<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML ><HEAD ><TITLE >Usenet Newsgroup Archives</TITLE ><META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.7"><LINK REL="HOME" TITLE="Online Troubleshooting Resources: HOWTO" HREF="index.html"><LINK REL="PREVIOUS" TITLE="Internet Search Engines" HREF="searchengines.html"><LINK REL="NEXT" TITLE="Mailing List Archives" HREF="mailinglists.html"></HEAD ><BODY CLASS="section" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#840084" ALINK="#0000FF" ><DIV CLASS="NAVHEADER" ><TABLE SUMMARY="Header navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TH COLSPAN="3" ALIGN="center" >Online Troubleshooting Resources: HOWTO</TH ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="searchengines.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="80%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" ></TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="mailinglists.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"></DIV ><DIV CLASS="section" ><H1 CLASS="section" ><A NAME="usenet" ></A >5. Usenet Newsgroup Archives</H1 ><P > The ability to search for and retrieve information from archived posts to the Linux-related (Usenet) newsgroups represents a powerful means of troubleshooting in Linux. </P ><P > Search engines permit one to search the archives by stipulating the forum, keywords, authors, dates, language and combinations thereof. Because the number of Linux-related newsgroups is large, the likelihood of finding useful information is high. </P ><P > The main web site that currently provides access to Usenet archives using a search engine is <A HREF="http://groups.google.com" TARGET="_top" >http://groups.google.com</A >. The most effective way to do a search is to use its <A HREF="http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search" TARGET="_top" >Advanced Groups Search page</A >. </P ><P > I would like to relate a brief anecdote to demonstrate the efficacy of this approach. The first time I attempted to build a kernel, I was presented with this error message when I invoked a <SPAN CLASS="QUOTE" >"make"</SPAN > command: </P ><TABLE BORDER="0" BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" WIDTH="100%" ><TR ><TD ><FONT COLOR="#000000" ><PRE CLASS="screen" > make[1]: as86: Command not found make[1]: *** [bootsect.o] Error 127 make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot' make: *** [zImage] Error 2 </PRE ></FONT ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><P > I had no idea what <TT CLASS="literal" >as86</TT > was, but I entered it as the keyword in the <EM >Subject</EM > field of the Advanced Groups Search page at groups.google.com, and was presented with a large number of posts from folks who had encountered the same problem. Respondents had provided the reason and solution: I did not have an assembler/linker necessary to create machine code, and the <I CLASS="medialabel" >bin86</I > package provided it. I downloaded and installed a RPM package of the latter and was on my way. This entire process took about 10 minutes! </P ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="NAVFOOTER" ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"><TABLE SUMMARY="Footer navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="searchengines.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="index.html" ACCESSKEY="H" >Home</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="mailinglists.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" >Internet Search Engines</TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" > </TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" >Mailing List Archives</TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ></BODY ></HTML >
