(Apologies if this is the wrong category, I wasn’t sure which would be best.) I recently tested out Ubuntu 24.04.1 live and ran into a couple issues. One issue received a lot of attention and thankfully was resolved, but unfortunately the other issue doesn’t seem to be getting any more attention and I’m at a dead end.
Are there any alternative support communities that people could recommend I try aside from the Ubuntu Community Hub forum? I prefer a forum over a chat room but I’m open to any suggestions.
I know tech issues can be frustrating and you want to resolve them as quickly as possible.
However, bear in mind that this is a volunteer community-driven forum and it has only been 2 days since the last reply. On top of that it was/is also the weekend for many.
Be patient and I am sure someone will come along with some suggestions.
By the way, UD is the only official support forum for Ubuntu and its flavours and I do not think you will find a better place or people than right here.
Yes, Launchpad Questions is official, but many users find it hard to navigate.
However, Ask Ubuntu is unofficial and many people (such as myself) lost their Launchpad-linked accounts when StackExchange removed OpenSSO. Therefore, we (speaking for the Ubuntu community), cannot endorse it beyond just being volunteer-run by knowledgeable people. Also, StackExchange has been less-than-cooperative with the moderators there and keeps taking moderation tools away.
I’m somewhat mystified by this whole “official” and “endorsement” thing. What does it mean? I would have thought the normal “useful, usable and used” criteria would be better for assesing the value of different knowledge resources rather than some appeal to authority such as “official” status. And surely the Ubuntu community is not just made up of those who feel entitled to endorse certain sites?
To be fair, the issue that got attention was a very generic one anyone with a little knowledge can answer. The second has very specific hardware requirements to debug. I’m not remotely surprised that it’s got less attention. Sorry.
I would read “unofficial” to mean that you will find less people and most certainly less people who are actively involved in contributing to the project. Those folks are the most likely to have the answer to the thorniest of questions. Furthermore, all the new traffic isn’t being directed there from within the Ubuntu community. It also means that if those resources suddenly have technical issues or even perhaps social ones, no one from Ubuntu/Canonical is going to try to rush to save it. So I guess that means they’re not useful or usable and not as used as the official ones. So by your criteria, they’re no good. You might find support there, but there’s no guarantee of it.
That said, back to the OP, you might check out Matrix since you’d prefer a chat.
In addition to what @wxl said, “officlal” means it’s underneath the Ubuntu Governance and, therefore, has a group of people ultimately overseen by the Ubuntu Community Council overseeing it, but delegated. For instance, IRC has the IRC council, Matrix has the Matrix Council, LoCos have the LoCo council, etc., all delegated by the Community Coucil to oversee those sections of the community.
Ask Ubuntu has no such structure, neither does the “Ubuntu Hangout” discord server, but they’re still part of the community, though unofficial.
I would maintain that, for the purposes of getting help on Ubuntu (or any other topic, for that matter) “useful, useable and used” trumps any other form of status, but it is helpful to understand what is meant by “official” and, although less explicitly, “endorsed” in this context.
The rationale for this is that UUU focuses on the value to the user whereas “official” is concerned with the modes of governance of the resource without regard to its utility. But there is absolutely a necessity for an ultimate arbiter/authority on certain matters which is well described as “official”.
Apologies for any typos or seemingly random words in the above. I am visually challenged, typing on a phone with over-helpful autocorrect. So although it would be fair to say “well, don’t do that then” I felt the benefit of getting something out would be worth the risk of that thing being gibberish! “The perfect is the enemy of the good” “Release early, release often”, Fail. Then fail better." Etc.
