[ddfe603] | 1 | <sect1 id="ch02-askforhelp">
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| 2 | <title>How to ask for help</title>
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| 3 |
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| 4 | <para>If you have a problem while using this book, you'll find that most
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| 5 | of the people on Internet Relay Chat (IRC) and the mailing lists will be
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| 6 | willing to help you. You can find a list of the LFS mailing lists in
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| 7 | <xref linkend="ch01-maillists"/>. To assist us in helping though, you should
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| 8 | make sure that you have as much relevant information as you can
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| 9 | available. This will assist in diagnosing and solving your problem.
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| 10 | This part of the book will guide you as to which sort of information
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| 11 | will be useful.</para>
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| 12 |
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| 13 | <sect2>
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| 14 | <title>Basic Information</title>
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| 15 |
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| 16 | <para>First of all we need a brief explanation of the problem.
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| 17 | Essential things to include are:</para>
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| 18 |
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| 19 | <itemizedlist>
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| 20 | <listitem><para>The version of the book you are using, which is &version;</para></listitem>
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| 21 | <listitem><para>Which package or section you are having problems with</para></listitem>
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| 22 | <listitem><para>What the exact error message or symptom you are recieving is</para></listitem>
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| 23 | <listitem><para>If you have deviated from the book at all</para></listitem>
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| 24 | </itemizedlist>
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| 25 |
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| 26 | <para>Note that saying that you've deviated from the book doesn't mean
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| 27 | that we won't help you, after all, LFS is all about choice. It'll just
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| 28 | help us to see the possible other causes of your problem.</para>
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| 29 |
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| 30 | </sect2>
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| 31 |
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| 32 | <sect2>
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| 33 | <title>Configure problems</title>
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| 34 |
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| 35 | <para>When something goes wrong during the stage where the configure
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| 36 | script is run, look at the last lines of the
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| 37 | <filename>config.log</filename>. This file contains possible errors
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| 38 | encoutered during configure which aren't always printed to the screen.
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| 39 | Include those relevant lines if you decide to ask for help.</para>
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| 40 |
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[d28673b] | 41 | </sect2>
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| 42 |
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[ddfe603] | 43 | <sect2>
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| 44 | <title>Compile problems</title>
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| 45 |
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| 46 | <para>To help us find the cause of the problem, both screen output and
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| 47 | the contents of various files are useful. The screen output from both
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| 48 | the ./configure script and when make is run can be useful. Don't
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| 49 | blindly include the whole thing but on the other hand, don't include too
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| 50 | little. As an example, here is some screen output from make:</para>
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| 51 |
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[5e0e068] | 52 | <para><screen>gcc -DALIASPATH=\"/mnt/lfs/usr/share/locale:.\"
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| 53 | -DLOCALEDIR=\"/mnt/lfs/usr/share/locale\" -DLIBDIR=\"/mnt/lfs/usr/lib\"
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| 54 | -DINCLUDEDIR=\"/mnt/lfs/usr/include\" -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I.
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| 55 | -g -O2 -c getopt1.c
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| 56 | gcc -g -O2 -static -o make ar.o arscan.o commands.o dir.o expand.o file.o
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| 57 | function.o getopt.o implicit.o job.o main.o misc.o read.o remake.o rule.o
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| 58 | signame.o variable.o vpath.o default.o remote-stub.o version.o opt1.o
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| 59 | -lutil job.o: In function `load_too_high':
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[ddfe603] | 60 | /lfs/tmp/make-3.79.1/job.c:1565: undefined reference to `getloadavg'
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| 61 | collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
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| 62 | make[2]: *** [make] Error 1
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| 63 | make[2]: Leaving directory `/lfs/tmp/make-3.79.1'
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| 64 | make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
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| 65 | make[1]: Leaving directory `/lfs/tmp/make-3.79.1'
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[5e0e068] | 66 | make: *** [all-recursive-am] Error 2</screen></para>
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[ddfe603] | 67 |
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| 68 | <para>In this case, many people just include the bottom section where it
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| 69 | says <screen>make [2]: *** [make] Error 1</screen> and onwards. This
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[2f59cf7] | 70 | isn't enough for us to diagnose the problem because it only tells us
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[ddfe603] | 71 | that <emphasis>something</emphasis> went wrong, not
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| 72 | <emphasis>what</emphasis> went wrong. The whole section as
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| 73 | quoted above is what should be included to be helpful, because it
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| 74 | includes the command that was executed and the command's error
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| 75 | message(s).</para>
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| 76 |
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| 77 | </sect2>
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| 78 |
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| 79 | </sect1>
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| 80 |
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