On Fri, 19 Feb 1999, Richard Adams wrote:
>According to Deirdre Saoirse: While burning my CPU.
>>
>> On Fri, 19 Feb 1999, Richard Adams wrote:
>>
>> > According to Deirdre Saoirse: While burning my CPU.
>>
>> > Actualy if i may say so without showing any disrespect, 90% of questions
>> > would be answered IF the asker read the flipping manuals, as per RTFM.
>>
>> Yes, but WHICH manual? That's a question that often frustrates a newbie. I
>> can't blame someone for not knowing what something is called (like IP
>> masquerading) and then asking about it.
>
>That question is quite easy to find an answer to, in ALL linux distro's,
>there is a complete directory absolutly full of documentation files, namely
>/usr/doc, there is further more the "info" system (when installed) and then
>the man pages, aside all that there are normaly README files in archives
>like the one you picked as an example.
The average users of Dos95 or Mac have absolutely no knowledge of Unix
or Unix-like operating systems. It's going to take them a while to
figure out that "dir" does not list a directory. It's going to take
them even longer to find out where /usr/doc is. Then once they find it,
they'll spend inordinate amounts of time figuring out how to display
it. It matters not whether there are gigabytes of essential, useful and
lucid information in /usr/doc if the new user can't find it.
New users will appreciate easy-to-find and understand documentation
that will give them enough to get started with. Whether this
information is in the form of a "readme" file in their home directory,
or a two page pamphlet in their distribution's box matters not.
David Johnson
