[Lvlug] Linux documentation

[Randy Kramer]

Daniel S. Washko wrote:
> I'm just curious about what members of the LUG think regarding Linux
> documentation.  Is it inadequate?  

No! (More below.)

> How do you feel it compares with other
> Operating Systems and software?

It might be just about the same.  

I saw Faber's comment, and to paraphrase him:  Hell, I learned most of
my networking and OS theory from reading dos and Windows documentation
(and books about dos and Windows).  (That's not entirely true, because I
did have a formal education in computer science, many years ago, and
learned Algol, Fortran, Snobol, APL, Lisp, LCC (!), operating system
theory and design, compiler theory and design, on Univac 1108, IBM 360,
Dec PDP-8, -10, and -11, Intel 4004, 8008, 8080, ..., and Zilog Z80
equipment.)

But, the stumbling points for me have been:

   * I learned dos and Windows a little bit at a time over a 20 years --
I hoped to learn Linux based on that 20 years of learning in 20 minutes
or less ;-)
   * Because of that, when I read Linux documentation, I unintentionally
or inadvertently found things I already knew, started skimming over more
stuff, later to find out that there were nuggets of stuff I didn't know
among the things I skipped over.  (I'd like to find documentation
written specifically for me, not boring with stuff I already know but
providing simple clear explanations for the things I don't know. 
<grin>)
   * I would characterize Linux as a legacy operating system (maybe no
one else would) because of the amount of legacy Unix code and
"Unixisms".  (I should go into more detail here, but I  won't now.)
   * dos/Windows grew up with a focus on making it easy for a new user
to learn, possibly with a minimum of reading.  *nix grew up without such
an emphasis, and still has little bits of every advance that came along
during the life of *nix.  The terminology is strange for someone without
computer experience (or even for someone whose computer experience is on
different operating systems).
   * Many things in Linux are very complicated.  I'm still struggling
with understanding (all) the parameters in the configuration file for a
"simplified" email MTA (postfix) -- I wouldn't even think about trying
to dig into the configuration files for sendmail.

<maybe more later -- need to run>

WikiLearn is hopefully an attempt to address some of these concerns.

Randy Kramer