this post was submitted on 21 May 2024
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[–] [email protected] 48 points 3 months ago (2 children)

“Insufficient detail. Please ask a specific question.”

This is a very real problem from the answering side. So many people would rather have you guess what they're trying to ask and then get mad at you when you guess wrong.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I know whenever I try to help someone with a Linux issue it's always an uphill battle to get them to stop guessing what they think the problem might be and show me the logs.

People really don't want to give you the information you need to help them.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 months ago (2 children)

To be fair, people who know which logs to attach and how to get them usually already know enough to troubleshoot the issue by themselves.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 months ago (1 children)

This is such a hard part of learning Linux. "Just look at the logs" Which logs? Where? How?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

journalctl > logs.txt (don't actually do this)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

You'd think so, but the logs often contain a ton of noise along with the one line that tells me what the actual issue is.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

I make sure to give my guess and also append as many logs and exact information as possible, right down to every step I took that produced the problem.

So far my success rate with the forums is 0%. But hey, people at least tried to be helpful!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Yep. I do triage on potentially bad questions and this is probably the most common response I give.