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I'm trying to understand the difference between Super User and Stack Overflow. What kind of questions should I ask here and not on Stack Overflow?

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  • Good question. Can anyone point me to the same type of question regarding Super User vs. Ask Different? Ask Different seems to be a strict set of Super User containing questions for Mac only.
    – chharvey
    Jul 3, 2015 at 19:50

4 Answers 4

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Stack Overflow is for programmers, Super User is for computer hardware & software enthusiasts and power users. You want to ask questions about code, go to SO. If you're having a problem with booting your laptop, go to SU.

Read the FAQs of both SU and SO to understand more.

Stack Overflow FAQ.

Super User FAQ

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  • I wrote a similar answer for a question that turned out to be a dup of this one. As I pointed out there, the two areas do overlap. All the same, keeping them separate does make sense. Sep 7, 2012 at 21:15
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    Those FAQ links are just the tour pages and do not provide much information about the content of the sites other than two lines.
    – ahorn
    Jun 12, 2015 at 14:10
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StackOverflow is about programming. Superuser is about using the computer in general, actually more about software than hardware.

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    Only add that SO is about specific issues while programming, for general questions related to programming there is the poorly named Programmers.se May 11, 2012 at 20:09
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The Stack Overflow Trilogy

http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/05/the-stack-overflow-trilogy/

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  • Please note that some of the information in that almost four year old blog post is obsolete. Super User is not the site for anything that has to do with computers.
    – Daniel Beck Mod
    Feb 17, 2013 at 17:22
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SO is about any way of creating Software. There are many ways of creating software, wether it's programming, scripting, or even the drag and drop from the Lego Robot.

Meanwhile Superuser is more about Computer questions from the end-user. If I have a software problem, of if I am just curious of how something is done by the computer (how does a cpu know what commands and instructions actually mean) this would be the site to go

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