[pocket-linux] Version 3.0 Suggestions

[David Horton]

Eric,

You make some very good points.  I put in some comments below that I 
hope will address what you brought up.  Please let me know what you think.

Dave


Eric Wanchic wrote:
>  David Horton,
>  
> I glanced over 3.0 which looks really well done. However I think we need 
> to expand certain aspects that are really important to prevent readers 
> from unneccessary web-searching for the answers. We won't have to 
> neccessary finish them, but at least set-up the framework so we can 
> easily update the book with sub versions as we recieve updates from our 
> readers. Bear with me.
>  
> 1. Let stay focused on the most up-to-date versions of key items ( grub, 
> kernel 2.6.x, bash 3.0) in the main reading. Refer to the Appendix for 
> modfications and revisions...
>  

The 2.1 version of the guide is from February of this year, so many 
things are out of date.  One of the things I'm working on now is to get 
the latest versions of all source packages and build the project myself 
to make sure it works.  (I'm up to chapter 6 so far.)  And as some 
packages get newer they also get bigger so I also have to make sure it 
all still fits on a floppy.

If you or anyone else are interested in working though the guide using 
the latest versions of all software it would really help speed things 
along.  If you decide to do this, check for two things:

a) does it compile properly with the current instructions or do they 
need to be changed?

b) does everything still fit on the floppy?


> 2. Expand the Appendixes for easy asnwers and FAQs dealing with 
> modifications. My suggestion for Expansion are as follows:
>  
>     - Appendix A   Differences in Distributions (list common 
> distributions and how actual paths will vary, and/or where to find src 
> files. List different compile options that might be needed, additional 
> packages, eg  Roman Levandovsky  on needing  glibc-static-devel package 
> for Mandrake 10, which I didn't need for Suse 9.1)
>  
>  
>     - Appendix B Kernel (talk about previous versions, and how to 
> compile differently for earlier kernels, where/how to download and install)
>     - Appendix C Bash (talk about previous verions, and how to compile 
> differently for earlier kernels, where/how to download and install)
>     - Appendix D Boot Loading (talk about how to use earlier versions of 
> GRUB, LILO, and other loaders, where/how to download and install)
>     - Appendix E Hosting Applications (What used to be Appendix A)
>     - Appendix F GNU Free Documention License (What used to be Appendix B)
>  

I would love to have FAQ's and troubleshooting guides and everything 
else you mentioned.  However, I would rather see these things on a web 
page instead of in the guide itself.  The reason is that updating a web 
page would be quick and easy, whereas updating the guide and publishing 
it is a slow process.

If you have the time to build a small FAQ or anything else and put it on 
the web I would be happy to include a link on the resource site.  Rick 
Stocker did this for using GRUB when the guide was still using lilo and 
many people got good use from his instructions.

As for the quirks of different distributions, how about starting a forum 
on SourceForge? [http://sourceforge.net/forum/?group_id=99762]  I can 
set up a forum for "distro specific tips". People can start a thread for 
each distro and post their successes or things to watch out for.


> 3. Forgive me if this is not the linux standard, but when printing out 
> the PDF version How-To and guides, I like to print double-sided. But I 
> also like having the begining of every chapter be the first page, odd 
> page on the right-hand side. That's really a book standard. This was not 
> an easy task re-flipping back and forth between chapters when printing 
> out double-sided. We should re-number the pages and add blank pages so 
> that when you print all odd pages, its an easy flip the whole stack over 
> and re-print even pages in reverse (or whatever) and then boom, instant 
> book.
>  

This task is kind of tricky.  I actually write the guide in DocBook XML 
and the folks at The Linux Doc Project do the conversions to all of the 
various formats.  I have tools to do HTML and PDF myself, but I really 
don't have a way to customize it.  Most of the final look is determined 
by the DocBook stylesheets. [http://sourceforge.net/projects/docbook/] 
It's a very convoluted process, but it has the advantages of being able 
to produce multiple formats without the author having to know the 
intricacies of each format.  It also makes it easy for people to do 
language translations since they just need to work with the XML source.

> I would be happy to complete most or all of these tasks on my own if I 
> can have a timeframe to get them done by. I really think we 
> should set-up the framework for v.3 and then as we recieve 
> issues/modification in the mailling list , we can append them to book 
> with sub versions. Thanks
>