General vailability of assistance for KUBUNTU newbies

[rmckim]

After several weeks of attempting to get two probs fixed, I have to say that the general level of help in these KUBUBTU forums is extremely limited, IMHO. If you have a networking or printer problem in Windows, you WILL get it fixed, almost guaranteed. Just look long enough and the answer will be found.

Not so with KUBUNTU. Not even close.

So if you're a windows user hoping to segue into a great O/S sans Gates et al, I suggest UBUNTU instead of the KDE KUBUNTU platform. You'll get more help and the setup is easier, as always, IMHO.

[marshallbanana]

Re: General vailability of assistance for KUBUNTU newbies

Okay, just had a look at your posts and made replies to some of them. I would have to say though that part of your problem with lack forum support is probably that you are not using gutsy (or at least not posting in the gutsy forums). I'm not sure about everyone else but personally I only check the forum that relates to whichever release I am currently running (always the latest stable one) as I can't check things for previous releases. I think the best support for kubuntu will always be for the latest release.
Admittedly kubuntu support will probably not be as good as ubuntus simply due to having less users. That said, almost every guide that tells you how to do something in ubuntu can be very easily adapted to kubuntu. Personally I have been able to solve every problem I've had by a combination of this forum and google.

[Snowhog]

Re: General vailability of assistance for KUBUNTU newbies

Or as stated by marshallb, posting within the Forum section that matches your release - Kubuntu Dapper Drake - would have been the "better" location for your posts. Hardware and Network support sub-sections, one for each question, may have yielded help you are looking for.

[mchuskie]

Re: General vailability of assistance for KUBUNTU newbies

As someone who has spent a lot of time on these forums, helping out people such as yourself, I find your post both upsetting and insulting. Upsetting that you haven't found solutions to your problems and insulting that you point the blame entirely at unpaid volunteers who try their best without reward.

I'll leave it at that, I don't want to start a flame war.

[Fenyx]

Re: General vailability of assistance for KUBUNTU newbies

Just a few points.

1. To be blunt, no one here is actually paid to give user support. We are all VOLUNTEERS. In fact, this forums is owned by a private individual who doesn't get any revenue from any of this. Pure charity. That said, we do VOLUNTARILY take it upon ourselves to TRY to help each other out. We have NO OBLIGATION, but do try our best.

2. Since we are all VOLUNTEERS here, we don't really know everything or are trained to answer every question. We can only help WHEN AND IF we can. That ability is affected a lot by our own time and our own level of experience and knowledge.

3. KubuntuForums.Net is NOT the only source of Kubuntu support. There are mailing lists and an IRC channel as well. And, since you seem to expect the same level of support as commercial support, Canonical offers commercial support as well. There, if they don't help you, you can very much complain and rant all you want, since you will pay them for their support service. Here, we try to give you quality support to the best of our abilities, with no guarantees, no contracts, and no fees.

(There is also ubuntuforums.org if you need more generic *buntu help. The traffic there is heavier too)

So I would have to echo how JamesM feels right now. While I understand how frustrating it is to have your issue unresolved for a few weeks, it's also equally frustrating for those who try to help.

I've spent almost every single day of my life for the past 1 and a half years doing unpaid, voluntary support for Kubuntu here and in IRC. Every day, I try to answer as many questions that I can, to the best of what I know, sometimes wishing I knew more so that I could help more. But when I see comments like this, comments that basically say "support here sucks because *I* didn't get answers to *my* questions", it really saddens me.

Sometimes it feels what I'm doing is not worth it anymore...

[marshallbanana]

Re: General vailability of assistance for KUBUNTU newbies

I think the evidence that we do try is in the posts we have just all made to the threads detailing your other probs. Hopefully we can change your mind.

[Fintan]

Re: General vailability of assistance for KUBUNTU newbies

Dear rmckim, I to read your posts and it seems to me you got some very good advice from the people that were tying to help, so I really don't know how you can come across with the language you choose to use.

On a another note:

If you have a networking or printer problem in Windows, you WILL get it fixed, almost guaranteed. Just look long enough and the answer will be found.

That makes me laugh. Although the same applies to kubuntu. If you look long enough you will find a solution for kde (kubuntu) as well. Ask the right questions in the right places. But what makes me laugh is the fact that you are comparing apples and dried tomatoes. There are tens of millions windows users out there. So it is obvious that problems are discussed widely and as already mentioned by others windows is commercial.

Kubuntu could point to variuos howto pages and give a bit more advice when installed or booting the live CD. I do hope that the gods that are will implement something along those lines in the future. Until then if you really do LOOK and have an average reading aptitude you WILL find.

[MatthewSchenker]

Re: General vailability of assistance for KUBUNTU newbies

I feel the need to disagree here. I've only been using Linux for about three months, so I consider myself a new user. I've had a long list of concerns over the past few weeks as I moved from a Windows XP system, to a dual-boot system, and finally to a Linux-only system. Along the way, I've posted hundreds of times in the Ubuntu forums, and sometimes here.

Here are some of the subjects I've posted about:

• Partitioning problems
• Basic information on drive formatting
• Wireless support problems
• Learning how to use Konsole command lines
• Burning ISO images (yes, I didn't know how to do it)
• How to get and install applications not in the repositories
• Getting names of Windows-Linux equivalent applications
• GRUB issues

There are others, but I can't remember them all at the moment. For each one, I got assistance within a couple of hours of posting my question. In every case, I was able to solve the problem within a day or two, and learn something new in the process that has served me well.

When I had trouble with Microsoft systems, I hardly ever knew who I could call, and if I had to call Microsoft -- forget it!

My point is, I think the Ubuntu/Kubuntu community is amazing, and it is one of the reasons I had the confidence to get rid of Windows and adopt Kubuntu.

Matt

[Snowhog]

Re: General vailability of assistance for KUBUNTU newbies

I'm suggesting that Please Read Before Posting by Open Source back in March of 2006, be moved to Kubuntu Forums | Important Information | Announcements section as a permanent item, so it is visible right from the start.

From his opening:

"You can learn a lot on the Kubuntu forums. We welcome your questions
and we'll do our best to answer them. There are a few things you can
do to make sure you get the best information available."

All new members to this Forum should read this before posting. It is short and to the point. It's aim is to increase the chances that when a members posts a question, they will get a qualified answer, and as a result, realize a good experience with the Forum. I believe that is what all of us want.

[knutschr]

Re: General vailability of assistance for KUBUNTU newbies

The (K)ubuntu forums are really much better than any help for MS users, I think.
Sometimes I can see a question answered 6-10 times in 1 min. in Ubuntu Forums!
Kubuntu Forums don't have this much traffic
Therefore many Kubuntu users post their questions there (too).
You should do it too and see what happens

[Snowhog]

Re: General vailability of assistance for KUBUNTU newbies

Ubuntu Forum stats (as of right now):
Threads: 593,218, Posts: 3,733,896, Members: 426,523

Kubuntu Forum stats (as of right now):
22813 Reg. Members
97431 Posts

It's not suprising that one (would/might) get replies faster to posts on the Ubuntu Forum given the numbers they have. But I'll stand by the quality of assistance I've received here in the Kubuntu Forum. I find among other things, that navigation here (the way the Forum is organized) is easier for me. The Forum search function here is better (IMO) than on the Ubuntu Forum.

[knutschr]

Re: General vailability of assistance for KUBUNTU newbies

I agree.
It's a pity Kubuntu users don't use this forum, often.
This forum is better.
Kubuntu users posting questions only to Ubuntu forum should try posting it here, too.