Everything easy is hard

[Dan McGarry]

Kevin Cole wrote:
> 
> It's still one big monolithic document, (with some big illustrations) but a
> version in HTML can be found at:
> 
> http://www.upfrontsystems.co.za/Members/jean/cookbook/docbook/cookbook.html

That's a little better.

> (Maybe elsewhere as well.)  XML/Docbook formats are also available.

That's best of all. 8^)

If it's in DocBook, then I might be able to find the time to create a 
sliced and diced version myself.

>>[*] Which wiki software are you using, BTW? I should just submit a patch
>>directly to the maintainers, as the link works properly in Firefox, but
>>returns a 403 (Forbidden) to wget - that's just broken.
> 
> It's MoinMoin, a Python-based wiki.  

Good, I know at least one of the team, then. That'll make it easier to 
grip at them. 8^)

> But as to your specific troubles,  I leave it to others to answer.

No need right at this moment. It seems to be a mis-feature in the wiki 
code, so there's no point spending time on it here.

> The folks at LTSP.org were in the process of moving their stuff around
> (specifically to a twiki wiki), and there's a better version of some of the
> docs, including the "long story" referred to above.  However, they haven't
> made them public yet.  But we could point to the current docs for now.

I suspect it would be best. I've worked professionally for about 7 years 
with FOSS and participated in more than a few projects, but I found 
Edubuntu quite thin in its online details. If I weren't already familiar 
with Debian and Ubuntu, I would probably have just walked away, based on 
what I saw on the site.

I'd strongly advocate throwing too much badly formatted data onto the 
site to begin with, in the spirit of 'release early, release often'. 
Ugly information, no matter how fragmentary, is better than none. Even 
if the page looks more like a link farm than anything, it will at least 
be more useful than it is at the moment. 8^)

>>And, if I understand correctly, soon to be available in expanded form on
>>the Edubuntu website?
> 
> SOON?  Heh! Dream on!  We had our FIRST meeting today. ;-)  

Don't worry, in Vanuatu 'soon' means 'in this lifetime'. I'll just go 
sit down under the coconut tree and wait. 8^)

> That said, it
> went rather well, actually.  We made good progress editing, and hope to do it
> on a weekly basis. The new document will be both expanded and contracted. The
> tuxLab Cookbook serves a more specific audience, and a lot of the details
> specific to that group can be trimmed.  Ultimately, I think the new document
> will be smaller than the tuxLab Cookbook.  But that will leave us some room
> to expound on some of the details that may not be clear.

See my comments above for one view on how to approach this. In my 
experience, it's much easier to trim than it is to create, so dumping a 
mass of crufty data, then opening it to a bunch of editors to refine 
might result in more, better documentation than currently exists.

Best,

-- 
Dan McGarry	it.psl at fsp.org.vu

IT Consultant
Community Communications Project