Bug#849827: live-build fails to build amd64 target

["Peter.Stein" <peter.stein@comcast.net>]

I actually had a bunch of comments, but suspected they would not be well received and thus tried to be diplomatic and productive by suggesting a step-by-step HOWTO. It's needed, everyone knows what one is, and shouldn't be difficult to put together by the live-build experts. You wanted an improvement suggestion and I gave you a very "actionable" one. I'm always reluctant to get into these "improvement" discussions because the fact of the matter is you open source folks don't take constructive criticism very well and invariably end up copping an attitude - like you are now. I've developed software professionally for 35 years and can state unequivocally that this documentation does not meet the "production grade" standard. I hear what you're saying about limited resources and community efforts, but as the old saying goes "the road to hell is paved with good intentions". At some point somewhat needs to step back, take a deep breath, and do an honest assessment to determine what if any improvements are needed. Griping from the user community should not be the impetus for change. That's my $.02. ;-)
Cheers.

On 01/01/17 13:09, Ben Armstrong wrote:

On January 1, 2017 2:26:58 PM "Peter.Stein" <peter.stein@comcast.net> wrote:

> I eventually figured out by trial and error how to get the iso to build.
> Not because of the documentation, but in spite of it. The resulting iso
> won't boot via GRUB2, but that's a GRUB issue not a live-build issue.
> HOWTOs are commonplace in the linux world. That's an obvious way to
> improve the body of documentation for live-build.

Each chapter of live-manual covers "how to" customize different aspects of live-build. The section on local package lists, which is the closest equivalent to the old command-line option, is here:

https://debian-live.alioth.debian.org/live-manual/stable/manual/html/live-manual.en.html#409

I'll be the first to admit that this documentation is not perfect: a documentation writer's job is never done and there's always room for improvement, but so far you have not made any actionable suggestions for making it better. Unfortunately, we're at an impasse. We cannot make the doc any better if you won't tell us, specifically, what about it didn't work for you.

Ben
p.s. Although I contributed to the authorship of this doc considerably before my retirement, it was a group effort, all done by volunteers like me, so credit for its good bits goes to the whole group. I'm sure you understand that group authorship can sometimes lack the coherence of single-authored documents, but we had a lot of material to cover, and worked with what meagre resources we had. I doubt if any of the remaining team is interested in this point at a complete rewrite (though really, that's entirely up to them,) so it will have to be incremental improvements. Your cavalier dismissal of the whole work of the doc as "incomprehensible" coupled with your refusal to give us anything concrete to work with to improve it disinclines me to help anymore. Good luck.