5. Before submitting a question

You can (and should) do some things yourself before asking a question on one of the mailing lists:

• Try solving the problem on your own. If you post a question which shows that you have tried to solve the problem, your question will generally attract more positive attention from people reading it. Trying to solve the problem yourself will also enhance your understanding of FreeBSD, and will eventually let you use your knowledge to help others by answering questions posted to the mailing lists.

• Read the manual pages, and the FreeBSD documentation (either installed in /usr/doc or accessible via WWW at http://www.FreeBSD.org), especially the handbook and the FAQ.

• Browse and/or search the archives for the mailing list, to see if your question or a similar one has been asked (and possibly answered) on the list. You can browse and/or search the mailing list archives at http://www.FreeBSD.org/mail and http://www.FreeBSD.org/search/search.html#mailinglists respectively. This can be done at other WWW sites as well, for example at http://marc.theaimsgroup.com.

• Use a search engine such as Google or Yahoo to find answers to your question. Google even has a BSD-specific search interface.