Re: Last part of the proposed changes to debian-faq
Hi,
I have committed the proposed changes, thanks to Beatrice and Justin.
Additionally, I made one more change, to reflect the General Resolution
to welcome non-packaging contributors (https://www.debian.org/vote/2010/vote_002):
- <sect id="contrib">How can I become a Debian developer?
+ <sect id="contrib">How can I become a Debian member/Debian developer?
<p>The development of Debian is open to all, and new users with the right
skills and/or the willingness to learn are needed to maintain existing
packages which have been "orphaned" by their previous maintainers, to
develop new packages, to write documentation, to do translation work, to
help with the Debian website, to provide user support, etc.
- <p>The description of becoming a Debian developer can be found at the
+ <p>The description of becoming a Debian member can be found at the
<url name="New Member's Corner" id="http://www.debian.org/devel/join/newmaint";>
at the Debian web site.
A complete patch of my commit is attached.
Holger
--
============================================================
Created with Sylpheed 3.5.0 under
D E B I A N L I N U X 8 . 0 " J E S S I E " .
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============================================================
Index: basic_defs.sgml
===================================================================
--- basic_defs.sgml (Revision 11248)
+++ basic_defs.sgml (Arbeitskopie)
@@ -120,8 +120,8 @@
information about the GNU/Hurd in general, and <url id="http://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/";>
for more information about Debian GNU/Hurd.
-<p>A second effort is the port to a BSD kernel. People are working with both
-the NetBSD and the FreeBSD kernels.
+<p>A second effort is the port to a BSD kernel. People are working with
+the FreeBSD kernel.
<p>See <url id="http://www.debian.org/ports/#nonlinux";> for more information
about these non-linux ports.
Index: choosing.sgml
===================================================================
--- choosing.sgml (Revision 11248)
+++ choosing.sgml (Arbeitskopie)
@@ -29,7 +29,8 @@
in. You can easily switch to the more modern unstable (or testing) once you are a little
more confident.</p>
-<item><p>If you are a desktop user with a lot of experience in the operating system and does not mind
+<item><p>If you are a desktop user with a lot of experience in the
+operating system and do not mind
facing the odd bug now and then, or even full system breakage, use unstable. It has all the latest and
greatest software, and bugs are usually fixed swiftly.</p>
@@ -62,9 +63,9 @@
even without subscribing. The archives can be read
through <url id="http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/";>. Information regarding
subscribing to the list can be found at the location of archives. You are
-strongly encouraged to post your questions on the mailing-list than on <url
+strongly encouraged to post your questions on the mailing-list rather than on <url
id="http://www.debian.org/support"; name="irc">. The mailing-list messages are
-archived, so solution to your problem can
+archived, so the solution to your problem can
help others with the same issue. </p>
<sect1>Will there be different versions of packages in different distributions?
@@ -89,7 +90,7 @@
servers which have to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.</p>
<p>On the other hand, packages in testing or unstable can have hidden bugs,
-security holes etc., Moreover, some packages in testing and unstable might not
+security holes etc. Moreover, some packages in testing and unstable might not
be working as intended. Usually people working on a single desktop prefer
having the latest and most modern set of packages. Unstable is the solution for
this group of people.</p>
@@ -109,13 +110,13 @@
time and if you are real careful and if you know what you are doing,
then it might be possible to go from unstable to testing and then to
stable. The installer scripts are not designed to do that. So in the
-process, your configuration files might be lost and....
+process, your configuration files might be lost and...
<sect1>Could you tell me whether to install stable, testing or unstable?
-<p>No, this is a rather subjective issue. There is no perfect answer
-as it depends on the software needed, the users' needs
-and the experience of its system administrator. Here are some tips:
+<p>No. This is a rather subjective issue. There is no perfect answer
+as it depends on your software needs, your willingness to deal with possible
+breakage, and your experience in system administration. Here are some tips:
</p>
<p><list>
@@ -160,14 +161,14 @@
<p>The bug fixes and improvements introduced in the unstable distribution
trickle down to testing after a certain number of days. Let's say this
-threshold is 10 days. The packages in unstable go into testing only when there
+threshold is 5 days. The packages in unstable go into testing only when there
are no RC-bugs reported against them. If there is a RC-bug filed against a
-package in unstable, it will not go into testing after the 10 days.</p>
+package in unstable, it will not go into testing after the 5 days.</p>
<p>The idea is that, if the package has any problems, it would be discovered by
people using unstable and will be fixed before it enters testing. This keeps
-the testing in an usable state for most period of the time. Overall a
-brilliant concept, if you ask me. But things are always not so simple. Consider
+testing in a usable state for most of the time. Overall a
+brilliant concept, if you ask me. But things aren't always that simple. Consider
the following situation:</p>
<p><list>
@@ -175,9 +176,9 @@
<item>Imagine you are interested in package XYZ.
<item>Let's assume that on June
10, the version in testing is XYZ-3.6 and in unstable it is XYZ-3.7.
- <item>After 10 days, XYZ-3.7 from unstable migrates into
+ <item>After 5 days, XYZ-3.7 from unstable migrates into
testing.
- <item>So on June 20, both testing and unstable have
+ <item>So on June 15, both testing and unstable have
XYZ-3.7 in their repositories.
<item>Let's say, the user of testing distribution sees
that a new XYZ package is available and updates his XYZ-3.6 to XYZ-3.7.
@@ -190,35 +191,35 @@
number 5 should not be taken literally. It could be less or more,
depending upon the severity of the RC-bug at hand.
<item>This new version in unstable, XYZ-3.8 is scheduled
-to enter testing on July 10th.
- <item>But on July 5th some other
+to enter testing on July 5th.
+ <item>But on July 3rd some other
person discovers another RC-bug in XYZ-3.8.
<item>Let's say the maintainer of XYZ fixes this new
RC-bug and uploads new version of XYZ after 5 days.
- <item>So on July 10, testing has XYZ-3.7 while unstable
+ <item>So on July 8th, testing has XYZ-3.7 while unstable
has XYZ-3.9.
<item>This new version XYZ-3.9 is now rescheduled to
-enter testing on July 20th.
+enter testing on July 13th.
<item>Now since you are running
testing, and since XYZ-3.7 is buggy, you could probably use XYZ only
-after July 20th. That is you essentially ended up with a broken XYZ for
+after July 13th. That is you essentially ended up with a broken XYZ for
about one month.
</list>
<p>The situation can get much more complicated, if say, XYZ depends on 4 other
-packages. This could in turn lead to unusable testing distribution for months.
-The above scenario which is artificially created by me, can occur in the real
-life. But such occurrences are rare.
+packages. This could in turn lead to an unusable testing distribution for months.
+While the scenario above is immaginary, similar things can occur in real
+life, though they are rare.
<sect1>From an administrator's point of view, which distribution
requires more attention?
-<p>One of the main reasons many people chose Debian over other Linux distributions is
+<p>One of the main reasons why many people choose Debian over other Linux distributions is
that it requires very little administration. People want a system that just works.
-In general one can say, that stable requires very little maintenance, while
+In general one can say that stable requires very little maintenance, while
testing and unstable require constant maintenance from the administrator. If you are
-running stable, all you need to worry about is, keeping track of security
+running stable, all you need to worry about is keeping track of security
updates. If you are running either testing or unstable it is a good idea to be
aware of the new bugs discovered in the installed packages, new
bugfixes/features introduced
@@ -238,8 +239,8 @@
sooner or later you will face this question.
<p>The stable distribution is currently &releasename;; The next stable
-distribution will be called as &testingreleasename;. Let's consider the
-particular case as to what happens when &testingreleasename; is released as the new stable
+distribution will be called &testingreleasename;. Let's consider the
+particular case of what happens when &testingreleasename; is released as the new stable
version.</p>
<p><list>
@@ -253,7 +254,7 @@
<item>After some time testing becomes frozen. But it will still be called
testing. At this point no new packages from unstable can migrate to testing
unless they include release-critical (RC) bug fixes.
- <item>When testing is frozen, all the new bugfixes introduced, have to be
+ <item>When testing is frozen, all the new bugfixes introduced have to be
manually checked by the members of the release team. This is done to ensure
that there won't be any unknown severe problems in the frozen
testing.
@@ -261,7 +262,7 @@
greater than zero, the bugs are either marked as ignored for the release or
are deferred for a point release.
<item>The 'frozen testing' with no rc-bugs will be released as the new
- stable version. In our example, this new stable release will be called as
+ stable version. In our example, this new stable release will be called
&testingreleasename;.
<item>At this stage oldstable = &releasename;, stable = &testingreleasename;. The contents of
stable and 'frozen testing' are same at this point.
@@ -304,7 +305,7 @@
systems might run a mixture of distributions.
<sect1>I am currently tracking stable. Can I change to testing or
-unstable? If so, How?
+unstable? If so, how?
<p>If you are currently running stable, then in the <file>
/etc/apt/sources.list</file> file the third field will be either '&releasename;' or
@@ -369,9 +370,9 @@
<sect1>I am still confused. What did you say I should install?
-<p>If unsure, the best bet would be stable distribution.</p>
+<p>If unsure, the best bet would be the stable distribution.</p>
-<sect>But what about Knoppix, Linex, Ubuntu, and others?
+<sect>But what about Knoppix, Linux Mint Debian Edition, Ubuntu, and others?
<p>They are not Debian; they are <em>Debian based</em>. Though there are
many similarities and commonalities between them, there are also
@@ -383,7 +384,7 @@
distributions based on Debian"> available at the Debian website.
-<sect1>I know that Knoppix/Linex/Ubuntu/... is Debian-based. So after installing it on the hard disk, can I use 'apt' package tools on it?
+<sect1>I know that Knoppix/Linux Mint Debian Edition/Ubuntu/... is Debian-based. So after installing it on the hard disk, can I use 'apt' package tools on it?
<p>These distributions are Debian based. But they are not Debian. You will be
still able to use apt package tools by pointing the
@@ -398,10 +399,10 @@
they use the same formatting and name (.deb), does not make them immediately
compatible.
-<p>For example, Knoppix is a Linux distribution designed to be booted as a live CD where as
-Debian is designed to be installed on hard-disk. Knoppix is great if you want
-to know whether a particular hardware works, or if you want to experience how a
-linux system 'feels' etc., Knoppix is good for demonstration purposes while
+<p>For example, Knoppix is a Linux distribution designed to be booted as a live CD whereas
+Debian is designed to be installed on the hard-disk. Knoppix is great if you want
+to know whether a particular piece of hardware works, or if you want to experience how a
+GNU/Linux system 'feels' etc., Knoppix is good for demonstration purposes while
Debian is designed to run 24/7. Moreover the number of packages available, the
number of architectures supported by Debian are far more than that of
Knoppix.</p>
@@ -412,13 +413,13 @@
that you are new to both Debian and Knoppix. In that case, save yourself a lot
of trouble later and install Debian right at the beginning.</p>
-<sect1>I installed Knoppix/Linex/Ubuntu/... on my hard disk. Now I have a
+<sect1>I installed Knoppix/Linux Mint Debian Edition/Ubuntu/... on my hard disk. Now I have a
problem. What should I do?
<p>You are advised not to use the Debian forums (either mailing lists or IRC)
-for help as people might advice you thinking that you are running a Debian
-system and the "fixes" they provide might not be suited to what you are
-running. They might even worsen the problem you are facing.
+for help as people there may base their suggestions on the assumption
+that you are running a Debian system. These "fixes" might not be suited to
+what you are running, and might even make your problem worse.
<p>Use the forums of the specific distribution you are using first. If you do
not get help or the help you get does not fix your problem you might want to
@@ -425,7 +426,7 @@
try asking in Debian forums, but keep the advice of the previous paragraph in
mind.
-<sect1>I'm using Knoppix/Linex/Ubuntu/... and now I want to use Debian. How do I migrate?
+<sect1>I'm using Knoppix/LMDE/Ubuntu/... and now I want to use Debian. How do I migrate?
<p>Consider the change from a Debian-based distribution to Debian just like a
change from one operating system to another one. You should make a backup of
Index: compat.sgml
===================================================================
--- compat.sgml (Revision 11248)
+++ compat.sgml (Arbeitskopie)
@@ -47,11 +47,12 @@
</list>
<p>The development of binary distributions of Debian for
-<em/armhf/ (for ARM boards and devices with a floating-point unit),
-<em/arv32/ (for Atmel's 32-bit RISC architecture),
-<em/m32/ (for 32-bit RISC microprocessor of Renesas Technology),
-<em/s390x/ (for the 64-bit userland for IBM System z mainframes), and
-<em/sh/ (for Hitachi SuperH processors)
+<em/hurd-i386/ (for GNU Hurd kernel on i386 32-bit PCs),
+<em/mipsel64/ (for 64 bit MIPS in little-endian mode),
+<em/powerpcspe/ (port for the "Signal Processing Engine" hardware),
+<em/sparc64/ (for 64 bit SPARC processors),
+<em/sh/ (for Hitachi SuperH processors), and
+<em/x32/ (for amd64/x86_64 CPUs using 32-bit pointers)
is currently underway.
<p>Support for the <em/m68k/ architecture was dropped in the Etch (Debian 4.0) release, because
@@ -67,6 +68,12 @@
<em/arm/ was dropped too in this release, as it was superseded by
the <em/armel/ architecture.
+<!-- info from Jessie Release Notes -->
+<p>Support for the 32-bit <em/s390/ port (s390) was discontinued and replaced
+with s390x in Jessie (Debian 8). In addition, the ports to IA-64 and
+Sparc had to be removed from this release due to insufficient developer
+support.
+
<p>For more information on the available ports see the
<url id="http://www.debian.org/ports/"; name="ports pages at the website">.
@@ -77,8 +84,8 @@
<sect id="kernels">What kernels does &debian; run?
-<p>Debian provides a complete, binary distribution for the following operating
-system kernels:
+<p>Beside Linux, Debian provides a complete, binary distribution for the
+ following operating system kernels:
<list>
@@ -85,7 +92,7 @@
<item>FreeBSD: provided through the <em/kfreebsd-amd64/ and
<em/kfreebsd-i386/ ports, for 64-bit PCs and 32-bit PCs respectively. These
ports were first released in Debian 6.0 Squeeze as a <em/technology preview/.
-
+However they were not part of the Debian 8 Jessie release.
</list>
Index: contrib.sgml
===================================================================
--- contrib.sgml (Revision 11248)
+++ contrib.sgml (Arbeitskopie)
@@ -9,14 +9,15 @@
can help the project. See also
<url name="How can you help Debian?" id="&debian-help;">.
-<sect id="contrib">How can I become a Debian software developer?
+<sect id="contrib">How can I become a Debian member/Debian developer?
<p>The development of Debian is open to all, and new users with the right
skills and/or the willingness to learn are needed to maintain existing
packages which have been "orphaned" by their previous maintainers, to
-develop new packages, and to provide user support.
+develop new packages, to write documentation, to do translation work, to
+help with the Debian website, to provide user support, etc.
-<p>The description of becoming a Debian Developer can be found at the
+<p>The description of becoming a Debian member can be found at the
<url name="New Member's Corner" id="http://www.debian.org/devel/join/newmaint";>
at the Debian web site.
@@ -71,10 +72,16 @@
<p>There are a number of organizations created in different countries that hold
assets in trust for Debian. The <url id="http://www.debian.org/donations";
-name="donations page"> lists the trusted organisations individuals can donate
-to. At the time of this writing there are two of them: <url
-id="http://www.ffis.de/"; name="Verein zur Förderung Freier Informationen & Software"> (in Germany) and
-the <url id="https://france.debian.net/"; name="Debian France Association"> (in France).
-Additional affiliate organisations in other countries are listed in <url id="https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Auditor/Organizations"; name="Organizations"> page in the Debian Wiki.
+name="donations page"> lists the trusted organizations individuals can donate
+to. At the time of this writing there are three of them: <url
+id="http://www.ffis.de/"; name="Verein zur Förderung Freier Informationen &
+Software"> (in Germany),
+the <url id="https://france.debian.net/"; name="Debian France Association">
+(in France),
+and <url id="http://debian.ch/"; name="debian.ch"> (Switzerland and the
+Principality of Liechtenstein).
+Additional affiliate organizations in other countries are listed in
+<url id="https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Auditor/Organizations"; name="Organizations"> page
+in the Debian Wiki.
Index: debian-faq.sgml
===================================================================
--- debian-faq.sgml (Revision 11248)
+++ debian-faq.sgml (Arbeitskopie)
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@
<copyright>
<copyrightsummary>
- Copyright © 1996-2013 by Software in the Public Interest,
+ Copyright © 1996-2016 by Software in the Public Interest,
portions copyright © 2004, 2005, 2006 Kamaraju Kusumanchi
</copyrightsummary>
Index: ftparchives.sgml
===================================================================
--- ftparchives.sgml (Revision 11248)
+++ ftparchives.sgml (Arbeitskopie)
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@
<p>Experimental is used for packages which are still being developed, and with
a high risk of breaking your system. It's used by developers who'd like to
study and test bleeding edge software. Users shouldn't be using packages from
-here, because they can be dangerous and harmful even for the most experienced
+there, because they can be dangerous and harmful even for the most experienced
people.
<p>See <ref id="choosing"> for help when choosing a Debian distribution.
@@ -38,14 +38,15 @@
<sect1 id="oldcodenames">Which other codenames have been used in the past?
-<p>Other codenames that have been already used are: <tt>buzz</tt> for
+<p>Aside <tt>&releasename;</tt> and <tt>&testingreleasename;</tt>,
+other codenames that have been already used are: <tt>buzz</tt> for
release 1.1, <tt>rex</tt> for release 1.2, <tt>bo</tt> for releases 1.3.x,
<tt>hamm</tt> for release 2.0, <tt>slink</tt> for release 2.1,
<tt>potato</tt> for release 2.2, <tt>woody</tt> for release 3.0,
-<tt>sarge</tt> for release 3.1, <tt>etch</tt> for release 4.0, and
-<tt>lenny</tt> for release 5.0, and
-<tt>squeeze</tt> for release 6.0,
-<tt>wheezy</tt> for release 7.0.
+<tt>sarge</tt> for release 3.1, <tt>etch</tt> for release 4.0,
+<tt>lenny</tt> for release 5.0,
+<tt>squeeze</tt> for release 6.0, and
+<tt>wheezy</tt> for release 7.
<sect1 id="sourceforcodenames">Where do these codenames come from?
@@ -232,8 +233,8 @@
undergone some degree of testing in <qref id="unstable">unstable</qref>.
<p>They must be in sync on all architectures where they have been built and
-mustn't have dependencies that make them uninstallable; they also have to
-have fewer release-critical bugs than the versions currently in testing.
+mustn't have dependencies that make them uninstallable; they also need have
+fewer release-critical bugs than the versions currently in unstable.
This way, we hope that `testing' is always close to being a release
candidate.
@@ -245,7 +246,7 @@
<p>When the "testing" distribution is mature enough, the release manager
starts `freezing' it. The normal propagation delays are increased to ensure
-that as little as possible new bugs from "unstable" enter "testing".
+that as few new bugs as possible from "unstable" enter "testing".
<p>After a while, the "testing" distribution becomes truly `frozen'. This
means that all new packages that are to propagate to the "testing" are held
Index: pkg_basics.sgml
===================================================================
--- pkg_basics.sgml (Revision 11248)
+++ pkg_basics.sgml (Arbeitskopie)
@@ -484,4 +484,4 @@
<url id="http://www.debian.org/doc/devel-manuals#maint-guide";>, or the
Guide for Debian Maintainers, available in the
<package>debmake-doc</package> package or at
-<url id="https://www.debian.org/doc/devel-manuals.en.html#debmake-doc";>.
+<url id="https://www.debian.org/doc/devel-manuals#debmake-doc";>.
Index: pkgtools.sgml
===================================================================
--- pkgtools.sgml (Revision 11248)
+++ pkgtools.sgml (Arbeitskopie)
@@ -404,5 +404,5 @@
(see <ref id="apt-get">) or <prgn>aptitude</prgn> (see <ref id="aptitude">)
as your package management tool, they will
track automatically installed packages and give the possibility to
-remove them, when no packages needing them remain in your system.
+remove them, when no packages making use of them remain in your system.
Index: software.sgml
===================================================================
--- software.sgml (Revision 11248)
+++ software.sgml (Arbeitskopie)
@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@
(mail) and DNS (name servers); relational databases like PostgreSQL, MySQL;
also provided are web browsers including the various Mozilla products,
<item>a complete set of office applications, including the
- LibreOffice.org productivity suite, Gnumeric and other spreadsheets,
+ LibreOffice productivity suite, Gnumeric and other spreadsheets,
WYSIWYG editors, calendars.
</list>
Index: uptodate.sgml
===================================================================
--- uptodate.sgml (Revision 11248)
+++ uptodate.sgml (Arbeitskopie)
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@
details of specific upgrades. It is
available on the Debian website at <url
id="http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/releasenotes";> and is also
-shipped on the Debian CDs, DVDs and Blu-Ray discs.
+shipped on the Debian CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs.
<sect id="howtocurrent">How can I keep my Debian system current?
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