On Tue, September 30, 2014 17:19, Valeri Galtsev wrote:

I'm happy to sign under that, only I feel myself plagiarist here... But indeed I hate these days we start solving any problem by creating [google or any other search engine] search line instead of reading documentation first.

The difficulty being that for much of the Linux infrastructure the official documentation is excessively exalted by being called 'documentation' in the first place. The reason I go to StartPage or DuckDuckGo first is that I have read a lot of the 'documentation' and whatever semantic content much of it contains is too frequently buried under jargon and dependent upon presumed foreknowledge. It does not help that many documentation writers seem to consider the the Laconians' reply to Phillip as being too wordy. The next step no doubt is to quote: "Use the source, Luke. Use the source." And let us not even consider the useful semantic content of 99.99% of all error messages generated by defective software; since there is none.

I can hardly justify criticising someone who has limited time and infinite demands thereon turning to the experiences of others as documented on the web and helpfully indexed by Google et al first; before attempting to find the answer in one of the obscure and obfuscated texts that pass for technical documentation in most fields. Computers simply being the one I encounter most frequently and which happens to concern this issue.

I use man pages and find most of them helpful. But, frankly, they are of more use as an aide memoire than as a source of instruction. I defy anyone who has never built an RPM package to build one from scratch using nothing more than their source code files and the relevant man pages. If they can get so far as to identify those to begin with.

The existence of technical mailing lists, such as this one, is a mute testament to the deficiency of official documentation. No matter how good it may be a technical document will always be incomplete and subject to misunderstanding. One needs context to grasp what another is trying to convey. The experience of others provides that.

As to the OP. Well, you have to start some place. Even if the request was awkwardly put and apparently presumptive one must consider that English may not be their native tongue; and that social mores and customs respecting forms of address vary considerably by country. I find it best to give people the benefit of the doubt. If I reply at all I try to provide a pointer to some resource relating to the query that either I have found helpful or has a good reputation for same.