image by Eric I.E.

Everybody needs a little help now and then. When you stumble upon a problem with Gentoo, and can’t seem to solve it through consulting the documentation (including your friend Google), there are several channels through which you can get help:

• IRC, see this list of Gentoo channels
• the Gentoo forums: forums.gentoo.org
• the Gentoo mailing lists, with archives here
• Gentoo’s bugzilla: bugs.gentoo.org

In order to use these help channels effectively, there are a number of things you should keep in mind. First of all, there are a lot of people willing to help, both Gentoo developers and users. But we are all volunteers, who are in this for the fun. Struggling with a problem you can’t seem to solve can easily frustrate the best of us. But when asking for help, be polite and patient.

And do your homework! This means first of all, analyze your problem and try to give a short and to the point description of your problem. Also, read the topic in IRC channels, they usually have links to FAQs and frequently occurring problems. On the forums, check the stickies, and of course search through bugzilla, the mailing list archives and the forums if anyone else had a similar problem.

In analyzing your problem, don’t take the “easy” route, but try to get to the real issue. For example, it is not enough to point people to the portage error and the die message, which only tell us which package failed and at what point. It doesn’t usually give an answer about what exactly went wrong. Also the line make: *** [all] Error 2 doesn’t give us any further insight. Usually you need to look up a number of lines to find the real compile error, often something like “In file foobar… error: …” Especially when you are on IRC, it helps if you paste the last ~30 lines or so to a pastebin.

Personally I happen to know a few languages, but there are many more that I don’t understand. If you are not in a channel specifically for your language, set the shell variable LANG=C to get standard English instead of localized messages. This will make it easier for other people to see what’s going on.

When asking for help, show that you are pro-active and have searched documentation. And let people know what you have already tried and what results you got. This will help to pin down the issue, and at the same time show that you’re not a lazy bum expecting other people to do all the work for you.

Finally, follow up on suggestions, give feedback, and be grateful. A “thank you” is so easy to say, but will always be appreciated. Nobody likes helping whining, ungrateful SoBs. Or people that don’t listen to suggestions. A cooperative attitude will make things pleasant for all people involved. And remember, the best method of showing gratitude for the help you received, is to extend that to other people who run into problems you have already met and resolved. That way we keep our Gentoo community alive and healthy.

If you have any other suggestions on how to get better help, I would be happy to read your comments.