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I'm a developer ... I'm looking into something more formal like a research paper.

LaTeX. Here's a template (you wanted article.ltx). Some distributions of LaTeX come with templates as well. Here's a quick guide (PDF).

LyX is the best TeX document processor I've used. This is the 21st century, no need to program and compile your technical documents from the command line using vi and multiple compile steps.

I'm a developer ... I'm looking into something more formal like a research paper.

LaTeX. Here's a template (you wanted article.ltx). Some distributions of LaTeX come with templates as well. Here's a quick guide (PDF).

I've no experience on those, not even read a complete one, so my first question is what resources do you recommend to learn how to write one?

The template will make you get the basics right. The most basic I've seen are Title, Abstract, Sections, Conclusion, References. It's easy (I taught myself in college) and the production value of LaTeX gives you an instant artificially inflated level of credibility.

And even after I write it I can't expect to be published by Science or other high-profile publications.

Why the hell not? Just do it up and see what happens!

So where should I send it to make it known by people on the respective fields and be taken seriously?

Sounds like you should do some research on arxiv, a prepublication center where you can find some of the best stuff as well as absolute drivel. I would need to hear more about your method to ensure it's indeed an algorithm worthy of publication but I guess you would put that in Data Structures and Algorithms? But why stop there? Why don't you put it on arxiv and blog about it? Why don't you send out e-mails with the arxiv link to open source projects and commercial entities suggesting the use of your algorithm? I'd imagine the USGS would be interested in hearing from you. Sure that's all very wishful thinking but if you've got what you say you've got, why not? At the very least you'll learn why your idea isn't good enough to catch eyeballs.

I will caveat all this with the brutish reality of capital and give you a very unpopular option. Software algorithms are currently considered intellectual property by the United States government and several other countries. You could apply for a patent and then attempt to license your algorithm to companies like ESRI and Google or the USGS. You're on your own if this is what you're aiming for.

If you only want the "recipes" on how to do stuff, I suggest the cookbook:

http://dsl.org/cookbook/cookbook_toc.html

Michael Stutz's Linux Cookbook first appeared in 2001, at least according to Amazon. (2nd version available in 2004.)

Anyway, I have a copy and it is a really good book to keep on your desk for those times that you want to get something done quickly without working it out for yourself.

The first edition is available on his WWW site.

Kids, MS Word has a grammar checker. Use it. Use it as an educational tool. For you proper *nix people, I just noticed that a whole slew of tools for those of us that are English impaired. Write and check, the write some more and check some more. I know people disrespect these things, but they are a useful teaching tool. The NCLB might discount he importance of spelling and grammer, but then when was the last time a realy good idea came out of Texas?

Anyone know other *nix tools?

How do you take a screen shot of tty1 !?!

You can do far worse than pointing people at The Linux Cookbook.

This is something that is task orientated which seems to make lots of newcomers to Linux (but not computers)

According to this , GPL v1.0 was released in 1989. RMS released the GNU Manifesto in 1985.

So, it HAS been around a long time, but not 20-30 years.

(and yes, I know it was a joke).

S

You don't use FreeBSD, do you ?
Otherwise, you'd know that the FreeBSD Handbook is an HTML documentation (available online, but also part of the distribution), helping newbies to get started with the FreeBSD concepts (the filesystem tree structure, how to configure the system, how to compile the kernel, the port system and its dedicated tools etc).
Unfortunately, where there's only one FreeBSD distribution, you'll find a hundred Linux distros. And each has its peculiarities. So writing a linux handbook is certainly impossible.
Still, I guess the closer to it would probably be the The Linux Cookbook...

"People who choose the FDL usually know little about its specifics -- they just want their documentation to be available under a copyleft license."

The GNU-Free Documentation License certainly gives an impression of being overly complicated. I had wanted to publish a copyleft thesis, but the FDL had a lot of bulky wording over these invariant sections.

I eventually found and used the Design Science License (DSL), which looks and feels a lot more like the GPL applied to non-software. Perhaps this would be a more suitable style of license for free documentation?

I have a copy of Running Linux, which I read as a newbie, and to say the truth, its not the first book I'd recommend to a linux newbie. I'd suggest Unix Power Tools and The Linux Cookbook. But don't take my word for it: there is a sample chapter of Unix Power Tools and the full text of the Linux Cookbook online.

The reason I recommend the Linux Cookbook is that it tells what programs can do what things. As a newbie, I don't know how to use a scanner, or how to record a CD. (OTOH, the Linux Cookbook does tend to lean heavily towards Debian).

Unix Power Tools is a must read because it is a thick collection of simple tricks of the trade. Plus, its a good example how to think like Unix. I'm not sure about you, but the reason why I run Linux on two of my computers is that it can get things done quickly and easily.

Speaking of quickly and easily, I'd also have to strongly recommend Learning Perl as a primer to perl and the Perl Cookbook as a collection of perl snippets. Perl is a damn useful language to know, as Learning Perl says : "Making Easy Things Easy and Hard Things Possible".

Anyways, my choices tend to be more 'how to do things' rather then 'how the current version or distro works'. Heck, other then for the Linux Cookbook, the rest are good reading for *BSD and other unix users. I prefer advocating the unix mentality instead of one specific distro or kernel.

To be fair, I haven't read Running Linux in awhile. Perhaps my memory is cloudy. There is also the Linux Problem Solver, which I find a tad too simple and shallow, but might be helpful to a few people out there.

Btw, I know book budgets tend to suck. (And O'Reilly books [or any technical book really]) tend to be budget breakers. However, at least one book chain that I know of (Barnes & Nobles) marks down O'Reilly books into the $10-or-so range when a new edition comes out, and for a few of the technical books, Ebay can offer a fraction of the cover price. Be wise though - I tend to avoid older editions if they were published pre-1998 or so unless I know the book is still relevant - the linux world is changing pretty fast.

Hmmmm.... I wonder if I should have recommended a good book on LaTeX. For those unix users who have to type a lot of papers, LaTeX is worth taking a look at. Then again, I haven't found a good LaTeX book yet myself. :)

Other people have suggested Running Linux already, I had that for a while and ended up giving it away to a newbie who appreciated it.

I had the benefit of a couple of local experts and found that and a working modem to be sufficient to get me up to speed.

To throw in a handy link I found The Linux Cookbook a good site.

It has common activities listed and pointers to more documentation, and software - very interesting:

• The Linux Cookbook

The Linux Cookbook is good and has a lot of command line stuff :D And free. Here You can also buy a paper version.

"Lede" is journalism jargon for the lead paragraph or "lead".

Try this: Applying Copyleft to Non-Software Information on Michael Stutz' DSL site. He's applied copyleft to writing.

Try this: Applying Copyleft to Non-Software Information on Michael Stutz' DSL site. He's applied copyleft to writing.

Try this: Applying Copyleft to Non-Software Information on Michael Stutz' DSL site. He's applied copyleft to writing.

dsl.org has Linux Cookbook which is an open source book that seems to be doing really well as a "real" book. The real sources used to write the book and publish it are put up on the web for free...

The Open Content licenses of course, plus the GNU Free Documentation License and the Design Science license. There are undoubtedly others, but these are the ones I'm familiar with.

Another site that carries it is the slashcoded Andamooka (with which I am not associated), which has the dual advantage of carrying many more open source books and permitting registered users to enter their own annotations on line.

See this site which hosts the DSL and a book that was published with it (The Linux Cookbook).

See this site which hosts the DSL and a book that was published with it (The Linux Cookbook).

See this site which hosts the DSL and a book that was published with it (The Linux Cookbook).

Check out the Design Science License. I've been using it on my sheet music site for almost a year now.

It's called the DSL. There are already free books with it too from what I gather, see the open book project...

some books are printed as open source. have you seen this? also project gutenberg, but those are older.. don't you have leeway on this considering who you are?

I wrote this book because I want everyone to know how to use this software, because I think everyone deserves the freedom that comes with it. ... freedoms that should be everyone's right by default in a free, open society.

It seems that now is the time to push this kind of thing, using good software and tools (all Open Source) for everyone. The world is going to need it.