<rant>
Grrrrrrrr!
This has got to be the worst forum! I search and search and constantly get no where. So many questions asked.....so many unanswered questions. Admins and moderators: Do you people not step in and answer questions when you see that there is no response? You run a forum here intended to help the Linux community get answers to questions. The only ones that get answers are simple answers to simple questions, but when a difficult problem arises the questions go (many) unanswered. At least try would you?
</rave>

How many have YOU answered ?

1 members found this post helpful.

YOU have a problem so of course it is OTHER PEOPLE that are at fault.

The moderators job is not to answer questions but rather to insure we're not getting SPAM and make sure things are in the right forums. Many of the mods DO answer questions.

The questions here are answered by VOLUNTEERS (other posters on the site) not by paid staff. There's an old saying that beggars can't be choosers and when you ask a question you're the beggar.

Easy questions certainly get answered much more quickly than difficult ones simply because:
a) More people will know the answer and therefore post what they know.
b) Some difficult questions are beyond the expertise of some or they are so involved they would take more time to answer than some will give.

If you want help then you should ask for it politely. You should also try to make sure you're asking a question on a single point. Usually when I see people like you rant its because you've posted a novel about your problem and asked 7 or 8 separate questions in it. While I may know the answer to one or more if I don't know the answer to all of them I'm not going to post. You should instead break it up into separate posts and NOT all at the same time.

So you want others to be your google search on the really hard questions that most might not know off the top of their head or have never encountered? This is a free site, by people answering questions in their own spare time. You have little room to be bitching about not getting answers. If you paid for services, then you have the right to rant and rave.

We're doing it wrong. Everyone pack up and go home, nothing to see here. Instead of venting in the wrong forum, why not tell us what you are trying to search for? So far, the vast majority of problems I have encountered have been solved by a quick search of LQ whether via our own search or via Google to here.

And mods are not responsible for answering every question, no idea why you would think that.

Sorry you are so dissatisfied with the free service. Have you considered a paid support service?

In spite of the absence of any construtive suggestions from the OP, I'm moving this to LQ suggestions and feedback. I guess this does qualify as feedback:
Yes, absolutely!! I work an average of an 8-hour day. After dinner, I then spend another 8 hours looking for unanswered threads on LQ. This leaves ~2 hours for sleep. If my wife or the cats want attention, that's just too bad----I have a responsibility to help all comers----with no compensation.

While it's tempting to make a rude comment, I must remember the code of honor for mods.....

You might have been asking about an advanced topic that the other posters (including mods) don't have experience with. That would be a legitimate reason for you to not get a response.

I was sure of this response.
@dugan.....now that was an acceptable answer. I have another username, I have answered post. Sorry guys, I know you try but dang it, it's frustrating when cra... doesn't work and one looks for help to his peers and post a question eager to find an answer. At least prune the unanswered, old post (threads). Search functions display the oldest first down to the new. This is where frustration set in, link after link pointed to old unanswered post.

Here is a little example: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...backup-761052/

Seems like a legitimate request to me as an OP, and as I read through threads like this, I find the same type of post in limbo. I would answer this post if I knew what to say. Maybe this request is not possible, but some direction would be nice. At the end of one related thread, (answered by a senior with over 5000 post) "have you tried to google it? You may find the answer there"

This is my one and only <rant></rave>

That is not a legitimate request. You claim to know the commands, but they are not remotely accurate. Have you since found out how to do what you requested ? If so, why didn't you answer your own post ? Maybe your experience will benefit someone else.

(sensible) people come here to learn, not to demand a made to measure answer to their own peculiar problem.

Not really relevant to the problem.

This is where the question begins ...
But then you go off into "make it up" land ...
Why would you copy / ? Tar is a copy in itself.

Again, why are you trying to copy into a tar file ? The command is tar
You have made so many wrong assumptions that it would take more time to "go back to basics" than it would to just answer the question. Hence, people obviously thought they would let you test your own assumptions. Sometimes it's the best way to learn.

FWIW, I hate the old unanswered posts too, but I'm not allowed to use any irony if the post is too dumb to answer, and nobody else will bother saying anything. You may have noticed that there is a drive to answer posts with no replies quite regularly. But how do you answer the unanswerable ? I think you should volunteer and get on with it yourself.

I also work for a living, I am up at 4am and spend an hour on here before leaving for work at 5. I then work until 5pm and come home to spend another couple of hours on and off, trying to help with other peoples problems. Consequently, I pick ones that (a) I know something about, and (b) have been presented properly. I don't have time to waste on basic computer usage tutorials.

I also don't appreciate some smart ass with a 9 month old grudge complaining that I don't do enough !

1 members found this post helpful.

@smoker
Valid I guess. Maybe I did not ask the right questions. You caught this. As you know / is the whole partition. I wanted to archive it and ftp that archive elsewhere. I did not know if that was possible. I still do not know......Well I do appreciate your feedback. Still stuck. If you have the time, please answer that thread and see if we can get through it. I am sure that many will benefit as there isn't much on full backups here. I did not hold a grudge here. I found that this morning while searching for backup. Thanks

This program may address your need. I don't know what distro you're using though.

Why are you trying to cp a file into a tar file?

tar is just a file format like any other, it's not some magic compressed directory in the filesystem or anything...

I remember reading that post when it was started. I was rather confused by which part was the actual question, why you had decided to do what you were doing in that particular way, and thought that I may well not know an acceptable answer.

Experience tells me that it usually takes two or three carefully worded questions (if the OP answers the direct questions, which they often do not) to get enough information to tell what exactly is the question to be answered, and in that time I could answer between three and six better-expressed questions.

Given that I would prefer posters to take the time and effort to make their questions clear, even if they can only be possibly be partially successful, are you arguing that my choices are illegitimate? And equally, I'm happy for you to say that you don't want my help, you'd prefer the help of someone more capable, but, in that case, I did do my part.