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USENET is a worldwide electronic news and discussion forum with a heavy
contingent of so-called ``newsgroups''-discussion areas devoted to a
particular topic. Much of the development of Linux has been done over the
waves of the Internet and USENET, and not suprisingly there are a number of
USENET newsgroups available for discussions about Linux.
The original Linux newsgroup was alt.os.linux, and was created to
move some of the discussions about Linux out of comp.os.minix and
the various mailing lists. Soon, the traffic on alt.os.linux grew to be
large enough that a newsgroup in the comp hierarchy was warranted;
a vote was taken in February of 1992, and comp.os.linux was created.
comp.os.linux quickly became one of the most popular (and loudest)
USENET groups; more popular than any other comp.os group. In
December of 1992, a vote was taken to split the newsgroup in order to
reduce traffic; only comp.os.linux.announce passed this vote.
In July of 1993, the group was finally split into the new hierarchy.
Almost 2000 people voted in the comp.os.linux reorganization,
making it one of the largest USENET CFV's ever.
If you do not have direct USENET access, but are able to send and
receive electronic mail from the Internet, there are mail-to-news
gateways available for each of the newsgroups below.
- comp.os.linux.announce
-
comp.os.linux.announce is a moderated newsgroup for announcements
and important postings about the Linux system (such as bug reports,
important patches to software, and so on). If you read any Linux newsgroups
at all, read this one. Often, the important postings in this group are not
crossposted to other groups. This group also contains many periodic postings
about Linux, including many of the online documents described in the last
section and listed in Appendix A.
Postings to this newsgroup must be approved by the moderators, Matt Welsh
and Lars Wirzenius. If you wish to submit and article to this group, in
most cases you can simply post the article as you normally would (using
Pnews or whatever posting software that you have available); the
news software will automatically forward the article to the moderators
for approval. However, if your news system is not set up correctly, you may
need to mail the article directly; the submission address is
linux-announce@tc.cornell.edu.
The rest of the Linux newsgroups listed below are unmoderated.
-
comp.os.linux.help
-
This is the most popular Linux newsgroup. It is for questions and answers
about using, setting up, or otherwise running a Linux system. If you are
having problems with Linux, you may post to this newsgroup, and hopefully
receive a reply from someone who might be able to help. However, it is
strongly suggested that you
read all of the available Linux documentation before posting questions to
this newsgroup.
-
comp.os.linux.admin
-
This newsgroup is for questions and discussion about running a Linux
system, most commonly in an active, multi-user environment. Any
discussion about administrative issues of Linux (such as packaging
software, making backups, handling users, and so on) is welcome here.
-
comp.os.linux.development
-
This is a newsgroup for discussions about development of the Linux system.
All issues related to kernel and system software development should be
discussed here. For example, if you are writing a kernel driver and need
help with certain aspects of the programming, this would be the place to
ask. This newsgroup is also for discussions about the direction and goals
behind the Linux development effort, as described (somewhat) in
Section 1.6.
It should be noted that this newsgroup is not (technically) for discussions
about development of software for Linux, but rather for
discussions of development of Linux. That is, issues dealing with
applications programming under Linux should be discussed in another Linux
newsgroup; comp.os.linux.development is about developing the Linux
system itself, including the kernel, system libraries, and so on.
- comp.os.linux.misc
-
This newsgroup is for all discussion which doesn't quite fit into the other
available Linux groups. In particular, advocacy wars (the incessant
``Linux versus Windows NT'' thread, for example), should be waged here,
as opposed to in the technical Linux groups. Any nontechnical or metadiscourse
about the Linux system should remain in comp.os.linux.misc.
It should be noted that the newsgroup comp.os.linux, which was
originally the only Linux group, has been superceded by the new hierarchy
of groups. If you have access to comp.os.linux, but not to the newer
Linux groups listed above, encourage your news administrator to create
the new groups on your system.
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