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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."

8 of 232 comments (clear)

  1. Some people my not know... by tarquin_fim_bim · · Score: 1, Informative

    ...where it is. So here's a link.

    Whilst this is obviously a monumental community feat, and I would like to offer my thanks to all those who have contributed over the years, I feel it is sadly lacking howtos for ablution and girlfriend. Oh, and a securing-windows one for Bill too. Happy Birthday LDP!

    1. Re:Some people my not know... by arcanumas · · Score: 1, Informative

      Thank you for providing a third link the EXACT same location as in the article. Because you are right. There ARE people who may be too stupid to see 3 links in the article pointing to tldp.org .
      Then again there are the other kind. The Karma whoring one. Thanks again for those weird obfuscated links.

      --
      Slashdot Sig. version 0.1alpha. Use at your own risk.
  2. You don't need to RTFM by trikberg · · Score: 2, Informative

    The great philosopher dm brings you the best way to get help with Linux.

    --
    This post is free (as in cheese in a mousetrap).
  3. pretty poor documentation by essdodson · · Score: 2, Informative

    The documentation is pretty poor. I think if Linux were a more organized and coherent community higher quality documentation would surface.

    Until then, you can always use FreeBSD. The documentation requires you have a basic level of clue, however it's exceptionally nice documentation for the most part.

    --
    scott
  4. Re:Flaimbait by Bob+Uhl · · Score: 3, Informative

    Well, then spend some time to contribute more up-to-date docs! It's not that hard, just simple writing. If outdated docs are your itch, scratch 'em by writing new ones. This is free software, after all, and it's produced by all of us.

  5. Re:Ten years of adolescence... by Guylhem · · Score: 2, Informative

    We do have a formal review process, and sometimes we have to pull the plug on documents containing factual erreors. The review process is handled by volunteers and coordinated by Tabatha - feel free to join them.

    If you find some documents are missing, why don't you take one yourself? You certainly have more free time to give to the LDP than most authors who maintain 4 documents each.

  6. Re:Flaimbait by lupercalia · · Score: 3, Informative

    The LDP docs are updated all the time. This list shows how many HOWTOs were updated recently -- about one per day on average.

    Some of the docs do apply to old versions of Linux, but there are lots of people still using 2.2 kernels out there. Just check the revision date of any document before you use it, and you should get an idea of whether it will apply to a recent distribution.

    HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LDP!!!

  7. Re:Linux Documentation by fred87 · · Score: 2, Informative

    "man man2html" :) I have an html version of all the manpages on my apache webserver, much more readable