Orientation documentation please (was: Re: Changing mouse drivers)
(Hoping I have the attributions correct:)
> On Tue, 14 Oct 1997, Daniel Martin wrote:
>
> > On Tue, 14 Oct 1997, Richard A. Guay wrote:
> >
> > > I now want to change to using a serial mouse. What would be the
> > > steps (I do not want to reload the OS.)?
> >
> > Reload the OS? That's windows-world thinking. First, if you installed
> > the gpm package, you'll need to run 'gpmconfig' as root, and tell gpm
> > about your mouse.
Those who live in glass houses...
No, that's not windows-world thinking. It's the kind of thinking you get
when the operating system doesn't come with good installation/configuration
_documentation_.
Since users set up the system by running installation scripts, that's the
only way new users know that the system can be configured.
If the system came with better installation and configuration documentation
users would have documentation in which to look up things like changing mice,
etc.
I thinking of an overview of the things to do and of how the system-manage-
ment utilities fit together (as opposed to documentation of individual
utitilies, which is probably close to sufficient).
Why doesn't Debian come with a document that points to the system-wide
"Debianizations" of the system (e.g., the xxxconfig commands (which _are_
quite convenient once you know they exist)), and why doesn't the Debian
installation document point to that orientation document?
(Consider new users: They follow the instructions for loading Debian
on the system. Those instructions (last I saw), dumped the user into
dselect, without given an orientation of what still needs to be configured,
to Debian-specific ways of doing things, etc.)
(I know there are some LDP documents out there. However, they don't cover
the Debianized aspects of a Debian distribution.)
(Also, I know that many packages' README files are in /usr/doc/xxx, but they
don't apply when Debian has changed the default configuration of the package,
and the changes from that default are not all documented in README-Debian
files for the packages.)
Daniel
--
Daniel Barclay
dsb@smart.net
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