them to where I think they can get an answer.

I usualy don't post because all I need to know was asked and answered before, so a normal search will find me the needed information.

My reasons are very similar to many of those posted already:

1) have been really too busy of late to monitor forum
2) I'm only a part-time linux user, have a long way to go, and don't feel comfortable offering solutions when I don't know the answer.
3) Often can find answers I need by searching.

On the other hand:
1) I don't mind the ads. Gotta pay the bills somehow.
2) New threads vs replying to old threads is mildly annoying, but lazy posters are to be expected on a user-help type of board.
3) I generally like the crowd here, both as a group and as individuals. Busy usually means alive or even vibrant, and the folks are usually pretty friendly.
4) There's just an awful lot of good info here!


Suggestion:
Perhaps newbies or lurkers should encouraged to post a simple "Thanks!" on the tail of a thread they found useful? Would that be something that you'd find gratifying, or just annoying? If it's something you do want to do, it could even be implemented as a script - ask the searcher if they found the thread useful, or something. Then it wouldn't even have to be a post, but could be stored as a counter that would be useful in ranking future searches.

*slap* Sorry, getting a little out of scope here...

not to say I'm a "lurker", I posted some stuff before, but this is how I feel/see it:

Question wise, I'm too focused on solving things myself, that before I would ask a question, I'd need to be very desperate. Also I found out that when I posted a question in the past, I found the answer within half an hour after posting the question, so I figured I'd better have a longer search before I'd post questions (no need to waste someone's time when the answer is already somewhere on this site / google...

Answer wise, I'm not always 100% sure about the answers I would give. Since I always search the answer to my problems myself (I keep a log so I can relatively easy retrace my steps nowadays), the solutions aren't always the prettiest I used to run "setxkbmap be" every time I started X to get my keyboard setting right (it was only after answering this as a solution to someone else that I saw the stupidity of doing that all the time, and dug deeper to discover the setting in XF86Config)

That sums it up for me
but now that I feel more comfortable around the linux-environment I feel like I might post more adequate responses in the future

again, answers to my questions abound. And I don't much trust myself with answering other peoples questions yet.

Really Don't know enough to ask questions..