Re: Debian User Manual
On Tue, 12 May 1998, Oliver Elphick wrote:
> What's happening with the manuals?
>
> I contributed a section on basic commands some months back and Havoc
> Pennington did a section on the file system. But as far as I can tell,
> these haven't actually been put up on the web site, and we still have
> plaintive messages from new users to debian-user saying (rightly) that
> there's no documentation.
>
> Have other sections been written or should I start to look at any/all
> of the rest?
>
> Please put up what has already been written; if it's rubbish we can
> always replace it, but no-one has a chance to judge, if it's not
> published.
>
It's all on my web page, http://pobox.com/~hp. It is also in CVS at
happy.digitaldune.net because no one with the proper access ever put it on
a Debian machine; it's not on the Debian Doc Project web site for much the
same reason. I've posted my URL here twice in the past to try to
compensate. The document has my files stuff, I believe it still has your
basic commands stuff, it has lots of chunks from the LDP User's Manual,
and it has a few new sections I wrote.
Currently there are 4 or 5 people with CVS access, but last I checked
nothing had been written in about a month. There is quite a lot done,
however, so certainly if someone wants to write they should start from
what we have.
The Tutorial is also limited in scope, because supposedly a Reference
Manual and Install Guide were going to be written. There is an install.txt
document, but that's not the Install Guide that was proposed (the proposal
was going to cover configuring all the major packages). There's no sign of
a Reference Manual to my knowledge. If these are being written (and I
don't think they are, yet), they need to be in the same CVS with the
tutorial to avoid duplicate effort, or at least mailing list traffic needs
to go up to keep in sync.
IMO this should all be one big document, it should go in Debian CVS, and
all the different authors should colloborate on it. Then it might get
done. The grandiose schemes with a zillion different manuals probably
won't. We might make a big push for volunteers when Debian 2.0 is finally
released.
I've been working on GNOME instead in my limited time, basically because
it's a more fun way to help novice users, largely because there's an
active community working on it. However, if a group of people want to
actually do anything with the tutorial then I'd be willing to go back to
it.
Two other ideas: 1) I think it should be packaged, made available for
download, and recommended on debian-user; no better way to raise its
profile and get it written than to publicize it and have people actually
using what we have so far and providing feedback. 2) The latest GNU
Bulletin says someone else is working on a document like this; he should
be emailed.
Anyway, aren't you glad you asked? That's what's happening, from my
perspective. If someone wants to do the CVS thing (or give me the
necessary account), or package the tutorial up, please do so. I'm in a
time crunch for the next couple of weeks, but I can help a little and
after that if there's interest I can put in some hours and get this thing
done. It really isn't that hard; I'd say a chapter is a couple of good
solid nights' work, if you know the material.
Havoc
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