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Documentation: Explaining "porterbox" better



I want to make it easier for people to understand what a "porterbox" is, and what DSA provides on it. So I'm going to give one proposal below for some changes to documentation+websites, and see what you all think. If they make sense (or if I hear nothing) I will come back with patches. (Please reply, even if you say, "Whatever, I'll accept a patch that changes documentation but I don't want to provide any particular feedback.")

There's one big question I'm struggling with: Where should I strike the balance between the officialness of the Developer's Reference, and the easy-to-update nature of the dsa.debian.org wiki?

The Developer's Referencevery usefully says, "Debian has several computers working as servers, most of which serve critical functions in the Debian project. Most of the machines are used for porting activities, and they all have a permanent connection to the Internet."

I propose the following changes:

To devref Section 4.4 ("Debian machines") <http://www.debian.org/doc/developers-reference/resources.html#server-machines

* Make section "4.4.6. chroots to different distributions" be 4.4.1, since the existence and use of porterboxes is probably something fewer people are familiar with

* rename it from "chroots to different distributions" to "porterboxes provide chroots to different distributions"

* link to http://dsa.debian.org/doc/install-req/ and explain why people might want to install packages in a chroot

* https://db.debian.org/machines.cgi will be changed so that, above the "summary", this text appears: "Read more about the Debian Machines in the Developer's Reference." It will link to http://www.debian.org/doc/developers-reference/resources.html#server-machines .

By doing that, we define the term "porterbox", too, which is nice.

I would have done it, but I spent an hour in utter indecision as to where to make the various changes. The above is what I have settled on. Does it make sense to you all?

(I will provide patches, unless someone beats me to it. Which would be just fine by me!)

-- Asheesh.

--
After your lover has gone you will still have PEANUT BUTTER!


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