openSUSE:Search the web
- importance that search has to find information,
- advices "google that", "ask Google", "search" in our communication media,
- abundance of quality and bad information sources, which makes easy to
- find the answer, or
- fall in a trap.
- lack of tips and tricks how to avoid traps and get to the information about openSUSE and Linux related topics.
Applied to the new openSUSE and Linux users, "ask Google" is like sending someone in a minefield without plan, or even without clues how to increase survival chances.
Basics
We must keep in mind that old fashioned advice to search the web is for a long time misplaced when given to people that are new to the topic. They don't know:
- related GNU/Linux terminology
- operating system components and their relation
- historical changes and new development
- people around the project or whom to trust
Experienced people
- recognize web sites hosting content that is:
- insufficient: missing references about applicability
- obsolete: workarounds for old bugs, abandoned software
- wrong: misleading, risky, outright damaging,
- unrelated: to the problem,
- ... (add more)
- filter information based on version in use:
- development status: experimental, unstable, testing, stable
- openSUSE distribution:
- Factory: milestones, beta, release candidate
- released: supported (current, previous, Evergreen) or unsupported
- components:
- desktop: KDE, GNOME, Xfce, LXDE,
- kernel: supported, HEAD, KOTD
- graphics: xorg
- applications in question
- ... (add more)
New linux people
New in a crowd need all help they can get from those that already went trough the learning path. All that is known for experienced largely is not existent for one that is starting in a new field without prior training, and that is exactly what is happening to everyone making first steps in Linux using openSUSE.
Tips
Check publishing time
This days serious publishers on the web put time stamps at the top of the article, but not everyone that has useful advice is a publisher, so you will find a lot of advices that are obsolete and nothing on the web page tells that.
Web remembers everything forever, which helps, but when you need information about your current problem web has a habit to throw at you all info it can find in its corners.
Check software version
Asking about big old distro like openSUSE that has many releases, and at any time 3 that are current, development (Factory) and 2 released versions, you have to know which version you are using. This seems obvious, but when time comes and you need help those few numbers behind name are often lost, or just plain ignored as not important. Then you open Google web page, enter a problem and voila, there is plethora of answers for versions that are not yours.
The same is valid for each piece of software that makes openSUSE.
Cookies
Without cookies you can get results based on what people usually look for when they ask for some word. That is in majority of situations fine, but sometimes you have to make choice between strict privacy and better search results. Most of the people keep cookie settings at browser default which helps search engines to learn about your searching habits and choices you make, so that they can give you more relevant results in the future. Of course, it will learn about you too and your privacy can be exposed.
This article needs to be expanded. You are welcome to help in line with the Style Guidelines.
- Maintainer: Rajko M. is the one to poke with comments.
- Creators: All mentioned in the article history.
- Plan is to:
- keep the article at this location until content will justify move to more prominent place.
- add links to relevant wiki articles that talk about concepts (hint: search wiki :)
- add links to this article from all relevant pages