2003
29
The Linux Documentation Project
2003-11-12
The Linux Documentation Project Weekly News
New documents
Fresh@LDP
Chr. Clemens Lee sent in version 1.0 of the Debian Binary Package Building mini-HOWTO. The document explains how to build a minimal Debian (.deb) package for use on your systems.
Submitted for review
The PDF version of the DNS HOWTO. This document dates back to 2001 but does discuss Bind 9 configuration. However, be sure to download the latest release when working with Bind (fixes among other issues security issues with parameters discussed in Chapter 6 of the HOWTO).
Tabatha Marshall, our Review Coordinator, took over the Reviewer HOWTO and converted it to XML, checked the links and made it reflect the current review process.
Updates
HOWTOs and FAQs
By Rick Moen: the WordPerfect on Linux FAQ, v1.4.14.
Rahul Sundaram, published v1.1 of his Linux Documentation (LDP) FAQ. A good reread of the initial release corrected spelling mistakes and puts the finishing touch on the content.
Giles Orr will some day be at the top of one of our edition. Meanwhile, here's v0.93 of his Bash Prompt HOWTO (not to be mistaken for the Advanced Bash Scripting Guide or the Bash Programming - Introduction HOWTO).
This is not a mistake. We can hardly keep up with Miroslav Skoric. Here are the new versions of his FBB Packet-radio BBS mini-HOWTO v1.27; LILO mini-HOWTO v3.16 and Linux+WindowsNT mini-HOWTO v2.16.
David Ranch's Linux IP Masquerade HOWTO reached version 2.0, worth to mention.
The XFree Local
Multi-User HOWTO by Svetoslav Slavtchev is now at
v1.3
Guides
The Pocket Linux
Guide by David Horton at v2.0.
Gerard Beekmans published v5.0 of the Linux From Scratch HOWTO.
Also from David Ranch, the TrinityOS Guide. This document is a step-by-step example-driven explanation of how to build a very functional Linux box with a strong emphasis on security. In the new version David fixes version numbering issues on many of the daemons he mentions, and corrects a couple of statements having to do with the different Linux Distributions.
Happenings in the LDP world
HOWTOs Lacking Depth
A long discussion ensued following a
feedback mail from Laurent Bedubourg stating that the PHP HOWTO
by Alavoor Vasudevan was highly opinionated. David Lawyer said
that his (Al Devs) HOWTOs lacked depth and technical correctness and
was of the strong opinion that they should be removed
from the collection. People said that Al Dev did not
respond when they tried to contact him, though he did respond
in a private mail from Tabatha about the ongoing discussion.
John Levon posted details as to why the RCS/CVS
HOWTO, C/C++
beautifier HOWTO and the Kernel
HOWTO should be removed from the collection. Machtelt Garrels
posted
a summary.
Document Rating System
As a byproduct of the chain
on review and removal of HOWTOs lacking Depth, several people
suggested that there should be a document rating system. Lampadas was to
solve all the problems, but since it is not ready yet, people suggested
Bugzilla,
A pre-set document
lifetime, using wiki, and many
other suggestions.
LDP HOWTO Generator
Stein Gjoen sent in an update
to his LDP HOWTO Generator which he announced
in August. The
generator has now been tested with actual input, works with
Netscape as well as IE, the resultant SGML is validated using sgmlcheck
and it converts nicely into HTML.
Feedback and Contributions
The Linux Documentation Project (TLDP) is working on developing
free, high quality documentation for the GNU/Linux operating system.
Announcements about TLDP are made via
announce-subscribe@en.tldp.org. If you want to help TLDP,
take a look at the tasks
page, and consider joining
discuss-subscribe@en.tldp.org.
Help us create this newsletter. We need volunteers who follow the
community (mailing lists, newsgroups, web channels) and report events
related to free software documentation. Write to us at
feedback@en.tldp.org.
LDP Weekly News is compiled and edited by Machtelt Garrels and Y
Giridhar Appaji Nag with help from several other people.