The Linux Documentation Project Turns 10

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."

Comments

People wonder...

[Chris_Stankowitz]

why linux can still be a great alternative for windows user. There TDLP equivelnt in the M$ world consist of Clippy!

Of course one must be willing to RTF-how-to.

So on this the 10th anniversary of the How-to, here is a little "up-yours-clippy" :)~

Re:People wonder...

[Shakrai]

However, since it's "M$", you refuse to even look and discover that, hey, their documentation is actually pretty damn good.

The documentation might be. But the community support (in my experience -- mod me down if you want) sucks. In my time, I've posted several questions to the MS newsgroups (mainly about Terminal Services). Similar questions for Linux would have received several replies (ranging from RTFM to a step by step instruction of what I needed to do) within a few minutes. Days later, I had no answer from anyone (MS or otherwise) as to if what I needed to do was even possible or not! And my question was hardly all that complicated... "Is there a way to log the IP address of PCs connecting to the Terminal Server without using third-party software?" Even google couldn't find the answer for me.

Given the choice, I'd take Linux and it's community anyday over MS's community or "paid" support. Unfortunately, I don't have that choice, because of MSs monopoly.

I remember...

[Shakrai]

I remember using the early HOWTOs to compile my first Linux kernel (back in the days when your distro didn't come with a one-size-fits-all), setup my first PPP connection for my 14.4 Internet connection.

Many thanks to all those who have contributed over the years. The community is in your debt.

10 Years of putting the F in RTFM!

[stratjakt]

Now blow out your candles and update your howtos damnit!