discuss: LinuxWorld in San Francisco
Subject:
Re: LinuxWorld in San Francisco
From:
Stein Gjoen ####@####.####
Date:
3 Dec 2001 22:41:18 -0000
Message-Id: <3BFC2035.4000401@mail.nyx.net>
Sorry about the late delay; I have only now found the
time to check my mail log properly...
David Lawyer wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 04, 2001 at 11:55:40PM +0200, Stein Gjoen wrote:
>
>>David Merrill wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On Fri, Sep 14, 2001 at 11:32:11PM +0200, Stein Gjoen wrote:
>>>
>>This brings us back to the topic of LDP document distros for
>>CD ROM, we never quite finished that last time. In addition to
>>making an off-line archive browsable it should also be indexed
>>and searchable. I like grep but I realize not everyone agrees.
>>
>>
>
> I think that we shouldn't do a CD ROM. Let the various distributions
> put our docs on CD ROM. The trouble with a CD ROM is that there is so
I totally agree. That is why I am not suggesting we make one.
Instead the idea was to make the tools available for others to
do so easily. Even when people have the bandwidth to do it
themselves, magazines still like to bundle various bits and
pieces onto their cover CD. Basically I see two different
classes of users here:
- short deadline users such as distro makers or magazines
- users with low Internet bandwidth or limited access.
Let us not forget broadband is not generally available in
this world, especially in some fast Linux growth regions.
> much that is out-of-date and the CD ROM would soon be out-of-date.
True. Making the file collection and setup simple might
improve availability.
> Getting our docs via a distribution on CD ROM is the most feasible way
> to get them on CD ROM. That's because there is no additional CD one
> needs to buy. Downloading a distribution package of them is another
> way (say from Debian). It's better than downloading manually from the
> LDP mirror sites, provided the distribution package is current. Often
Here I believe making life simpler for these people will lower
the threshold to stay more current, making it possible to get
the LDP content at the last minute with confidence.
Still, adding links to latest distro packages from the LDP
download page might help those who wishes to stay current.
> it's not. A package is easy to install and remove with package
> management utilities. So we may need to encourage Debian to keep
> their howtos more current. Too bad they couldn't update the howtos
> for bug-fix releases.
We should check up on other distributions too. It used to
be we got an advance warning from Redhat that they had a
deadline for the docs and it worked well. Other distros were
not been equally active in LDP cooperation.
Debian has remained more active here; I hope they will
keep up the good work.
> Regarding making the off-line archive indexed and searchable, we need
> to get someone to create a utility to do this or suggest grep in a
> README in the howto directory.
>
> What's still needed is an integration of the man pages, info pages,
> howtos, kernel docs, and application docs. There should be a command
> to search all of these (including searching all the text of all the
> docs). It's a big project to work it all out but a previous effort at
> this didn't get finished.
Part of the idea was to make a file hierarchy that included
the things above but also with auxilliary docs such as FAQs,
RFCs and more. Knowing the file location would make linking
and referencing workable.
Regards,
Stein Gjoen
