Re: proofreading the installation-guide
Hendrik Boom wrote:
> Justin B Rye wrote:
>> * &entity questions - when am I meant to say "Debian" and when is it
>> "&debian;"? This like many of these entities seems to have no
>> obvious function other than to make the source harder to
>> interpret...
>> * The &d-i; entity expands to "debian-installer" in bold verbatim
>> lowercase. If that is in effect the brandname of the software
>> project then presumably we shouldn't be talking about "the
>> &d-i;" - that ought to be "the Debian installer".
>
> Presumably both of these parametrisations are for the convenience of
> Debian derivatives and forks. By making these macros, it's easier for
> the, and it'll be easier for us to merge downstream patches.
An interesting idea, but one that seems unlikely to work, especially
given the way it's used in the text. For instance, there's a page
"welcome/what-is-debian-linux.xml", which is full of sentences like
"&debian; was the first Linux distribution to include a package
management system".
And I can't see any particular pattern in when it's "Debian
installer", when it's "&debian; installer", and when it's "&d-i;".
The "&debian-gnu;" entity is effectively just shorthand for "Debian
GNU/&arch-kernel;" - confusing but handy. The "&architecture;",
"&arch-title;" and "&arch-kernel;" entities are slightly oddly named
but make sense as parametrisations, as do "&release;" and
"&releasename;" as long as they're used for things that stay true for
every release. (Oh, and I've just noticed there's a
"&releasename-cap;", used instead of plain "&releasename;" for no
obvious reason in "hardware/supported/arm.xml" and nowhere else.)
But there are also special entities for "&enterkey;", "&escapekey;",
"&tabkey;", "&f10key;", and even "&ekey;"! Most of these are only
used once each - the rest of the time (and always for keys like "F2"
or "space") it just uses "<keycap>...</keycap>".
--
JBR with qualifications in linguistics, experience as a Debian
sysadmin, and probably no clue about this particular package
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