Finding Help and Giving Back to the Community
Finding Help
There are many forms of help available to establishments using Edubuntu. As different people prefer to get help in different ways, Edubuntu tries to assist in as many ways as possible.
Web Site
The Edubuntu Web sites have a plethora of information available to the user, from troubleshooting to expansion to upcoming features to bug fixes. The following is a list of the major Web sites for Edubuntu and their uses.
- www.edubuntu.org: The main portal Web site for Edubuntu. This site contains information on installing Edubuntu as well as links for downloading CD images and obtaining CDs via the ShipIt system.
- http://wiki.edubuntu.org/Edubuntu: The main wiki landing page for Edubuntu. A wiki is an online collaborative documentation that allows people from all over the world to work together to provide documentation and support for others. In the wiki you will find more detailed information on setting up Edubuntu for more specialist cases, as well as much of the planning documentation that the Edubuntu team uses.
- http://wiki.edubuntu.org/Edubuntu/Launchpad/Teams: The wiki landing page for Edubuntu Launchpad teams. Launchpad is a system used by many Linux distributions and open source projects to keep track of teams, specifications for new features, bugs, and translation material. If you are thinking about contributing to Edubuntu, you will find this site a great resource of information.
- http://lists.ubuntu.com: A portal for seeing the archives or signing up to mailing lists. The lists are sorted in alphabetical order for easy navigation.
Mailing List
The mailing list for Edubuntu consists of several different smaller mailing lists. You are free to join as many of them as you wish. Traffic on some is lighter than others. Once you have signed up your e-mail address on a mailing list, you are given a special e-mail address to send e-mails to. When you send an e-mail to this address, it is forwarded to every other member of the list. In Edubuntu, the following lists are currently in use.
- edubuntu-users: A list where other users of Edubuntu communicate about how they are using it and ask questions about any problems they may be having.
- edubuntu-devel: A list geared more toward the developer community of Edubuntu. This often contains a lot of information that general users of Edubuntu will not be interested in.
Internet Relay Chat
A lot of communication in the Ubuntu community is done via IRC. IRC is a kind of conference environment where people communicate via real-time text-based messaging. IRC also has the provision to handle private messaging between two individuals. The Edubuntu channel can be found using the following information:
Server: irc.freenode.net
Port: 8001
Channel: #edubuntu
Using a program like X-Chat, anyone can join the channel and ask questions of the Edubuntu team. There are people in the channel from all over the world, so there should be someone around to answer your questions at pretty much any time.
Forums
Edubuntu also has a section in the www.ubuntuforums.org Web site. Forums are like mailing lists, except that no e-mails are sent or received. Everything is accessed via the Web site, for which you have to register to be able to post replies and topics.
Giving Back to the Community
Edubuntu always welcomes help in every area. It doesn’t matter if your skills are in artwork, documentation, testing, coding, or feedback—there is always something you can contribute. Please introduce yourself to the Edubuntu team and start helping the community grow.