[SGVLUG] Yay Debian - 90k machines for brazil news article

[Charles N Wyble]

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David Lawyer wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 01, 2007 at 09:28:14AM -0700, Charles N Wyble wrote:
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> I've also been using Linux for 10+ years and have had all kinds of
> problems with documentation.  But I've always used Debian (which is
> what Brazil is getting) and not Ubuntu.  A few of my problems with
> documentation (some have been fixed due to my complaints).

Hmmmmm. I have also used Debian for quite some time, although I retired
my last Debian system recently. Obviously Debian is still going strong
and is an excellent continuous integration point and produces a lot of
documentation and bug fixes etc.

> 
> hwclock Debian documentation resulted in gross errors in automatic
> adjusting of time.

Hmmmm. Ok.

> 
> linuxdoc-tools failed to tell how to avoid getting escape sequences in
> the text output.  


I see.

> 
> Someone took over authorship of some abandoned documents in the Linux
> Documentation Project and added all sorts of erroneous statements.

Well that's very interesting. I wasn't aware of that.

> 
> No correct documentation on how to get my sound card to work properly
> under alsa, even though there's a driver for it.

Ok. So you mention a number of specific examples.... did you attempt to
fix them? Or ask for help? I mean Microsoft has copious amounts of high
quality accurate documentation for the IT professional. However they
don't cover everything. Which is why I turn to the forums and news
groups Microsoft runs.

So far I have never posted a question to a Linux list and have found
everything I need in the documentation. Either directly or via a
site/google search as things aren't always categorized in a way I would
find natural. However upon searching, when I find something its in a
place that makes sense but is different then how I would do it.

> =========================================================================
> When I manned the Linux Documentation Project booth at the Linux Expo
> in Montreal Canada in 2000, a frequent complaint was about outdated
> documentation.
> 
> Stallman has implied that a major problem with Linux is the lack of
> good free documentation.  Others who have asked the question as to why
> Linux is not more popular on the desktops come up with documentation
> deficiencies as one of the reasons.
> 
> The man pages are often tersely written and many don't give examples
> nor explain things very well.

Well. Too many people rely on man pages for the wrong things. They
really want a tutorial and the man pages were never intended for that
purpose. They were reference docs. Its a common complaint people have
about cisco documentation. The stuff cisco puts out is a very
comprehensive reference guide on every product. Which is great if you
know what you want to do but not how to do it. New to networking? Pickup
some overview and 3rd party tutorials at the book store or online.

> 
> Another problem is that documentation is to some extent distribution
> dependent and there is a wasteful duplication of effort for each
> distribution to need to create it's own documentation.

Well yes this is true. However Gentoo has done an outstanding job of
producing documentation that is widely applicable. They rank incredibly
high in google searches. Obviously the source based nature makes them
more generic then the rest.


I do agree that a lot of duplicate stuff exists. I am in the process of
fixing that. I run a site at http://www.socallugs.com. Its an experiment
of mine to get local lugs working together and producing good content.
Then I plan to replicate it out. We shall see what happens.

I'll reply to the rest of your e-mail later today.
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