About debianHELP

So what's this site about anyway?

First thing to remember: This site is in no way an official part of Debian GNU/Linux or Software in the Public Interest (SPI). I'm just an avid supporter of both organizations.

This site was founded by and is run by Intense Red, your webmaster/admin. The site is a one-person effort and is funded out of pocket. There are no donations, no supporters (other than the fine folks -- that's you -- that use and make the site work!), or corporate sponsors. Given this, Intense Red is free to be even more of a tyrannical ass than he normally is. :-)

The reason for starting the site was from seeing too many new people shy away from Debian GNU/Linux. The logic and purpose of the site goes like this...

There's a lot of people interested in GNU/Linux. Not only geeks -- I'll define geeks as including really, really bright people, computer science students, hackers, and professional SysAdmins and miscellaneous gurus -- but regular people. GNU/Linux is now appealing more and more to home users.

But it's not just home users. There are millions of other computer professionals and enthusiasts who know that Windows is not the way, and they are looking towards GNU/Linux as a solution.

Let's face it: GNU/Linux is Unix. And Unix is damn tough to learn. It's complex, it is not user friendly let alone idiot-proof. Heck, there's a reason why *nix SysAdmins get paid more than Windows SysAdmins.

Commercial GNU/Linux systems will have to tackle this issue some way if they are to expand in the general consumer market. But frankly, that is not the worry of this site -- let Mandriva, Ubuntu, Red Hat, SuSE, et al, worry about that.

This site is geared toward Debian GNU/Linux users. In its own small way, I hope to help tackle the issue mentioned above.

This site is not geared towards the idiot. If you're not willing to read or learn there's not much we can do except to recommend using a pencil and paper instead of a computer (any computer!). But this site is geared toward the typical user.

Typical computer users want to have a clue about what's going on, but most of all they want things to work. As they pick up clues, over time they become experienced users and admins and perhaps eventually gurus. But remember, the first thing they want is things to work.

Want an example? Take firewalling. Yes, we've got firewalling HOW-TOs and Debian even has an IPMasq firewall package. Imagine you're a home computer enthusiast. Imagine you're familiar with Windows XP and you've got a couple of machines at home that you want to run behind a GNU/Linux firewall. You've heard something about GNU/Linux and you know it can freely do the job.

Now imagine you know a little bit about IP ports -- they're little cubby-holes where servers hang off from. You know that port 21 is FTP, and port 80 is the web server, and that's about it. Now take a look at the IPMasq firewall package; could you make heads or tails of it? Even if a newbie spends some time reading the Firewall HOW-TO, they're still not going know what, for example, the ftp-data port (20) does and whether they should block that port or even if that port is blocked.

I don't mean to bash the IPMasq programmers/maintainers. My goal here is to point out that GNU/Linux needs to do a lot better on ease of use issues. And don't get me wrong, I don't think ease of use means welding the hood shut and dumbing things down to a Windows level.

So the purpose of this site -- yeah, remember the purpose I was talking about before my rant?! -- is to help out newbies to Debian GNU/Linux. We want to provide some in-depth, non-geek explanations about the common problems that people run into. This is where you come in.

Debian is a community project. This site is intended to be a community site. We need your expertise. It doesn't matter if you're a guru or a newbie. Believe me, I'm sure you know something that someone else doesn't know. We need that knowledge!

Specifically, we need that knowledge written up in sort of a simple How-To format, but one that is aimed at home/non-professional/Windows/new users!

This knowledge could be on most any topic. For example:

· did you examine the many different window managers in Debian and decide on which one was the best for you? If so, write up your experience.
· did you figure out how to get diald working with your dial-up connection? Tell others how to do it step by step!
· do you have a good, secure, easy to read/edit firewall script that would work for a home user to shield their Windows machines? If so, share it.
· do you know what all of the various ports on TCP/IP are and whether they should be secured or not? If so, write it up.
· do you have some cool customizations for Bash, some particularly cute aliases; can you tell others about some of the nifty subdirectories that new Debian users should know about (e.g. /var/lib/dpkg/info)? If so, tell us about it!

These are the kind of things we need to know. We want to cut down on the learning curve. We want to help make the switch to GNU/Linux easier for novices.

So we need your input. We need your experience and expertise -- and don't worry, you have some! Go ahead and write that experience up and submit it as a story. Put it up and let others comment on it. Have you read something here you don't agree with? Well, go ahead and reply to it and expand/correct someone if you think they're giving bad advice.

Enjoy!