Re: debian-faq: Patch3 to update outdated information
Holger Wansing wrote:
>>> Removing some of that questions would be good indeed.
>>
>> Or indeed adding new ones. Newcomers probably have questions these
>> days about things the FAQ is too old to know anything about, like
>> systemd, or wifi firmware, or multiarch, or even Ubuntu.
>
> Yes, but a complete new creation of texts is ATM not the primary scope of
> this review.
You're right; if I've got the energy to try to write some I could
submit them as wishlist patches.
>>>> I think /dev/dsp is a relic from the days before ALSA; these days it's
>>>> /dev/snd/*, and the access rights are increasingly handled via ACLs
>>>> managed by logind.
>>>
>>> Yes, /dev/dsp is not existing on my Jessie system.
>>> So we could use "/dev/sda" instead, as owned by group "disk".
>>
>> Yes, that example still works, but it would be unusual to add a user
>> to that group... is "cdrom" still useful, perhaps?
>
> "/dev/sr0 belongs to cdrom group" is already included in that paragraph.
Oh, yes, sorry, I was looking at the old sources.
>>> That should be rephrased then, to document the new behaviour.
>>> Has someone with the relevant knowledge a small proposal for this?
>>> (I'm lacking knowledge here, sorry.)
>>
>> The trouble is, systemd has essentially deprecated all the advice
>> given in this section. Mind you, I don't really understand why the
>> FAQ was explaining it, since it's in no way specific to Debian or even
>> Linux.
>
> So maybe completely drop that question...
It's approaching obsolescence, but at least the "adduser" invocation
is Debian-specific.
>> The questions seem to me to be, very roughly:
>>
>> Q) How do I install Debian?
>> A) Easy: get an appropriate form of Debian-Installer image, put it on
>> a CD or USB thumbdrive, and boot off that to start the install
>> process.
>>
>> Q) What do you mean by "appropriate"?
>> A) That's where it gets complicated. See https://get.debian.org!
^
(Oops! I mean http://, though the page it redirects to is https://)
> This page starts with something like "information about installing
> Debian can be found in the Debian installation guide".
> So we could assume, that information available in the above guide
> is not needed here. Or something like that.
>
> Moreover, I fear that we have to refuse most of the old content in the
> Debian FAQ, if we aim to set standards at a too high level ...
Yes, okay. As long as we get rid of the floppy disk references, that
should be enough of an improvement for now. But I would suggest a
couple of tweaks to the section headers:
-<sect id="boot-floppies">Where/how can I get the Debian installation disks?
+<sect id="inst-disks">Where/how can I get the Debian installation disks?
(A "boot disk" is one that just has something like grub on it)
-<sect id="cdrom">How do I install the Debian from CD-ROMs?
+<sect id="cdrom">How do I install Debian from CD-ROMs?
(Grammar fix.)
>>>>> Index: uptodate.sgml
[...]
>> There are still a few "advanced" uses that require the old utilities
>> (apt-get source, apt-cache madison), but in general, yes. This may
>> require some rephrasing to keep it clear whether we mean apt the
>> binary, apt the package, or apt the holy^W infrastructure.
>
> So, the "apt" binary is just a wrapper, which calls the "original"
> commands like "apt-get install foo"?
It's a separate binary that makes use of the same libapt functions,
just with slightly fine-tuned configuration defaults. But the effect
is very like having some sort of wrapper around apt-get/apt-cache.
> Yes, that makes sense.
> But makes it more difficult to clearly document it ... as you said above
> (apt the binary, apt the package, apt the whole infrastructure).
In the long term installing "apt" to get the command "apt" is simpler,
but it'll take a while for the old docs to stop confusing people!
--
JBR with qualifications in linguistics, experience as a Debian
sysadmin, and probably no clue about this particular package
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