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wireless | 10 Apr 2009 17:45
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Handbook & autobuilds

Hello,

I was wondering if their is preliminary documentation on
the new (autobuilds) version of the handbook. Looking here:

http://gentoo.osuosl.org/releases/x86/autobuilds/20090401/

I see i486 tar files. This is EXCELLENT and will be the
basis of the old machine based install docs.

I have several systems to install from 586 firewalls
to a P4's. I'm willing to "vet" the current draft
of the handbook, or just make my own edit and send
it to whoever would like the input.

Also, I've built up several firewalls using old 586
systems and compact flash drives. I'm willing to
document this too and let the 'powers' figure out
where the doc should go.  The firewalls will
have a single 4 gb CF drive.

I'm also going to build up a DNS server, that
has both a 4gb CF drive, for the main OS and
an old (non-critical) ide drive to mount
/tmp and other write-verbose files, so as to extend
the life of the CF drive, by moving the most
not critical, write-centric, files to the
ide HD.

I believe these endeavors will be very useful
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AllenJB | 27 Apr 2009 12:22
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Handbooks / Autobuilds: What needs to be done?

Hi all,

Is there a breakdown of tasks for updating the handbooks for autobuilds? 
I looked at bug #260403 but it doesn't seem to say what actually needs 
to be done (I also browsed through the other open docs bugs and there's 
barely anything related to the user handbook there).

AllenJB
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Josh Saddler | 30 Apr 2009 03:14
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Re: Handbooks / Autobuilds: What needs to be done?

AllenJB wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Is there a breakdown of tasks for updating the handbooks for autobuilds?
> I looked at bug #260403 but it doesn't seem to say what actually needs
> to be done (I also browsed through the other open docs bugs and there's
> barely anything related to the user handbook there).

This is something that I've brought up on this list all the way back at
the beginning of March[1]. Someone else raised the issue earlier this
month[2].

As of right now, no one's bothered to reply on the list, nor respond
when I jump on to our IRC channel.

For the record, I have updated /main/en/where.xml for bug 266464[3].

But as I'm the only one doing any work these days, I have no idea when
the rest might be completed. As far as I know I'm the only one to even
start to consider all the things that need to be changed.

A few off the top of my head:

1. Keys in handbook-$arch.xml files
- No longer need paths to point releases. Update paths to install media
on the mirrors.
- Kernel versions will change fairly rapidly with the autobuilds, even
though the stages only have stable kernels.
- Keep monitoring ISO/stage size, or else discard keeping this
information, which is already present in /main/en/where.xml. I'm in
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Ben de Groot | 30 Apr 2009 16:52
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Re: Handbooks / Autobuilds: What needs to be done?

Josh Saddler wrote:
> AllenJB wrote:
>> Is there a breakdown of tasks for updating the handbooks for autobuilds?
> 
> This is something that I've brought up on this list all the way back at
> the beginning of March[1]. 
> 
> As of right now, no one's bothered to reply on the list, nor respond
> when I jump on to our IRC channel.
> 
> But as I'm the only one doing any work these days, I have no idea when
> the rest might be completed. As far as I know I'm the only one to even
> start to consider all the things that need to be changed.
> 
> [several points...] That's it for now, I guess.

To me this sounds like an issue that needs to be brought to the
attention of the council. Having good documentation has always been one
of the strengths of Gentoo. It would be sad to see that wither away
because of lack of manpower or lack of interest. Maybe we need to do
some targeted recruiting for the documentation team.

Cheers,
--

-- 
Ben de Groot
Gentoo Linux developer (qt, media, lxde, desktop-misc)
Gentoo Linux Release Engineering PR liaison
______________________________________________________
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Nathan Zachary | 30 Apr 2009 17:29
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Re: Handbooks / Autobuilds: What needs to be done?

Ben de Groot wrote:
> Josh Saddler wrote:
>   
>> AllenJB wrote:
>>     
>>> Is there a breakdown of tasks for updating the handbooks for autobuilds?
>>>       
>> This is something that I've brought up on this list all the way back at
>> the beginning of March[1]. 
>>
>> As of right now, no one's bothered to reply on the list, nor respond
>> when I jump on to our IRC channel.
>>
>> But as I'm the only one doing any work these days, I have no idea when
>> the rest might be completed. As far as I know I'm the only one to even
>> start to consider all the things that need to be changed.
>>
>> [several points...] That's it for now, I guess.
>>     
>
> To me this sounds like an issue that needs to be brought to the
> attention of the council. Having good documentation has always been one
> of the strengths of Gentoo. It would be sad to see that wither away
> because of lack of manpower or lack of interest. Maybe we need to do
> some targeted recruiting for the documentation team.
>
> Cheers,
>   
I have contributed a document to the documentation team.  While it is 
unrelated to the autobuilds and the handbook, it shows interest in the
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Josh Saddler | 30 Apr 2009 22:29
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Re: Handbooks / Autobuilds: What needs to be done?

Nathan Zachary wrote:
> Ben de Groot wrote:
>> To me this sounds like an issue that needs to be brought to the
>> attention of the council. Having good documentation has always been one
>> of the strengths of Gentoo. It would be sad to see that wither away
>> because of lack of manpower or lack of interest. Maybe we need to do
>> some targeted recruiting for the documentation team.

Eh, the council is a governing body for technical issues. They're all
about setting policy for things like Portage and ebuilds. I'm not sure
that they need to be bothered by what's going on in the GDP.

> I have contributed a document to the documentation team.

* Which, by the way, I'm examining today. :)

> Two people actively working on documents is not enough either, but it
> will hopefully offset some of the labour.  I don't think that the team
> would have any trouble finding volunteers to help out with editing, and
> that an announcement should be made on the forum.

Editing, or continual maintainance, is generally not a problem, assuming
that any bugs filed aren't for obscure subjects of which no one has any
knowledge. With the exception of big projects like updating all our docs
for OpenRC/Baselayout-2, the handbooks for autobuilds, or the Xorg guide
for xserver 1.5, even one person (me) can generally keep up with
day-to-day maintenance.

Where we really need help is in writing and maintaining *new*
documentation. Nate's Openbox draft is just the sort of thing that we need.
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Joseph Jezak | 30 Apr 2009 22:45
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Re: Handbooks / Autobuilds: What needs to be done?

I'll start updating the PowerPC handbooks since it looks like we've got
the auto build working now. I'd still like to switch our handbook to the
combined ppc64/ppc32 handbook that I wrote around the time we did the
last release. I think the only thing holding that back before was the
different names for the ISOs and I don't think that's still a problem.

Thanks!
-Joe
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Josh Saddler | 30 Apr 2009 22:54
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Re: Handbooks / Autobuilds: What needs to be done?

Joseph Jezak wrote:
> I'll start updating the PowerPC handbooks since it looks like we've got
> the auto build working now. I'd still like to switch our handbook to the
> combined ppc64/ppc32 handbook that I wrote around the time we did the
> last release. I think the only thing holding that back before was the
> different names for the ISOs and I don't think that's still a problem.

Thanks, Joe!
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Nathan Zachary | 30 Apr 2009 23:07
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Re: Handbooks / Autobuilds: What needs to be done?

Josh Saddler wrote:
> Nathan Zachary wrote:
>   
>> Ben de Groot wrote:
>>     
>>> To me this sounds like an issue that needs to be brought to the
>>> attention of the council. Having good documentation has always been one
>>> of the strengths of Gentoo. It would be sad to see that wither away
>>> because of lack of manpower or lack of interest. Maybe we need to do
>>> some targeted recruiting for the documentation team.
>>>       
>
> Eh, the council is a governing body for technical issues. They're all
> about setting policy for things like Portage and ebuilds. I'm not sure
> that they need to be bothered by what's going on in the GDP.
>
>   
>> I have contributed a document to the documentation team.
>>     
>
> * Which, by the way, I'm examining today. :)
>
>   
>> Two people actively working on documents is not enough either, but it
>> will hopefully offset some of the labour.  I don't think that the team
>> would have any trouble finding volunteers to help out with editing, and
>> that an announcement should be made on the forum.
>>     
>
> Editing, or continual maintainance, is generally not a problem, assuming
(Continue reading)

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Josh Saddler | 1 May 2009 00:27
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Re: Handbooks / Autobuilds: What needs to be done?

Nathan Zachary wrote:
 > I'm also thinking about doing some documentation on LXDE, and PekWM as
> well.  If there is anything in particular that needs documentation, I'd
> be happy to look into the issues, even if I don't have previous
> knowledge or experience.  I have several test machines on which I can
> try new configurations. :)

New DE stuff is always good, but right now the stuff that needs
documentation is what's in our bugzilla. :)

In particular, there are some CUPS and printing-related bugs that no
one's touched because none of us has the expertise on the subject.
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