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The Linux Documentation Project Turns 10

Posted by Cliff on from the happy-anniversary dept.

hta writes: "The Linux Documentation Project is happy to announce its 10-year anniversary! Once upon a time, there was a general consensus that Unix in general, and Linux in particular, lacked good documentation. Matt Welsh decided to do something about this, and wrote the first Linux HOWTO - the 'Installation HOWTO' - the first of what is now a huge collection of focused, solution-oriented documents. It became a movement just like Linux itself. More and more people joined in on the effort, tools were created, and documents were written, translated and published. Ten years later, it is no exaggeration to say this issue has been dealt with thoroughly."

"Today, TLDP is one of the largest Internet projects, where a few hundred people have written several hundred documents, ranging from small manual pages to in-depth guides that span over a hundred pages. The documentation covers nearly all aspects of Linux and is freely distributed, like Open Source software itself. In fact, many Linux distributions include the complete TLDP collection with the installation, helping both newcomers and more experienced users.

TLDP is fully multi-lingual. People volunteer their time to help with tools, reviews, translation, publishing and updates. This all requires work, and a core group of a few dozen aid the authors through a series of mailing lists. In addition, TLDP is pleased to acknowledge support from numerous companies over the years, including Red Hat and IBM.

TLDP continues to grow, in numbers of documents, supported languages and also new services, to better help an ever-increasing audience. To achieve this, TLDP is always looking for new volunteers to join, ranging from authors to programmers, to reviewers.

For more information, please visit http://www.tldp.org and read the LDP FAQ."

3 of 232 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Very Useful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Nice link... ... doofus. No wonder you don't find Linux easy to use. I would expect you have similar complaints about your toaster, washing machine, and shower.

  2. Re:Open Source Fanatics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    There aren't any reasons why I should choose Open Source over faster, cheaper, more stable systems such as SCO, Microsoft, etc?

    Thanks for clearing this up.

  3. Documentation won't help. Even if it *was* good. by whjwhj · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Linux documentation means nothing. Why? Because the overall system is so terribly unusable in the first place.

    Take, for example, an Apple computer. How much documentation comes with an Apple? Not much. How much documentation is *needed*? NOT MUCH. Effort was put into the UI design such that most things can be figured out without needing to read a book or refer to help. This is a Good Thing.

    Linux, on the other hand, is a random helter-skelter mess of half-implemented and incompatible software systems that's lucky to run at all much less be intuitive to the user.

    Before you Linux zealots go nuts congratulating yourself on how good your documentation is, remember this: For average people, Linux is NO WHERE CLOSE to being usable. And there ain't no amount of documentation that's going to fix that.