discuss: Software-RAID-HOWTO
Subject:
Re: [discuss] Software-RAID-HOWTO
From:
David Greaves ####@####.####
Date:
14 May 2008 22:20:16 +0100
Message-Id: <482B599C.1020406@dgreaves.com>
####@####.#### wrote:
> 'Afternoon, all,
Evenin'
I'm glad I'm getting some responses on this - thank you.
> Short-time reader, first time poster.
>
> One of the things that I like about the LDP is that it keeps documents
> in easily downloadable and translatable formats - great for
> downloading onto Palms so I can get a little extra reading done whilst
> I'm stuck on the subway. Wikis, to my understanding, don't have this
> facility.
Not without some forethought, which, to a small degree, I had :)
> Secondly, many sites refer users looking for introductions and
> hand-holding to the LDP as the primary documentation source -
> particularly if the man pages are over your head. What makes the LDP
> attractive to me is that I can learn new concepts in nicely digestable
> chunks without having to crosslink and return from other reference
> pages. I know that I can start at page 1 in a document on the LDP and
> progress with a consistent narrative to the last page.
Agreed.
My concern is that following the current narrative will kill your data (OK, I
exaggerate).
> For these reasons, I think that outsourcing the RAID howto to an
> external wiki will weaken the LDP's usefulness both a primary and
> versatile reference.
Yes, but I rather selfishly put the HOWTO onto a wiki valuing community
contributions and maintenance over an outdated document that I have to jump
through hoops with some group that doesn't really care about RAID in order to
assist people in my own community!!!
LDP is hurting people in this case - not helping them. Blunt but true.
(nb, by "my own" I mean the linux-kernel mailing list and the linux-raid mailing
list; ie where the developers who wrote md and mdadm hang out to assist users
with md/mdadm).
> I understand, though that the LDP cannot keep up with new releases
> because of its writing process, which I think is the fundamental
> reason for linking the LDP's RAID guide to the wiki.
Indeed.
> Therefore, perhaps an appropriate compromise would be to base an
> updated RAID-Howto on the wiki's documentation - consider it a
> 'stable' snapshot of the wiki. The wiki would serve as a 'testing'
> release of the same documentation. Yes, I'm a Debian user.
>
> That way, the documentation remains current, fairly non-redundant, and
> doesn't compromise LDP's integrity.
>
> Or maybe I'm missing the point entirely?
You're absolutely not - thanks for volunteering :)
Create an account on the wiki and see how the link in my original post makes use
of Wikimedia's capability to join sections to form a single HOWTO.
The HOWTO does need updating before it's ready for another release though - some
raidtools references remain - but if you handle the conversion to an LDP HOWTO
then over time I'm sure I can muster up some more volunteers to finalise the
content.
Of course, in the meantime the RAID community is being blocked (OK, "finding it
hard") from pointing users at it's own managed documentation.
So I reiterate - deprecate the HOWTO and link to the wiki please...
David
PS I'd cc lkml and the linux-raid groups but their policy is no cc'ing of
subscription only mailing lists...
