LinuxNET

(Or whatever other capitalisation you prefer)

Some of that would probably be a reflection of the environment on Linuxnet; it's frequently a challenge to communicate there without employing the concepts and tone of the Novice collaborator.

-- Rob Levin

LinuxNET people frown upon web pages that advertise the network. It brings more lusers in. They think they have enough lusers already (although general opinion is divided as to exactly who they are, the correct answer is that they're all the people that disagree with me). If you want help, go to some net that's likely to help you. Even Linuxnet people who frequent those other places would rather not be answering questions on Linuxnet; they do this to relax in a clued environment. At least, they think it's clued.

So, you will find no list of servers here. There's a pointer to a 3 year old list of denizens^Wregulars, complete with (generally broken) links to their homepages. And there are some guidelines for what you might expect to find if you did find a server somewhere. I hope they put you off.

Channels

There's one channel -- it's called #linux. There might be others sometimes, but this is the main one. The topic is ``anything we feel like talking about'', where `we' is some group of people including one or more server operators. There are no channel operators on this channel, so transgressing the unwritten rule (or any of the written rules) will get you killed or k-lined, rather than kicked or banned.

Etiquette

What's that?

Rules

In no particular order (this is why they're numbered)

1. This is not a support channel
2. No use of bold, underline, beep, auto-away messages and other visual fluff like that. Who cares if you're gone for ten minutes? If you must use BitchX, turn all these things off including the bold colon. Growl.
3. This is not a support channel
4. Ask. Ask Not to Ask. A typical dialogue with a newbie unfamiliar with this dictum (the names are used purely for illustrative purposes. Any similarity with the names of real linuxnetters is just an unhappy coincidence):

   <newbie> Hi, does anyone know anything about xwindows?
   <fred> jim: i found the bug, it's in libProplist.  i'll commit it
   <newbie> Hi, does anyone know anything about xwindows?
   <jim> fred: cool
   <newbie> Hi, does anyone know anything about xwindows?
   <fred> done.  you prolly need to make clean
   <jim> fred: getting it now ...
   <MrStudlyCaps> guys, kernel 2.1.345 is out
   <jim> mr: we knew that like 3 hours 4 minutes and 32.804 seconds ago
   <newbie> Hi, does anyone know anything about xwindows?
   *** Signoff: newbie (Killed (Ben (nobody.  now piss off)))
   <MrStudlyCaps> ok, some of us have lives too, you know
   

   Just ask the question straight out (and preferably, once only).
5. This is not a support channel
6. On a similar note, if you lurk for a while you will see that many people greet and are greeted by each other on entering the channel. You might think it's standard practice to do so yourself. Wrong! These people know each other. The natural assumption on seeing an unrecognised nick join the channel and say 'hello' is to expect that they are about to ask a lame question (it doesn't follow logically, but the anecdotal evidence we have suggests that it's usually the case)
7. This is not a support channel
8. Don't /msg anybody anything that you wouldn't be happy about receiving yourself. You don't know them, why do you expect them to spend their time helping you?
9. This is not a support channel
10. None of these rules apply to regulars. But, frankly, you'll never make it to the `status' of regular unless you observe them.

Consequences

<willy> Start sash first, then we'll go from there.

Conclusion

It's traditional to end these guides by expressing some copout ``aw, it's not all that bad really'' sentiment. I'm not going to. That would dilute the message. Go away.