The Linux FAQ
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18. Online Resources

Q: Where Is the Documentation?
Q: Where Is the Linux Stuff on the World Wide Web?
Q: What News Groups Are There for Linux?
Q: What Other FAQ's and Documentation Are There for Linux?
Q: How To Get Information without Usenet Access
Q: What Mailing Lists Are There?
Q: Are the News Groups Archived Anywhere?
Q: Where Are Linux Legal Issues Discussed?
Q: Where is Information about Unmaintained Free Software Projects?
Q: What Online/Free Periodicals Exist for Linux?
Q: Where Can I To Find Information About Security Related Issues?

Q: Where Is the Documentation?

A: Look in the following places, and the sites that mirror them.

For a list of Linux FTP sites, refer to the answer for: Where Are the Linux FTP Archives?.

If you don't have access to FTP, try the FTP-by-mail servers:

A complete list of HOWTO's is available in the HOWTO-INDEX at http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/HOWTO-INDEX/howtos.html. The mini-HOWTO's are indexed at http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/HOWTO-INDEX/mini.html.

In addition, translations are available from ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/translations/ and mirrors worldwide. The HOWTO's and other documentation have been translated into the following languages:

  • Chinese (zh)

  • Croatian (hr)

  • French (fr)

  • German (de)

  • Hellenic (el)

  • Indonesian (id)

  • Italian (it)

  • Japanese (ja)

  • Korean (ko)

  • Polish (pl)

  • Slovenian (sl)

  • Spanish (es)

  • Swedish (sv)

  • Turkish (tr)

Additional documents are always in preparation. Please get in touch with the coordinators if you are interested in writing one. Contact and submission information is at http://tldp.org/mailinfo.html.

There is also a LDP HOWTO page at http://howto.tucows.org/.

The Guide Series produced by the Linux Documentation Project is available from http://tldp.org. Please read them if you are new to Unix and Linux.

And, of course, a number of people have written documentation independently of the LDP:

Documentation for kernel developers is on-line: http://kernelbook.sourceforge.net.

To find out about Linux memory management, including performance tuning, see Rik van Riel's Web page at http://humbolt.geo.uu.nl/Linux-MM/.

The Linux Consultants-Guide has a directory of Linux consultants.

Gary's Encyclopedia lists over 4,000 Linux related links. Its URL is http://members.aa.net/~swear/pedia/index.html.

There is also a FAQ specifically for the Red Hat Linux distribution, at http://www.best.com/~aturner/RedHat-FAQ/faq_index.html.

Q: Where Is the Linux Stuff on the World Wide Web?

A: In addition to the Linux Documentation Project Home Page: http://tldp.org, there are many pages that provide beginning and advanced information about Linux.

These two pages provide a good starting point for general Linux information: Linux International's Home Page, at http://www.li.org, and the Linux Online's Linux Home Page at http://www.linux.org.

Both of these pages provide links to other sites, information about general information, distributions, new software, documentation, and news.

Documentation for kernel developers is on-line: http://kernelbook.sourceforge.net.

The tutorial, Unix is a Four Letter Word..., is located at http://people.msoe.edu/~taylor/4ltrwrd/. It is a general introduction to Unix operating systems and is not Linux specific.

Additionally, here is a certainly incomplete list of Web pages devoted to Linux:

Searching for Linux on Web Search Engines will provide copious references to Linux Web sites. Try:

Google also has a Linux-specific section at http://www.google.com/linux/.

Further information about about Web search engines is in the Web and Internet Search Engine Faq: http://www.infobasic.com/pagefaq.html.

Refer also to the answer for: What Other FAQ's and Documentation Are There for Linux?.

Q: What News Groups Are There for Linux?

A: Comp.os.linux.announce is the moderated announcements group. You should read this if you intend to use Linux. It contains information about software updates, new ports, user group meetings, and commercial products. It is the only newsgroup that may carry commercial postings. Submissions for that group should be e-mailed to linux-announce@news.ornl.gov.

Comp.os.linux.announce is archived at: http://www.iki.fi/mjr/linux/cola.html, and ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/usenet/comp.os.linux.announce/.

Also worth reading are the following other groups in the news:comp.os.linux and news:alt.uu.comp.os.linux hierarchies you may find many common problems too recent for the documentation but are answered in the newsgroups.

Remember that Linux is POSIX compatible, and most all of the material in the news:comp.unix and news:comp.windows.x groups will be relevant. Apart from

hardware considerations, and some obscure or very technical low-level issues, you'll find that these groups are good places to start.

Information about e-mail clients (MUA's), mail transfer agents (MTA's), and other related software are in the comp.mail.* groups, especially:

Questions and information about News reading software are in:

Please read If this Document Still Hasn't Answered Your Question.... before posting. Cross posting between different news:comp.os.linux groups is rarely a good idea.

There may well be Linux groups local to your institution or areacheck there first.

See also How To Get Information without Usenet Access.

Other regional and local newsgroups also existyou may find the traffic more manageable there:

A search of http://groups.google.com/ can provide an up-to-date list of News groups.

[Axel Boldt, Robert Kiesling]

Q: What Other FAQ's and Documentation Are There for Linux?

A: There are a number of special interest FAQ's on different subjects related to system administration and use, and also on miscellaneous topics like Flying Saucer Attacks (the music) and support for recovering sysadmins.

The official Usenet FAQ archives are: ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/.

The Internet FAQ Consortium provides a searchable archive at: http://www.faqs.org/. The site also maintains a current archive of Internet Request For Comment (RFC), Best Current Practices (BCP), and For Your Information (FYI) documents.

Here are some FAQ's and documents that might be especially useful, and their network addresses:

Q: How To Get Information without Usenet Access

A: A digest of comp.os.linux.announce is available by mailing the word "subscribe" (without the quotes) as the body of a message to linux-announce-REQUEST@news-digests.mit.edu. Subscribing to this list is a good idea, as it carries important information and documentation about Linux.

Please remember to use the *-request addresses for your subscribe and unsubscribe messages; mail to the other address is posted to the news group.

Q: What Mailing Lists Are There?

A: The Linux developers now mainly use the Majordomo server at majordomo@vger.redhat.com. Send a message with the word "lists" (without the quotes) in the body to get a list of lists there. Add a line with the word, "help," to get the standard Majordomo help file that lists instructions for subscribing and unsubscribing to the lists.

Currently, the kernel list is archived at: http://www.uwsg.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/, and http://www.lib.uaa.alaska.edu/linux-kernel/archive/

Please do not post off-topic material to the mailing lists. Most of them are used by Linux developers to talk about technical issues and future developments. They are not intended for new users' questions, advertisements, or public postings that are not directly related to the mailing list's subject matter. Comp.os.linux.announce is the place for all public announcements. This is a common Internet policy. If you don't observe this guideline, there's a good chance that you'll be flamed.

There is a linux-newbie list where, "no question is too stupid." Unfortunately, it seems that few experienced users read that list, and it has very low volume.

There are numerous Linux related mailing lists at http://www.onelist.com/. Go to the categories page and choose "Linux." There are also mailing list subscription links at: http://oslab.snu.ac.kr/~djshin/linux/mail-list/

The Mailing Lists Available in Usenet page is: http://paml.net/. The list information is also on: ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/, and is posted to the groups: news.announce.newgroups, news.lists, and news.groups, among others.

Q: Are the News Groups Archived Anywhere?

A: The Usenet Linux news groups are archived at http://groups.google.com/.

ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/docs/linux-announce.archive contains archives of news:comp.os.linux.announce. These are mirrored from ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/usenet/, which also archives news:comp.os.linux, news:comp.os.linux.development.apps, and news:comp.os.linux.development.system.

Q: Where Are Linux Legal Issues Discussed?

A: On the linux-legal mailing list, of course. You can subscribe to it, as with many of the other Linux related lists, by sending a message with the word "help" in the body of the message to majordomo@vger.redhat.com.

Q: Where is Information about Unmaintained Free Software Projects?

A: There are Web pages at: http://unmaintained.sourceforge.net, and: http://www.orphansource.org/.

Please try to contact the original author(s) via e-mail, or the person who listed the software as unmaintained, before even thinking to place a license on the package.

Q: What Online/Free Periodicals Exist for Linux?

A: There are a number of recent additions to the list of periodicals devoted to Linux and free software:

Please send additions to this list to the FAQ maintainer, David Merrill, dmerrill@ibiblio.org.

Q: Where Can I To Find Information About Security Related Issues?

A: There's a page of Linux related security information at: http://www.linuxsecurity.com/.

Another site is: http://www.rootshell.com/, which has information about Internet security and privacy issues.

For information about the Weekly Linux Security Digest email newsletter and numerous security related databases, look at http://securityportal.com/.

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