Subject:
Re: Last update pre-1997 [was: reviewing all the howtos]
From:
"Rodolfo J. Paiz" ####@####.####
Date:
15 Nov 2003 05:11:14 -0000
Message-Id: <6.0.0.22.0.20031114223126.02495490@mail.simpaticus.com>
At 18:19 11/14/2003, doug jensen wrote:
>On Fri, Nov 14, 2003 at 03:01:44PM -0600, Rodolfo J. Paiz wrote:
> > I have never used a Linux system in Spanish (or any other language for
> that
> > matter). However, Spanish is my native tongue and I do speak/write it
> > rather well. If I can help in any way, please let me know.
>
>Assuming that you have an interest in Linux, if you wouldn't mind
>reading the Spanish-HOWTO, then provide your general opinion. I would hope
>that you could get a basic understanding of Linux by reading it.
I shall not claim to be a Linux guru, nor even a knowledgeable journeyman,
but thanks to the magic of Red Hat and RPM I have run my own mail/web/etc
server live on the Internet since about 1999. I do know enough of the
basics to be beyond what that document should teach me, so I shall be able
to comment semi-intelligently on its quality. Fear not, good sir.
Do keep in mind that I have never reviewed a HOWTO before, so your mileage
may vary. But for what they're worth, here are my stream-of-consciousness
comments as I read through it (comments are numbered and grouped by
headings/sections/whatever they're called):
Intro: Holy mother of God, this thing is OLD! Last update
1996-08-20. Has anyone attempted to contact the author to see if he's still
around and whether he'd like to help? I've just sent off a quick email to
him, but I wanted to inquire with the rest of you.
1. Very, very general commentary. So general as to be valid today,
yet by the same token of not very much practical use. "Then-student Linus
Torvalds... took for a starting point Andy S. Tanenbaum's Minix [...] while
Linus continues to develop and guide the kernel today, the main author of
Linux today is the entire Internet, from which a gigantic family of
programmers and users daily contribute their time [...]" True, still valid,
yet not of much practical value. Some mention of documentation and the man
pages here, which is supposed to be an intro; needs somewhat better
organization.
2. Duly noted to be a translated extract from the
Distributions-HOWTO of that day and age. 'Nuff said.
3. Duly noted to be a translated extract from the
Installation-HOWTO of that day and age, focusing on Slackware and native or
UMSDOS installs. Good job, well written, specific and useful as a HOWTO.
Worth nothing today, sadly... still explains in detail how to defrag an
MS-DOS 6.0 partition before sharing it with a Linux install.
4. Instructions on how to use accents and special characters on
the console, for the bash and tcsh shells, for some basic apps like joe,
less, ls, groff/nroff, and mc, the X Window system, and DOSEMU. Also
well-written, useful, and doubtless invaluable then, totally outdated now.
Someone is going to have to tell me how to do all that stuff today,
especially with the migration to UTF-8 and whatever else, if I'm going to
rewrite this; I know nothing of that material.
5. Teaser section about how Linux can be marvelously useful in a
networked environment, reassuring the read that Linux is stable and
low-cost. Some step by step examples on setting up PPP connectivity with
"Telefónica de España" for an ISP (they have a monopoly in Spain). Of
course pppd has changed somewhat in the interim.
6/7. URL's, references, bibliography, copyrighted. Tested two or
three links that didn't work (no surprise there). Nothing salvageable here.
My conclusion: Mr. Gonzalo Garcia-Agullo did an excellent job back then.
His grammar, language, and spelling skills are well-honed and the material
he presented was indeed as promised: a teaser and startup guide, with
references to other material once the reader had been sold on the idea of
trying out Linux more seriously. This HOWTO must have had a long useful
life (broken links notwithstanting) since he really did focus on the
general concepts and so it had trouble going out of date. The only
downsides are that (then) it was not all that well organized, a small fault
for a doc of this size, and that (now) it speaks of a world long gone. It
needs to be entirely rewritten, and I would only skim his outline to make
sure I didn't forget anything when writing the next version.
I volunteer to write the next Spanish HOWTO... IF AND ONLY IF one or two
people will be so kind as to volunteer to teach me the content (UTF-8
versus the old way, how to get accents in several apps, etc.). My procedure
would be to write the Spanish HOWTO first in English, such that helpers can
actually help, then quickly translate to Spanish once the translation is
the only step left to take.
Comments, suggestions, feedback?
--
Rodolfo J. Paiz
####@####.####
