Re: Debian User's Manual
On Thu, 25 Jun 1998, Adam P. Harris wrote:
>
> Maybe I'm short-sighted or "futzing" by personally prioritizing a
> consistent document heirarchy (basically done) and a metadata standard
> (close to done), although I personally think it's important.
>
> Not to mention that Igor and I have quietly and without much ado been
> editing and working on the Installing Debian 2.0/x86 documentation. I
> lost a good deal of sleep earlier this week working on it, making it
> more consistent and readable, adding laptop installation instructions.
> Anyone hoping to contribute there should contact <igor@igoria.net> or
> just send patches off <URL:http://www.igoria.net/install/install.sgml>.
>
Slow down, I'm not trying to disparage your efforts, and the install
document is certainly the major piece of documentation that has been
written and it's quite good. I just have a feeling that every time writing
comes up, it gets sidetracked into a technical or organizational issue. I
probably read too much into it when you said my post on the current status
of the tutorial, how to contribute, etc. was not the main thing, when I
felt the email I was responding to was primarily about that. I should be
more careful about posting my frustrations to the list.
Apologies. Please, let's not have a flame war.
> > Anyway, let's not get into a silly argument. Clearly both a doc
> > coordinator and doc writing are needed. But please, no one wait for
> > those web pages to get updated before writing docs.
>
> No, but people are more likely to contribute if they see a larger
> vision. And if they see that their work is getting incorporated into
> the document. I hope you've been able to track down the contributions
> of others and patch those in, as Oliver and others mentioned.
>
I've incorporated all contributions that I've received, I think, though
it's been a while and I may have screwed something up.
> I guess the lesson, here, Robert, is that you're not going to win
> points with or other developers by disparaging their efforts. We're
> all volunteers here.
>
I'm not trying to disparage anything. Please give me the benefit of the
doubt. I just don't want to see yet another giant planning session with
no documents resulting. There have been a number of these on the list
since I joined it.
> By the bye, you haven't seen me contributing to the tutorial because I
> think it's much too ambitious. I would rather see a guideline for
> experienced FSF/Linux users getting to know Debian, and how it might
> differ from what they expect. I guess I see a general Unix intro,
> including permissions, the shell, X11, TeX (!), lpr, etc etc., as just
> too large of a project. I'd rather see a guide (or is there one
> already?) explaining the Debian way:
> * don't install stuff in /usr
> * how and when to use dpkg, apt, dselect, dftp
> * checking bugs on the BTS
> * ...
>
This would also be a useful guide, yes. The tutorial is not really that
ambitious though IMO. Unix isn't all that hard or complex, from a user
standpoint. Also, the outline is a sort of ideal situation; writing only
half of it would be very useful still. With the help of Larry Greenfield's
LDP manual, we already have a solid start.
> I wish you the best of luck, however. Please don't get frustrated or
> angry that different people have different priorities and goals. You
> have to have a thick skin and a bit of pigheadedness to be a debian
> developer.
>
I know. I've been on the lists for a long time. But everyone has bad days.
Please bear with me.
> Oh, one last thing. How does the Tutorial relate to the Debian User Manual
> (http://fatman.mathematik.tu-muenchen.de/~schwarz/debian-doc/manuals.html#users)?
> It seems that there's a *lot* of overlap?
>
If I remember the discussion correctly, the User Manual has been split
into several parts:
- The Install Guide covers installation and configuration of packages;
sort of install.txt + setting up ppp, mail, etc. There is some overlap
with lots of HOWTOs, so this may just be pointers to them and
Debian-specific information.
- The Tutorial is a GNU/Linux intro for newbies; its main virtue over
existing books is freeness and Debian-specificity, so all the examples
work without modification.
- The Reference Manual is less newbie, less tutorial-formatted; perhaps
this is the document you describe above.
- A system adminstration guide? I don't remember. This could maybe be the
same as the reference manual.
So the User Manual per se no longer even exists. That web page is very far
out of date.
Havoc
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