Re: What documentation and what order
On Tue, 17 Oct 2000, Snowfox wrote:
>
> David -
>
> You're asking a million questions at once. Your best answer is to dig
> in and start doing things.
This sort of disconnected learning is only useful and fun if you are young and
have no other obligations. Once you have a wife, kids, and a yard to mow this
becomes a less viable option.
This is a problem I have with Linux in general - not just Debian. To quote a
friend of mine (who I think was quoting someone else): "Linux is only free if
you set the value of your time at zero."
I don't mind R'ingTFM. I just want to know where to find the manual. Most
linux books waste half the pages or more documenting vi and bash once again.
When what users (at least desktop users) really want is answers to the kind of
questions I asked earlier.
What Debian needs is a walkthrough for level 2 of the Debian game (so to
speak). The install process, I found to be fairly well defined. It's what to
do after that is so fuzzy.
So far I think this list should go like this:
- Read a _good_ book on _using Linux/Unix_ (this should cover things like vi,
shells etc.)
- Read the Installation manual in the release notes
- Read the Debian GNU/Linux FAQ (It's a bloody shame this doesn't come in text
form so that it can be easily printed out).
- Read the "Reference" section in the Debian Guide. (The rest is a rehash of
the Installation manual and an incomplete introduction to Unix.)
I'd like to fill in the rest for Debian, I guess I'll have to blaze the trail.
Please don't take this as a rant on you. This sort of answer is common among
the Linux community.
> Your best place to start would be in /usr/share/doc where you'll find
> the Debian-specific documentation, as well as documentation for most
> of your isntalled software.
Excellent suggestion. I will look in there.
>
> The reason much of the documentation is compressed is that it can be
> viewed that way, and they take up far less space. Use 'zgrep' to
> search through files and 'zless' or 'zmore' to view them.
>
> Look at the man pages for apt-get and dpkg for more information on how
> to find where files are placed, and to better understand the packaging
> system.
>
> Presumably the reason for the kernel not being unpacked straight away
> is that it's huge, and uses non-standard compression. (bzip2) Further,
> people often fetch kernel source to build for other machines; without
> knowing more about your intent, it would be difficult to prevent
> something getting replaced which shouldn't have been.
>
> Take it one step at a time. Spend some time on a problem before asking
> for help and you'll find that you get really good at finding answers
> yourself. Debian is put together very consistently, and it'll all be
> second nature before you know it.
>
Thanks for this information.
dar
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