The LDP Responds to Suggestions 65
Thanks a lot to Slashdot readers for the comments they submitted.
Our announcement may have seemed "empty" but you provided us with lots of good feedback regarding the LDP in general, and that will help us in improving our quality.
While reading the comments, I took a paper and wrote down the different problems people had.
Some will not be solved immediately, some are now solved, others are outside our scope while others can be solved if we get more people to help in the effort.
- web site design : FIXED
Each of your comments were precious to help us improve its appearance and ease of use. Please try out the new version.
- provide direct access to important links : FIXED
We now have big links for each of the major document types (HOWTOs, FAQs...) on the first page. Please check "non-English" where you should find a link to your local LDP with translated documents.
- provide security bulletins & link to RFC archives
I'm sorry, but this is not within the current goals of the LDP. However, we will add links to other sites with this information in our "Links" section.
- provide DocBook and PDF documents : FIXED (Docbook format and ">PDF format are online now
I converted each of the LinuxDoc HOWTOs and mini HOWTOs to DocBook and PDF, uploaded them two days after the Slashdot article ; they are now available on each of the formats as another output, just like the html and ps versions.
- move to DocBook because LinuxDoc sucks - stick to LinuxDoc because DocBook sucks
The HOWTOs are now provided in both LinuxDoc and DocBook; however for the moment we can only accept LinuxDoc source for the HOWTOs.
In the next weeks both DocBook and LinuxDoc SGML source will be accepted for the HOWTOs. We are currently testing DocBook output formats.
You can already submit your DocBook only document which will be put in the DOCBOOK section. (a new major section, like FAQs and HOWTOs)
- "tables don't scale to window size and resolution and 10 pt font size is hardcoded
Our Webmasters are working on these problems.
- How can I submit my work to the LDP? You can read the HOWTO-HOWTO
three possibilities depending on the format:
a. you can write in LinuxDoc : call your document an HOWTO b. you can write in DocBook : call your document a DOCBOOK :-) c. you are a master of TeX/LaTeX, pdf or any specific format : call your document a GUIDE or a FAQ, depending on its contents.
Please use a license compatible with our requirements (GNU Free Documentation License is IMHO the best choice but feel free to take any other license) and mail your document to ldp-submit@lists.linuxdoc.org
If your LinuxDoc or DocBook source contains errors, I'm sorry but we will not process it until the errors are fixed. Please test it first
- You should check the documents : FIXED
We have since November! We would like to be able to have our peer review team proofread each submitted document.
However, there are far too many docs submitted to ldp-submit for our small team to adequately proofread each document. If you would like to help us please subscribe to ldp-submit (mail ldp-submit-request@lists.linuxdoc.org).
- XXXX and YYYY HOWTOs are outdated/unmaintained
Please update the document and submit the new version to the LDP if the license allows modifications. We will be happy to include your new version (News HOWTO and SCSI HOWTO are especially old!).
- I just found ZZZZ HOWTO which is not part of the LDP yet
Then please contact the author and ask him to send his document to ldp-submit@lists.linuxdoc.org Chances are we will include it, unless it contains errors, has a non- free license, or duplicates an existing document.
- license problem, GNU/Linux... FIXED
We have a manifesto and a license guide on the first page. There is an ongoing discussion and both may be revised.
We will not impose any license but rather have some criteria and requirements (free redistribution for ex.)
And if you don't like "LDP", just remember netscape/mozilla : it's written LDP but it reads GNU Linux Documentation Project.
Writing documentation is not as sexy as writing software (To quote a Slashdotter, "Honestly, how many users want to read documentation? How many of them see a fat manual and feel happy?")
We do need more authors. Unfortunately, not everyone can be a good author. It requires a combination of writing skills, technical knowledge, and the willingness to accept criticism that improves your final product. Thank you all for your responses--we hope that you continue to let us know your opinions on the LDP.
Re:MSDN for Linux (Score:1)
Actually there is a group thats working one something like this.
actually, they are working on a standard for opensource documentation formatting. and thinking about acting as a central repository. they will have tools to convert too and from their format(docbook? last i heard) to older/legacy formats
as a part of this there was discussion for working on a search engine/framework for looking at the documentation on your system(so you can keep everything on your system, or look at the internet version)
I'm afraid that I cannot remember their name off the top of my head. they have a mailing list that I read from time to time.
something like Open Documentation Environment(ODE)
Increasing the quality of program documentation. (Score:1)
As reported somewhere a while back, open source programmers do it for the respect they get from others in the open source community. Now, if the respect they get for their programming was also tied to their document writing I believe we would see an immediate and enormous increase in the quality of documentation.
However, I believe that we end users can't effect this change of attitude by ourselves, it has to come from the top. Face it, the programmers aren't looking for OUR respect, the want it from the people THEY respect. But this has another problem, the open source programming leaders themselves aren't known for their stellar document writing (if they were, we probably wouldn't even need this discussion because there wouldn't even be a problem with documentation.)
Now if we could get Linus and Alan and ESR and RMS and all those other luminaries in the open source movement to start leading by example in the document-writing area the problem would start to fix itself.
(If I've unfairly grouped someone who already documents their programs with those who don't, I'm sorry in advance.)
Re:Big and thick. (Score:1)
Also, as others point out, electronic documentation isn't very helpful when my problem revolves around the computer not operating.
In this case, a CD will be equally worthless, wont it? And if you're talking about the newbie that cant get his box online, then a CD will be equally worthless for the newbie that doesn't know how to mount his CD's filesystem.
In general though, I think a CD collection with everything in one place, properly indexed with a good search engine would be a great thing.
Re:MSDN for Linux (Score:1)
do you know know about the -K (that's a capital) switch for man?
No, and it doesn't seem like I'll ever find out what it's supposed to do:
~>man -K
man: invalid option -- K
But I think manpages rule anyway. Always the same sections in the same order, and everything on one page, easily searched in less. Compare that to the absolutely horrible "info" format, where the information is split up into myriads of small sections, and you have to navigate yourself to death before you find what you're looking for. And when you've found it, there's no easy way to get to the other stuff you wanted to know, which means even more frustrating navigation.
And as a special bonus, its very easy to get a nice-looking hardcopy of a manpage, just use "man -Tps proggie | lpr". (I am definately not a big fan of info, does that show? :))
Be Dynamic (Score:1)
I have to correct something in regard to this reply:
I never said, or at least I never ment to, that statical linked systems, apps,... are better.
Of course I prefer the state-of-the-art dynamical architecture.
I just wanted to point out, how difficult it is to keep pace.
BTW, you CAN NOT download and upgrade glibc from RedHat.
george./
Re:Why no easy solution RE:Software level & Doc le (Score:1)
If you want a distribution that is all statically linked, go for it and make your own. Call it "Primitive Linux", or something and you'll probably find a fan base. I'll stick to dynamic linking and performing OS upgrades, myself.
--
Software level & Doc level (Score:1)
After going through the painful process of getting libc5 to peacefully coexist with libc6 about 18 months ago, I thought that any future glibc upgrades would be less painful. Hah!
I read the INSTALL doc, searched the web, finally went to deja where a search of the "gnu.*,linux.*,comp.os.linux.*,comp.os.linux.*" groups led me to conclude that the only way to upgrade to glibc-2.1.2 reliably is to upgrade the whole distro from square one. This is totally unacceptable, IMO, and even though I successfully installed gcc-2.95(?) there doesn't seem to be a clear map as to how to proceed from here. What's the next step? Note that glibc-2.1.2 BUILT SUCCESSFULLY but how the hell do I install it on a live working system as the new default libc?
This is only one example of how frustrating linux can be. A clear set of docs is a MUST for linux to prosper and I don't see it happening. People are lazy and writing documentation is the last thing anyone wants to do. Absent an army of paid technical writers nothing is ever going to develop along the lines of the MSDN library. This more than anything will stifle linux's growth, mark my words.
The original referenced LDP article recommends (paraphrasing) "Don't lay out a template with holes to be filled in later - this will ensure it never gets done". I think just as important as an organized 'what IS available list' should be a 'what IS NOT available' list. Does that really differ from an outline with gaps that need to be filled in?
You are right, but what about newbies ? (Score:1)
the difficulties I pointed out are the same you mentioned.
How many folks have the time to recompile all their pgms ?
I don't.
What is YOUR ADVICE for a LINUX-NEWBIE ?
Always re-installing new versions ?
I see this as a problem for Linux to get on more desktops,
which is the goal of many Slashdot readers, isn't it ?
So WHAT DO YOU DO when XFree 4x, kernel 2.3, KOffice etc. come out ?
Do you upgrade your stuff for a week,
or do you re-install, saving your data ?
What do you answer to a newbie who wants to run an application that requires a higher libc ?
Although I'm a pro, I want to USE my machines,
not to be forced to upgrade every week.
Maybe I'm getting old --- but that is also what new Linux users want.
And why they hesitate, because in a few months something better will be availabe.
My answer is dumb: wait until the new distribution is out, then never read anything about improvements anymore.
Just when you buy a PC.
A week later you find a better or cheaper one.
New users are not used to upgrade every month.
They want to install something, and live in peace for the next 5 years.
I really think this is a big problem for Linux to go mainstream.
And I REALLY like to read your answers,
thanks,
george./
Re:MSDN for Linux (Score:2)
I don't know about the other distros, but SuSE has at least a good portion of the LDP included, and if you install the whole help system, at least everything in HTML is indexed in a full-text search.
If you install dochost, and... well everything in the doc series, you end up with a pretty decent amount of documentation accessible and searchable from the default Apache start page. I'd be pretty surprised if the other distros don't have something comparable.
Chris
Re:Increasing the quality of program documentation (Score:1)
Personally I would rather them *not* spend the time trying to write documentation at the level that end-users will all (or even mostly) be able to understand. That would mean longer waits between upgrades, patches and more good programs. However I do think *someone* has to do it. Maybe they could take on interns...people who they could give notes to who could cobble together some human-readable docs for the rest of the world. Frankly I'm amazed that none of all the newfound Linux-IPO money hasn't been doing this yet (maybe they are, but I haven't read about it on
mcrandello@my-deja.com
rschaar{at}pegasus.cc.ucf.edu if it's important.
Re:Big and thick. (Score:1)
Am I the only one that falls into that category?
No.
Excessive documentation turns me on.
While I wouldn't go that far, I will say that I love curling up with a book and just reading. I'll absorb info over time, and at the very least get a feel for where I can find the info I need the next time I'm sitting down at the computer.
Also, as others point out, electronic documentation isn't very helpful when my problem revolves around the computer not operating.
Jay (=
Re:MSDN for Linux (Score:4)
That's not really true, is it. MSDN and technet are pretty good. It's depressing the number of times you search for a problem on the net and find 50 pointers to different archives of the same mailing list, all of which reveal someone with exactly the same problem as you - someone who got no response from the mailing list beyond a couple of 'me too' followups.
More to the point, MSDN/Technet is simply more convenient. There's alot to be said for putting some of that stuff on CD-Rom and giving it a real search engine. Imagine something like all the documentation of every app in a standard Linux distribution on CD-Rom. With a proper search engine. Properly searchable Man pages would be a start, but then add to that the contents of every user-foo and admin-foo and devel-foo mailing list archive for each application. Then add to that all the documentation branches of the applications' respective home pages. Then add all the howto's and the rest.
Then update the CD-set quarterly or bi-monthly. Sounds like a useful thing to me.
If I had to choose MSDN style or Internet style, I'd probably go for Internet - but both together would be much nicer than either on it's own. Sitting around saying "No Linux documentation? Just search the ***ing net man" is actually not too helpful.
So, gratz to the LDP, but if anyone's looking for business plan I'd go for a Linux Technet CD-Rom set. Errr, only I use Solaris at work. But otherwise I would
Re:Slashdotted already.... (Score:1)
As in Please use a mirror?
Jeroen Nijhof
Re:One suggestion was unfortunately ingnored... (Score:1)
We do need more authors.
Then please make it easier for authors to contribute. Setting up the whole SGML tool-chain is a major desaster. Having to write in SGML is a desaster, too.
You will not attract a huge bunch of professional technical writers if you don't lower the bar. "All" you will get are the programmers who are just a little bit tired of coding and who relax by glueing together some documentation.
Amen. And it doen't have to be the "professional technical writers" that get scared away. People like myself, who get frustrated with the lack of documentation (or are unable to figure out where to find it) that exists for whatever problem I'm having, who plan to take notes as I bang some of this stuff out and work it into a least a mini-HOWTO, will not feel like learning SGML just to make their contributions "worthwhile".
Jay (=
Re:One suggestion was unfortunately ingnored... (Score:2)
(apologies if i'm missing something basic and fundamental - it's been a long day)
Re:MSDN for Linux (Score:2)
i'd like to see an iso image of the ldp, and all it contains, have it be searchable, indexed, and running locally on a live webhost, etc.
one completely exellent tool that i've used for years which does this, but for IRIX, is the IRIX developer's toolbox. there's an online mechanism, and a mirror which you can get cds of, and use offline. excellent tool for IRIX devrs (and lots of code for stuff like opengl too). check out:
http://toolbox.sgi.com [sgi.com]
i'm curious if other slashdotters who work offline would find a tool like this (say ldp on a cd) useful.
it's about time (Score:1)
and as for the quality of the documents, well, i've written a few that i should submit, but honestly, i doubt i will. in general there has got to be something of a standard for document quality. too many of the HOW-TO's are so poorly written.. blech.
thanks for the site changes, and thanks for being less exclusive about the document formatting.
Re:Semi Broken "Plain Text" (Score:2)
Re:Software level & Doc level (Score:1)
Upgrading major components is one of the biggest problems in working with linux. I just love spending hours of my time resolving package dependencies to the point of frustration (note the sarcasm here). The documentation is of *some* help but there isn't enough in the major-component-upgrade area.
What would be nice is an upgrade utility that sits on top of the package manager that can take care of the upgrade dependencies for the user. And if it can go out on the internet to grab these new files it would save people a lot of time. Sorry, off topic.
A list of 'what IS NOT available' might spur people to write the documentation on it more than empty holes. The empty holes suggest that the documentation will be filled in later by the same person who did the documentation. What we really need is a list of items that need documentation submission by the community so that the 'holes' can be filled in.
Limit redundancy? (Score:4)
When I run RedHat 6.1, I truly and honestly don't give a rats ass about how things are done with Linux Kernel 1.7.009 or Debian/Suse/Slackware or whatnot. I don't know how many times I've gone through a document only to find that nothing (or little) within it applies to my problem.
The ultimate functionality enhancer for Linux documentation, would be an interface where you specify whatever hardware/software setup that applies to you, and then get documentation specifically for that purpose.
However, this may be a point more suited for attention from the distributors. RedHat indiscriminatorily doles out a ton of HowTo's that for a large part do little but waste its customer's time, and if someone starts doing this better, I'll switch in a New York minute. The product from the distros should be facilitation of setup and maintenance, not randomly collected material of little relevance...
Oh, and by the way, adding a "Troubleshooting"-section to the howto's would be a blessing for newbies...
Documentation Forum. (Score:3)
It would be nice if LDP followed something similar to Slashdot or Freshmeat whereupon people could comment or ask questions if they run into trouble. The authors can't update the docs all the time. If we could communicate the trials and tribulations while working with a package, it could provide valuable feedback to the document writer and the developers.
Also if you have a chapter to contribute or propose, post it and wait for it to be integrated or ignored.
Putting up a two-year-old dead document may not be very useful, nor are you going to have experts on the topic critiquing the work. On the other hand, if somebody posts, "Hey, the feature described in section 3.2 has been changed!", or "see CERT advisory 2000-09-12.3!" it is better that it be found in a dedicated forum than through hours of probing on IRC or searching through Usenet.
I thought I posted this idea to the original suggestions...
Re:One suggestion was unfortunately ingnored... (Score:1)
However, allowing authors to submit documentation in any format they see fit is a non-starter. You need some level of consistency in order to manage the volume of documents -- try handling a mish-mash of Word, SGML, HTML and plain-text files!
I think more effort is needed on the tools to make them work better. There's nothing wrong with SGML (I only claim to know enough to write a HOWTO and no more), and anyone that's technically competent enough to document Linux is up to the job of learning it.
And finally, I don't think we need 'professional writers' as such. The current policy of accepting text in 'readable' English seems fine to me, although a little more editing probably wouldn't go amiss.
PDFs are broken (Score:2)
sgml2latex --output=tex index.sgml
sed -e '/\\usepackage{t1enc}/d' \
-e '/\\usepackage{babel}/d' \
-e '/\\usepackage[latin1]/d' \
-e 's/\\usepackage{null}/\\usepackage{null}\\usepack
index.tex > index2.tex
mv index2.tex index.tex
pdflatex index.tex
This seems to generate good PDF files ( at least with my HOWTO, it does )
Re:LDP runs on Solaris? (Score:1)
[74]~> telnet www.linuxdoc.org 80
.
.
.
Trying 152.19.254.81...
Connected to www.linuxdoc.org.
Escape character is '^]'.
GET / HTTP/1.0
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2000 18:56:34 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.4 (Unix) PHP/3.0.6 mod_perl/1.17
Last-Modified: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 16:09:58 GMT
ETag: "51-226d-389856d6"
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: 8813
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html
--
Making iDirt 1.82 a safer place, one bug at a time.
Not as sexy? (Score:3)
Hmmph. Software that is crap because of lack of adequate documentation is not very sexy at all. Said users, if they want to use sexy software, better learn to see the beauty of good documentation. It's not first and foremost for the users (*learn to program first!*), it's for the hackers that make Linux the sexy system it is today. Of course, it sure doesn't hurt users to be able to find out how there systems work when they want to, in as much detail as they want to.
I thank everyone involved in LCP profusely, but I'm not getting involved - I'll respectfully keep hacking on my own project, and I promise to write proper draft documentation for it when it's done.
Suggestion: Matchmaker section (Score:1)
So how about adding a "Coder seeks Writer" / "Writer seeks Coder" section? Match us up. We can email each other with suggestions and drafts and questions, and hopefully get stuff much better documented.
Why categorization by filetype? (Score:2)
Remember that those O'Reilly books have considerable structure in common; they are all of similar form factors, which means that you can readily drop them onto a single shelf and expect them to fit nicely. If they had varying shapes, sizes, and bindings, this wouldn't work out nearly so well, as they'd need to (for instance) come up with a customized kind of book binding for each book.
If your docs are written using LaTeX, they have no way of automatically integrating it into a single comprehensive document.
If your docs are written using whichever DTD they favor today, it is a relatively straightforward task to integrate this together.
Thus, there are actually two classes of documents:
Re:One suggestion was unfortunately ingnored... (Score:2)
What the hell is a "desaster" ? Anyway, writing in LinuxDoc isn't very hard. Anyone who's written in HTML before can pick it up in minutes. ( "writing in SGML" doesn't make much sense. One writes to an SGML DTD like LinuxDoc, HTML, or Docbook ) For those who can't handle the simple task of learning a simple DTD, there's Lyx ( it'd be good if they'd point to Lyx as an authoring tool )
I am curious as to what format you'd propose over LinuxDoc or Docbook. The requirements are that it should be convertable into several formats, and it should have some logical structure ( so that you can convert it ).
You will not attract a huge bunch of professional technical writers if you don't lower the bar.
I don't like the idea of making the bar too low. I wouldn't want someone who is unwilling to spend a few minutes reading the HOWTO-HOWTO as a HOWTO maintainer ( you know, HOWTOs are not write-only )
Re:Increasing the quality of program documentation (Score:1)
Maybe they could take on interns...people who they could give notes to who could cobble together some human-readable docs for the rest of the world.
As long as that attitude toward documentation prevails among Linux users and Linux programmers, the quality of the documentation won't improve much.
Really, think about what you're saying here. You suggest getting "interns" to "cobble together" something. How would you feel about taking any other kind of skilled work and recommending that you just get a few cheap interns to slap something together? Do you think the people who are skilled at that work would appreciate that? Do you think they'd be eager to use their skills for the benefit of a community that derogates those skills?
(And don't think programmers can do it, either. The programmer is obviously one of the best sources of information about how the program works, and most programmers can write reasonably well...but most don't know much about indexing or data chunking or the distinctions between task-based and conceptual documentation. Reasonable, since it's not their field or area of interest. But it means the best documentation doesn't usually come from the programmer, even if the programmer can write well and decides to take the time to do documentation. Neither of which is a sure shot. And of course there's the problem that the programmer's viewpoint is hopelessly "contaminated" when it comes to seeing the program through a new user's eyes.)
ESR talks a lot about the reward of prestige. If you want to see why some areas of Linux development excel while others lag behind, look at the prestige given to working in those areas. Are technical writers given deference for their skills? Can anyone here even imagine anyone getting remotely the respect for writing and organizing documentation that you do for writing a device driver? (Can anyone here imagine someone whose contribution was writing kick-ass, open source user documentation getting stock options in an IPO for that contribution?)
Before the state of documentation changes much, I think the attitude will have to change. When excellent writers who can untangle complicated procedures are rewarded with prestige to match their contribution then we'll see consistently improved documentation.
(And don't even get me started about the parallels to user interface design. At least you don't hear people saying they don't want to "lower" Linux by having it well-documented.)
Suggestion... (Score:2)
Guides - longer, more in depth books
HOWTOS - subject-specific help
FAQs - Frequently Asked Questions
man pages - Help on individual commands
Linux Gazette - on-line magazine
Gerv
Re:Why no easy solution RE:Software level & Doc le (Score:2)
Wrong, buddy. Upgrading glibc is plain difficult, because it requires upgrading everything that links to it which is basically every dynamically linked program on your system. The only sensible way to "upgrade" is leave your old libc there and run a hybrid install, but this is difficult, and has a lot of technical difficulties, none of which are Redhat's fault.
If RatHead would make it easy, there would be an RPM to upgrade your libc.
THere is. It's called glibc. The problem is that you also need to upgrade every single application at the same time to a version that is built against the new upgraded glibc.
If you compile all the applications in a distribution in a way that they need the libc at runtime, you would have to recompile every app you use.
Exactly.
and YES, it IS the best way to handle programs, but it's also the best way to force someone to reinstall everything again (read: BUY AGAIN).
Get a grip, buddy. Linux is free ! And CDs are available for next to nothing. Hell, you can probably get someone in your Linux users group to burn you one. My group are always giving out CDs.
SOLUTION: Let the customer who buys a distribution decide whether to trade upgradabiltiy (nice word, hey?) for small apps, with better, overall performance (unless RAM is not an issue and your CPU is fast enough). Let him have the choice to have bigger programs (not dynamically linked) and the chance to upgrade the ESSENTIAL libc. I don't see this happen in my lifetime.
There is little demand for apps statically linked to libc , because most users don't want to load one copy of libc for each process on their system. I have 55 processes running right now. My libc is 4MB. Do the math -- most users don't have this much RAM to burn.
Re:Why categorization by filetype? (Score:1)
LetterJ
Re:MSDN for Linux (Score:2)
But would you work on producing it? That's what has brought us this far, and judging from commercial efforts, it's the only thing that will take us further.
But, on a more immediate subject, do you know know about the -K (that's a capital) switch for man? See man(1) (type 'man man') for more information. Of course, it won't help much with GNU projects, but...
(Yes, i should quote from man(1) but i want people to actually look at it.)
cheers,
sklein
Re:Big and thick. (Score:2)
-cpd
Re:MSDN for Linux (Score:2)
As for the keyword search your describing, oh yeah, I know of it, I live and swear by and at it sometimes.
Re:One suggestion was unfortunately ingnored... (Score:2)
BTW, they are not "crying" for authors, and they are not so desperate for authors that they are willing to accomodate to laziness. As much as making it easy is good, you have to understand that HOWTOs don't write themselves, it does actually involve some effort on the part of the author. I'll say it again, the technical skills requirements for writing HOWTOs are minimal. The real work is in writing the content.
And you didn't answer my question -- what format do you propose as an alternative to Linuxdoc ?
Slashdotted already.... (Score:3)
Sgt Pepper
Lame Sig Shamelessly Ripped from
Fortune:
I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.
-- Jay Gould
Sign UP (Score:5)
The Linux Documentation Project [linuxdoc.org] will need all the help it can get; this at the moment can only be an uphill struggle. Linux software development is undoubtedly at its most prolific it has ever been so as soon as something is documented; it will have been revised (something that LDP have taken note of)
It seems therefore that the only way to win this is to increase the manpower available and signup to help...
I emplore
Linuxdoc.org [cmdrtaco.net] has already proved invaluble to me so I will be doing whatever I can.....
MSDN for Linux (Score:3)
Re:Categorization by filetype? (Score:3)
Documents written in HTML will remain in HTML. Documents written in TeX will convert to text and postscript, but not info format (modulo the use of texinfo macros, of course).
LinuxDoc and DocBook can be a real pain, but these formats are designed to be sufficiently abstract that the documents can be converted to any reasonable format. That means it's far more likely that a HOWTO will be maintained for the indefinite future, while a GUIDE may be dropped once the author moves to a new format himself.
Nice centralized site (Score:1)
Good job!
Re:MSDN for Linux (Score:3)
Linux is an Internet OS. All the info is on the net. If you know how to ask google you will get the answer immediately because google indexes an insane number of copies of the lkm, linux-net, etc archives. The relevant results will come up immediately because it will have a very high relevance coefficient.
This is light years ahead of MSDN. In terms of both technology and speed at which you obtain results.
Vote. (Score:3)
--
Big and thick. (Score:1)
Am I the only one that falls into that category?
Excessive documentation turns me on.
Re:MSDN for Linux (Score:2)
I can barley imagine the ordeal it would take to organize something like that for Linux, however some days I'd kill for one. If there was a set I'd be willing to pay a pretty penny for it.
Semi Broken "Plain Text" (Score:3)
What you don't see there in Netscape are the character control codes that only work on terminals.
Re:MSDN for Linux (Score:1)
One suggestion was unfortunately ingnored... (Score:3)
We do need more authors.
Then please make it easier for authors to contribute. Setting up the whole SGML tool-chain is a major desaster. Having to write in SGML is a desaster, too.
You will not attract a huge bunch of professional technical writers if you don't lower the bar. "All" you will get are the programmers who are just a little bit tired of coding and who relax by glueing together some documentation.
According to nmap, its Solaris (Score:1)
Starting nmap V. 2.3BETA14 by fyodor@insecure.org ( www.insecure.org/nmap/ )
(..snip, snip
Remote OS guesses: Solaris 2.6 - 2.7, Solaris 7
My humble suggestions for LDP web site (Score:3)
Second, I have a humble suggestion: the front page of the site should be written with the newbie Linux user in mind. Think in terms of a brand new Linux users who is trying to figure out how to format a floopy disk, transfer files from his Windows drive, or read files from a CDROM. As soon as Joe Newbie hits the front page he should know where to go next. Unfortunately the current page design the most useful links are crammed up in the top left corner of the page, and the prime realestate is being used for the News column on the front page, which is basically the webmasters journal, although interesting, should not be the fropnt page of the site -- save that for the What's New page.
So I would humbly suggest the front page be a Yahoo-like category index of the various kinds of documentation on the site -- put the table of contents on the front page in plain view.
Other notes on DocBook (Score:3)
Re:Suggestion... (Score:1)
The only problem with that is that the LDP hasn't decided exactly what each type actually is. According to the article, the difference between a Guide and a HOWTO isn't what's in them, it's the file format.
LetterJ
LDP runs on Solaris? (Score:1)
Categorization by filetype? (Score:4)
a. you can write in LinuxDoc : call your document an HOWTO b. you can write in DocBook : call your document a DOCBOOK
Why are the documents being titled according to filetype first, and contents second. That's like Yahoo categorizing sites by whether they use PHP or Perl, and not by what the site is about.
Yes, I realize that they are still considering content, however, the quoted statement indicates that the title category is decided by the file format. "I'm looking for a HOWTO on ???. What? I need the GUIDE instead? There's no HOWTO because the expert doesn't use the right file format?" Good documentation relies on consistency. I thought that was one of the main points for the LDP: you can go there to get all of your questions answered. Companies like O'Reilly have it figured out. All of their "???? in a Nutshell" books are fairly similar in style and content. You can intuit from the title category what type of book it is. You ought to be able to do the same with LDP documents.
I'm sure someone will ask why I don't have any HOWTO's in the LDP.
LetterJ
Re:Categorization by filetype? (Score:2)
In all of the good tech writing projects I've been on, content structure and how to group and title the information was more important than the tool. The tool/file format WAS a consideration, but after the content questions were asked and answered. Then the issues of extensibility, maintainability etc. were addressed with the ultimate tool choice coming from those issues.
Basically, I'd rather know that there will be an Introduction in all text files, HTML, PDF, etc. than know that with Ghostscript, I'll be able to read everything. My goal is finding information.
Basically, I feel that regardless of file format, a HOWTO should be a HOWTO. True, if they are all in the abstracted universal file format, they can be converted to all of the other formats and will be more maintainable, but if it isn't in those formats, it's still a HOWTO.
LetterJ
Re:One suggestion was unfortunately ingnored... (Score:3)
On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that they'll take "Mini-Howtos" written in HTML. So maybe I should've just called my stuff a "mini" and sent it in? Yeah, here's the policy from the HOWTO-HOWTO [linuxdoc.org]:
It could be that this is the key development that will "lower the bar": Also from the HOWTO-HOWTO [linuxdoc.org]:
Here's the place to look for Lyx: http://www.lyx.org/ [lyx.org]