Getting Help

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Introduction

This document was written to centralize the various resources available to you as a Funtoo user to fix problems you may encounter. While encountering build failures, bugs or other glitches may be frustrating, Funtoo provides powerful tools and a friendly community that should make resolving such issues a breeze.

Getting (almost) immediate help - IRC

The #funtoo IRC channel on freenode (irc.freenode.net) is available for informal, real-time technical support and troubleshooting. Please use Funtoo irc channel rather than Gentoo channels for Funtoo Linux support.

Patience is advised if you're experiencing an issue. Users might not share the same time zone as you do, and they might be at work or occupied otherwise when you ask your question, so please stick around. That doesn't mean we as a community aren't glad to help! Quite the contrary, we'd like to hear from you, so drop in and join us on the chat even before you start experiencing issues!

You can use the net-irc/irssi IRC client to access the #funtoo IRC channel or any other irc clients of your choice. Alternatively, you can use the Freenode webchat to access the channel using your browser. Enter funtoo in the channel name and choose a nickname, and you're good to go!

Often times, if you're experiencing build failures, users on the chat will want you to share more information about your system. Your Funtoo install is unique and fine-tuned to your system, and users will have a hard time figuring out your problem without additional information. This is your chance to be vocal about your problem, we don't mind the chatter as long as it helps you to resolve your problem. However, to share emerge --info, and build.log information on irc use app-text/wgetpaste or any another ebuilds to upload logs to pastebin service. Share links wgetpaste returns to you (or from your preferred pastebin service), rather than posting directly to the channel.

Generally, if you describe your problem well, you can expect to get quite a swift response. If not, the developers will probably catch your issue when they review the chat for news and will contact you to assist you with resolving your issue. Try to stick around, we can generally resolve the issue quite quickly.

Support Forums

The support forums are also available to discuss issues and also improvements. To access the Forums, the Wiki, and the Bugtracker you'll need to register for an account here.

The following Web-based discussion resources are specifically created for community-based support and troubleshooting, and are monitored by the Funtoo Linux core team. Under the new thread text area, attach the emerge info, and build logs directly to your posts rather than using wgetpaste links. Wgetpaste links expire while the forums attached files are timeless.

Reporting bugs directly

You can also visit Funtoo bug tracker to find out if your issue has already been fixed, or to report a new issue. The bugtracker is reviewed by the Funtoo Linux core team on a regular basis. However, to get the swiftest response, please follow the instructions available here. The guidelines ensure that the core team has enough information to reproduce and fix your issue.

Read the news!

You might have missed the news items listed on the main page, but you should definitely check them out! They contain important information on possible issues while upgrading Funtoo, and also information about new features. Breaking changes and difficult upgrades tend to be well documented in the news, and also on the Forums under the News and Announcements section.