"tony K." wrote:
> At 07:21 12-03-01 -0500 some list member(s) wrote:
> >> My 2 cents worth as well. I am using cups with Mandrake 7.2/Samba 2.07. It
> >works
> >> great. I have no idea how I got it to work, it just works.
> >
> >Ah, there is the problem. Anything is great when it works. Problem is when
> >it does not work and figuring out "what" you have to do...
>
> The problem is not inadequate software. The problem is inadequate
> documentation.
>
> Allow me to elaborate:
> The documentation is usually written by the software developer.
> He - as a general rule - just does not understand that the user
> is operating in different ~operational~ and ~previous knowledge~
> context. It is unfortunate that many a hard day's coding work
> has been totally wasted by documentation which lacks
> nothing but an intoductionary "Concepts and Facilities"
> chapter.
>
> CUPS is no exception.
>
> tk
>
> Anthony K. Transportation Systems - no HTML mail please.
My Observations and Experience:
Alright, I started this ball rolling so I feel obliged to at least add my
observation regarding the above. I think Tony has a very valid point concerning
the sparseness of the documentation available to get you up an running with
Linux/Cups or whatever. I was new to Linux as of January and I decided to take
the plunge. I knew it wouldn't be easy, but I was willing to "pay the price" to
learn. The Linux movement is one of the greatest things taking place in
technology today. The OS is elegant and flexible and its capabilities are
unmatched. That, in and of itself, is Linux's double edge sword.
When I decided to take the Linux plunge, I was of course new to Linux. However, I
was far from new to the computer world. I was involved in sewing JSC's lan
together in Houston during the late 80's early 90's starting on 8086 machines,
sperry Univax, etc. I have baby sat 750K lines of fortran assent simulation
software (remember common blocks), programmed in assembly, C, Fortran, Ada, etc..
I have built PC's and written drivers starting with 286's when IBM DOS, PC DOS
and MS DOS were arguing over who would win. Windows 286 - ME, NT, etc. So how
much different could Linux be to make friends with?
A LOT! Why? Because with just about everything else above you could pick up a
relatively good manual or reference guide and have a reasonably good roadmap for
the journey. Not so with Linux -- not a fault with Linux -- just not so with
Linux. The documentation that exists for Linux is scattered across the Linux
World in a million different places, largely due to the number of core components
of a Linux distribution being developed and maintained in at least that many
different places as well. There are numerous basic Linux manuals available,
however, none are relatively comprehensive as far a providing a good roadmap to
get you through the maze. Most of the time spent learning
Linux/Samba/Apache/DNS/Bind/DHCP/Sendmail/etc..(or at least getting it to work)
is spent searching for the right Man page/How-To/Web site/Mailing List/etc...
that has at least most of the information you are looking for. I say most,
because no matter where you find the documentation, you invariably end up back at
your favorite mailing list to find out "Oh, in addition to what the Man
page/How-To and Web site said, you also have to do X,Y and Z." Again, this isn't
a fault of Linux, rather it is simply a side effect of the open source concept
and business model.
How to solve this? Hmm - sounds like opportunity.
There is no doubt that a comprehensive source of information can be distilled
from the above sources. I mean, I got my net up and running, waded through the
murky water, [I still haven't solved that pesky xntp/UTC/localtime/samba
timeserver problem ;- ) ] and while I'm not entirely clear how I did it, it
works, my logs are clean. The most frustrating part, going back to Tony's
premise, was that the simplest problems took days to solve because there was no,
or incomplete, documentation regarding the specific config or problem I was
dealing with or there was nothing to point you to where the documentation was
(save and except Google or whatever your favorite search is).
Which brings me to my point (Thank God they say). Linux has reached the
threshhold of going mainstream. Not only for corporate user with fat IT budgets,
but for the small office masses as well. I think I have seen several threads from
the list-admins acknowlegding that "We victims of our own success." (commenting
on the massive increase of posting from new users seeking answers) The comment is
perfectly true and all I can say is "Keep up the great work guys -- your doing
one hell of a great job!" Linux is a great community with a lot of great people.
Just like any society, its strength is in its numbers.
If Linux is going to continue making headway increasing its market acceptance, a
relatively comprehensive documentation system is a must. It must be somewhere
where it can be found. LDP has started, and most of the individual distros and
major component applications have their collection of knowledge, but a large part
of it isn't in readily usable (or understandable) form for someone who is
relatively new, and who needs the roadmap the most. Just a look into the /usr/doc
directory of the current distros can be terrifying to say the least. For the
masses to transition to Linux, it can't take 3 days of downtime to figure out
where to look to begin to find out why the box isn't working.
The answer -- Well that's the $24K question. How do you create a relatively
comprehensive reference for a widely distributed open source project that is
constantly changing? Surely, there must be a little VC left even after the market
has tumbled that could fund the development of such a project. I'll leave it open
for more discussion and suggestions and I will go back to practicing law which is
an equally nebulous and poorly documented journey. At least now I have a server
and net for my office that is utterly amazing to say the least. Oh, and one more
observation, except for the electrical storm and associated power outage, not one
reboot on the server has been required!
