Greetings all...

I'm not sure if this belongs in a blog post (but I wanted to try it out anyway) or on the forum itself but I wanted to highlight a couple things in case any new members happen to wander by here. Another way of putting this would be: "Helpful Hints" when posting. <---(Yes, I love smileys, as I'm sure everyone in the forum can agree and attest.) Problems of this nature have been discussed before on the forum, so it's not anything new.

A good place to start with this topic would be here and here. Admittedly, I've been a bit lax with the latter. I've posted at times without bothering to to any research beforehand, mostly because I wanted a quick answer rather than to spend time trying to root out a needle from a haystack from Google searches.

However, their are two things I've noticed, in particular, that are happening fairly frequently that I feel needs to be addressed...

1. Please give us detailed information concerning your hardware, version of Kubuntu and/or the software in question when posting your question. If you don't know how to obtain this information, ask us. I frequently ask folks to open a terminal and post the results of the command:

Code:
lspci -nnk
It gives us a basic view or information of the chipsets used in your system that is often crucial in providing you with help. I've seen it more than once. Tell us what you did, if anything, to try and solve the problem before posting. Don't just say, "Kubuntu did an upgrade last night and now my video doesn't work right. What do I do?" Keep in my mind that we are not physically present to look at your system and that we have no real idea of what happened to it. We need you to be our "eyes and ears." In this case, we would need...

a. an lspci (or a similar command) readout and information on the computer (make and model number, etc.)
b. information on the upgrade performed. Was it an upgrade to a newer version of Kubuntu (say, from 11.10 to 12.04) or
a kernel or security update?
c. What are the exact symptoms? Do you no longer have 3D acceleration or are you no longer able to play YouTube
videos or both?
d. Did you do anything to try and solve the problem? If so, what precisely?

If there is something else we need, we will also ask for that. People tend to not appreciate postings that do not give detailed information.

2. Please don't leave threads "hanging." If you make an initial thread requesting help and two or three other people offer suggestions or ask questions and you simply don't reply back, no one has any idea what happened. Please follow through. If you fixed the problem, please let us know....perhaps even explaining how you did so for the benefit of others. If it's just a matter of "Too complicated, I don't want to mess with it, I'll find some other way to get this thing working," please reply back and say "Sorry, guys, I don't want to mess with this. Thanks, anyway." At least we'll know what's up. And I would ask others to avoid replying with any snide or sarcastic comments. In any case, if you're done seeking help in a thread you've created, please mark it as solved.

If I've made any mistakes in what I've written or if anyone would like to add anything, please feel free to reply.

Other than that, I've noticed it still remains pretty sloooooowwwwww around here. I think we have more helpers than those needing help.

Thanks for reading....