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Subject:
Hosting Debian Documentation at LDP
From: David Lawyer ####@####.#### Date: 3 Apr 2009 09:19:45 +0100 Message-Id: <20090402201214.GC2147@davespc> There has been a discussion on the staff list about this and Sergiusz Pawlowicz suggested that I post my suggestions on the discuss list. I didn't propose this but I think it's a good idea, provided we host the documentation for all the Debian packages (and possibly for other distributions). The original proposal by Sergiusz was to host what Debian has on the web at www.debian.org/doc/. I didn't follow the thread closely and somehow thought that the proposal might have been to host the documentation of all the packages which is found in /usr/share/doc. Here's a transcript of the part of the discussion re my proposal: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ -r F- 279/286: David Lawyer Re: [staff] [debian docs?] -- (all) Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2009 22:41:02 -0700 From ####@####.#### Mon Mar 30 22:48:59 2009 From: David Lawyer ####@####.#### Subject: Re: [staff] [debian docs?] To: LDP Staff ####@####.#### Mail-Followup-To: LDP Staff ####@####.#### What happened to the LDP staff member Martin Wheeler? He was also active in Debian and involved in the Debian packages of LDP documents. But he never suggested that we host Debian documentation. I think what you have in mind is to host documentation supplied in various Debian packages and put into a subdirectory of /usr/share/doc. Example: /usr/share/doc/mutt/ for the mutt email client documentation files (often several files). This stuff is sometimes not available on the Internet and thus will not be found in a Google search, especially if it's Debian specific documentation. I've noticed that some of the Debian-specific docs contain corrections to the documentation written by the author of the programs. Useful info. It would be useful to do this not just for Debian but for all major Linux distributions. [Later comment by David L: There would be a lot of duplication of files if this were done, since documentation supplied by program authors is picked up by the various distributions. What's desired is the distribution specific files from each distribution (or portions of files that are distribution specific).] Then a HOWTO writer could consult this info to see the differences in configuration, etc. between distributions and mention these differences in the HOWTO. Who else will use this info? Someone who has a package installed on their computer already has the documentation which was included in the package. But if there are problems, perhaps the distribution specific info from a different distribution has a fix for the problems, or explains the situation and options more clearly, etc. This is why it's important to cover more distributions than just Debian. Besides the /usr/share/doc directory, packages often contain default configuration and initialization files which are automatically installed in the /etc directory tree and sometimes in library directories. These are in a sense, part of the documentation. Many configuration files have comments that help the user modify them. Such comments are also documentation. Updated packages of distributions are issued daily and to keep this documentation up-to-date, a script needs to find updated (or new) packages every day, extract their documentation, and put it on the LDP site. Mirrors ?? Probably not, in my opinion. The latest unstable distribution likely contains better documentation than the stable version (unless the documentation is not backwards compatible). David Lawyer > > On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 09:23, jdd for http://tldp.org ####@####.#### wrote: > >> that's good, but it was not exactly my point. > >> > >> Could we discuss with Debian some kind of exchange? do we have the > >> same mirrors? how is Debian including LDP? > Sergiusz Pawlowicz a ?crit : > > > > Yes, debian is promoting LDP as main source of documentation > > on their docs page. > > > >> AFAIK, the HOWTOs are included in Debian, but I never see news about > >> that in our lists. May be we could have better result if sharing, for > >> example with the LDP .deb maintainer > >> > >> if you think it's necessary, I can investigate > > > > any better relations with debian are appreciated! On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 11:40:39AM +0200, jdd for http://tldp.org wrote: > > good :-)) > > jdd > > -- > jdd for the Linux Documentation Project > http://wiki.tldp.org > http://www.dodin.net > http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1412160445 > > ______________________ > http://lists.tldp.org/ > > ______________________ http://lists.tldp.org/ - F- 280/286: David Lawyer Re: [staff] [debian docs?] -- (all) Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2009 22:56:40 -0700 From ####@####.#### Wed Apr 01 22:15:55 2009 From: David Lawyer ####@####.#### Subject: Re: [staff] [debian docs?] To: LDP Staff ####@####.#### Mail-Followup-To: LDP Staff ####@####.#### On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 10:41:02PM -0700, David Lawyer wrote: > > I think what you have in mind is to host documentation supplied in > various Debian packages and put into a subdirectory of /usr/share/doc. It looks like I was wrong. You are proposing to mirror what Debian has on their website, which is NOT the documentation contained in their packages. Well, I think that it would be much better to host documentation which is not now on the Internet (unless one downloads the appropriate package) than to just mirror what is already on the Internet at Debian (and their mirrors?). David Lawyer ______________________ http://lists.tldp.org/ -N F- 283/286: David Lawyer Re: [staff] [debian docs?] -- (all) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 00:02:00 -0700 From ####@####.#### Thu Apr 02 00:07:19 2009 From: David Lawyer ####@####.#### Subject: Re: [staff] [debian docs?] To: LDP Staff ####@####.#### Mail-Followup-To: LDP Staff ####@####.#### > Sergiusz Pawlowicz a ?crit : > > > /usr/share/doc content is just an ordinary listing of directories, > > without any indexes. > On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 10:27:08PM +0200, jdd for http://tldp.org wrote: > we already host man pages that makes the most of /usr/share/doc The documentation in /usr/share/doc/ is often much more detailed, complete, and clearer than what is in the man pages. For interactive programs, the man page may only show the options used on the command line when starting the program. But /usr/share/doc/ may contain a manual which explains how to interact with the program and explains its features. Unlike a man page, they may contain sections, subsections, a table of contents, etc., like a HOWTO doc. The manuals in /usr/share/doc/ are sometimes called something else like a Specification (Exim). For each package, there are often several other files in /usr/share/doc/this-package/ such as tutorials, change-logs, bugs, Debian specific information, copyright (contains license), README's, configuration options (including sample configuration files), various examples, and news about the program. Most all of these files are plain text but some manuals are html.However, for many command line programs, the man pages suffice for using the program. So one way to organize this is to convert the /usr/share/doc/ directory tree into html. But how to automate this? David Lawyer -N L- 511/511: Sergiusz Pawlowicz Re: [staff] [debian docs?] -- (all) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 20:19:23 +0100 From ####@####.#### Thu Apr 02 11:49:57 2009 From: Sergiusz Pawlowicz ####@####.#### Subject: Re: [staff] [debian docs?] To: LDP Staff ####@####.#### [snip][re David L's proposal] yes, IMHO we can discuss it on "discuss" list. maybe you can describe a problem and call for volunteers? a volunteer has helped me to find a suitable package for debiandoc-docbook export, so i think there are good chances to find someone. cheers - serge ______________________ http://lists.tldp.org/ =========================================================================== Well, I didn't take the time to rewrite the proposal so above is just transcripts of what I proposed, etc. But I just don't have time to do what I'm proposing. David Lawyer | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Subject:
Re: [discuss] Hosting Debian Documentation at LDP
From: Sergiusz Pawlowicz ####@####.#### Date: 3 Apr 2009 10:40:49 +0100 Message-Id: <e9345fed0904030235w10276cc4p620399313a4c8fa5@mail.gmail.com> Hello, I have investigated the topic for a second, and it looks it may be simpler I thought previously. We can mount ibiblio distro site as a nfs drive, and have access to current debian mirror. From this mirror we can extract using "ar" content of each ".deb" package and strip /usr/share/doc/* directory. If someone volunteer to prepare such a script we can achieve it very quickly. Please notice this script should check packages from time to time and extract new content if there would appear with new package. Thanks, Serge | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Subject:
Re: [discuss] Hosting Debian Documentation at LDP
From: "jdd for http://tldp.org" ####@####.#### Date: 21 Apr 2009 10:08:03 +0100 Message-Id: <49ED8BE0.6090409@dodin.org> David Lawyer a écrit : > distributions). The original proposal by Sergiusz was to host what > Debian has on the web at www.debian.org/doc/. if there are no more advices, we may begin to host this part - I understand we have a docbook gateway for it. We can still add other parts as long as this is not a duplicate of the man pages already hosted comments still welcome jdd -- jdd for the Linux Documentation Project http://wiki.tldp.org http://www.dodin.net http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1412160445 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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