discuss: HOWTO submittion
Subject:
Re: HOWTO submittion
From:
Shuvam Misra ####@####.####
Date:
30 Aug 2004 08:14:58 -0000
Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.4.58.0408301417540.11198@sm.starcomsoftware.com>
Dear Dashamir,
My ten-paise worth of feedback. :)
> > You should probably generalise the
> > content or rename the howto so that the readers can
> > know its related to fedora mostly.
>
> I have no intentions of generalising it. I leave it to the
> common sense of the readers to adopt it for their
> particular case or prefered distribution.
Just a footnote: merely common sense is sometimes not good enough to
bridge the gap between distros. I've seen very fundamental semantic
issues in package management of Debian and those of RPM-based distros,
for instance. Similarly, common sense does not help you find where a
particular system attribute (the console font, for instance) is set...
these change from distro to distro and between versions of the same
distro.
So, while it is your decision to make your HOWTO Fedora-specific (which
may even have a bit of justification because Fedora is a popular distro),
it's not realistic to expect that non-Fedora users can make use of it
merely by applying common sense. If you have deliberately decided that
you can't help out non-Fedora users, that's of course your call. It
would be a pity if that's the case, though.
> > I am not sure why you are creating network files in a
> > non standard location. fedora usually puts them in
> > /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts
>
> Because I am not fedora. I want to find easily the
> configuration files that I add or modify. This is how
> I do it. I think it is good, however it may not be the
> best approach for everybody.
This seems to be schizophrenic to me, forgive me for saying so. If
you want to write a Fedora-specific document (as you've said earlier),
shouldn't you at least make it clear to your readers that the "right way"
in Fedora is to keep these config files in /etc/sysconfig?
In fact, I'm seeing modern SuSE too using /etc/sysconfig. (Debian doesn't,
it seems.) Therefore it seems that /etc/sysconfig is bigger than just
Fedora, so perhaps you should either do it that way, or you should write
a big bold para saying how to do it the "standard way" but explain how
you have done it differently and why. That way, the reader gets a choice.
When I write a HOWTO, I have to be very careful bridging the dividing
line between what's current practice and what I recommend. I loudly
recommend whatever I believe in, but I try to take pains to explain what
others are doing and what the plusses and minusses of the two approaches
are. _Then_ I can trust the common sense and priorities of the reader to
let them decide. Not before. :)
Hope this helps.
regards,
Shuvam
