- Debian has a large community of active developers and users. It is probably one of the largest free distributions - and has a very loyal following. Because of this, there are many further resources and support. Below is a list of many!
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Debian Support Resources
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Official Websites of the Debian Project
On [http://www.debian.org Debian.org] the official Debian site, you can find a section dedicated to documentation.
http://db.debian.org - Debian Developer Database
http://www.debian.org/doc - Debian documentation home
http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/reference/ - Debian Reference Manual
http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/installmanual - Installation manual
http://www.debian.org/support - support home
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Forum
http://lists.debian.org - [:DebianMailingLists:Mailinglists], main way of Debian communication
http://lists.debian.org/users.html - User mailinglists
http://forums.debian.net - Debian.net Forums
http://www.debianforum.de - German Debian Forums
http://www.debianforum.dk - Danish Debian Forums seems to be offline.
http://www.debianhelp.org - Debian Help Community Site
[mailto:libranet-ot@yahoogroups.com mailto:libranet-ot@yahoogroups.com] - Libranet Off Topic
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User resources
Debian user resources (HOWTO's, articles, etc)
LocalGroups - this is a list of "geographical" user groups.
http://cafecomputer.com/guide/users-guide.en.html - Debian Desktop Users' Guide
http://newbiedoc.sourceforge.net/ - intros by newbies for newbies
http://people.debian.org/~debacle/refcard - A printable reference to common Debian commands, translated to many different languages
http://www.debian-administration.org - Community Debian System Administration Site
http://www.debian-news.net - A collection of articles about Debian and Ubuntu
http://www.debianadmin.com - Debian Admin Tutorials and Howtos
http://www.debianforum.nl - Dutch Debian&Ubuntu Wiki, low content
http://www.debianguiden.dk - Danish Debian Guide
http://www.debianhelp.co.uk - System admins, Tutorials, HOWTOs, articles, news and useful open source software
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Advocacy, developers, inside information
UnofficialRepositories - a list of non official package repositories. They can be very useful.
http://alioth.debian.org - Project hosting for Open Source developers
http://debianplanet.org - A Debian news site (down since 05/22/2007)
http://homex.subnet.at/~max/debian/index.php - Debian Related Stuff
http://mentors.debian.net - Public package repository
http://planet.debian.org - Planet Debian, aggregating lots of Developer blogs
http://planeta.debian.net - Planeta Debian, a blog aggregator in spanish
http://qref.sourceforge.net/ - Upstream of [http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/reference/reference.en.html Debian Reference]
http://release.debian.org - Debian Release Management pages
http://snapshot.debian.net - Debian packages archived daily since 2002/06/04
http://times.debian.net - Debian Times
http://www.apt-get.orgUnofficial APT repositories
http://www.backports.org - Backports for the stable distribution
http://www.debian.org/News - Official news
http://www.debian-administration.org - Debian Administration resources
http://www.debian-community.org - Debian-Community.org is a brand new effort to give something back to the community and bridge the gap between developers and users.
http://www.debianhelp.org - Debian Help - Questions and Answers
http://www.debianplanet.org - DebianPlanet - Announcements and General Notice Board
http://www.linuks.mine.nu/debian-faq-wiki #Debian (irc.debian.org) FAQ
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Wiki
Debian Related Wikis
http://en.linux.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page - General Linux Wiki
http://kernelnewbies.org - Kernelnewbies Wiki
http://markhobley.yi.org:9090 - Mark Hobley's Debian Users' Wiki
http://wiki.earth.li/DebianUK - Debian-UK's wiki (mostly for UK events)
http://wiki.debconf.org - The DebConf Wiki
http://wiki.debian.org - The Official Debian Wiki
http://wiki.debian-community.org - an effort to give something back to the community
http://wiki.debianforum.de - User orientated Wiki by Debianforum.de in German Language
http://www.debonaras.org - Debonaras (Debian On NAS And Routers And Stuff)
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Other international support
- German
http://dugfaq.sylence.net - debian-user-german FAQ - Archive of 'debian-user-german'
http://newbiedoc.berlios.de Debian newbie documentation
http://www.debianforum.de - debianforum.de - Debian Webforum
- Spain
http://barrapunto.com/index.pl?section=debian - Barrapunto.com - Debian related News
http://www.esdebian.org - esDebian - Debian related info
http://www.laespiral.org - La Espiral - Debian related Website
- French
http://andesi.org - Andesi - Debian related doc, news and forums
http://dpt.tuxfamily.org - Debian Pour Tous - Debian related doc and news
http://www.debian-fr.org - Debian-fr - Debian related doc
http://www.debianworld.org - Debian World - Debian related doc and news
- Portuguese
http://www.debian-br.org - Debian-BR - Debian related website
http://www.debian-rs.org - Debian-RS - Debian related website
- Dutch
http://www.debianforum.nl - DebianForum.nl - Dutch Debian Webforum
Package Description
In the package description you can find some useful information, like a short description of the package, a link to the original website, a list of files contained, and more. The package description can be accessed at the url http://packages.debian.org/<package-name>. Or, try "aptitude show $PKG" (you may need to "apt-get update && apt-get aptitude && aptitude update" first).
One of the best places to look for help for a single package or application is to read stuff in /usr/share/doc/<package-name> (especially README.Debian). This is documentation written by developers or package maintainers. It is quite concise, but usually mentions most common problems and solutions, and new features and fixed bugs.
Bug tracking system
Many problems' solutions can be found as bug report responses. A search engine for bug reports is found on http://bugs.debian.org. Remember that if you want to search in archived (quite old) bugs you must chose "archived bugs" option. If you want to look at bugs of a specific package use http://bugs.debian.org/<package-name>.
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Generic Linux & Unix Documentation
Here is a short list of places where you can find *nix related documentation.
Please add to this list only universally useful links. For example a page explaining how to install nVidia kernel drivers is not a good idea. -- PaoloPan
http://docs.linux.com/article.pl?sid=02/03/09/1727250 - Linux introduction
http://www.tldp.org - The Linux Documentation Project
http://oslab.snu.ac.kr/~djshin/linux/mail-list - a list of Linux mailing lists
http://linux.editme.com - about Linux (preferly encyclopedias)
Interactive Documentation
These are places where you can ask a question and probably receive an answer. It is very important to give as much information as possible (within reason) when asking a question. It is very likely that you will get a satisfying answer, providing you have been able to sufficiently describe your problem so others can understand it.
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A resource that many of the tech savvy use is Google. It is a great place to search for Debian related information. You would be amazed how fast you can answer a simple question with a simple query. Try out the English version at: http://www.google.com/
Google Linux
Linux specific searches using Google can be done through the Linux advanced search page: http://www.google.com/linux
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Books
Many free and non-free books are listed on Debian website.
http://www.debian.org/doc/books - Debian Book Library
Extra books could be listed below.
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Instant Messaging
IRC channel
An IRC channel named #debian can be found on irc.debian.org and on irc.freenode.net. To connect, you need an IRC client (see IrcClients). More information can be found on GettingHelpOnIrc and ["IRC"].
The channel has its own [:FAQ].
Jabber chat rooms
There is a chat room dedicated to Debian support on [http://www.jabber.org/web/Chatrooms jabber.org] server. Join the room at debian@conference.jabber.org with the jabber client of your choice.
More information on [:Jabber:Jabber and Debian support chat rooms] for your own language.
See also: UnofficialRepositories, DebianMailingLists