From: mdw@theory.TC.Cornell.EDU (Matt Welsh) Subject: Re: Importance of the DOC project Date: 7 Apr 1993 00:25:12 GMT
In article <1ps18t$p81@nz12.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de> ig25@fg30.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de (Thomas Koenig) writes:
>I think the DOC project is of supreme importance to Linux right now.
Why thank you. I assume the check is in the mail. :)
(Just kidding Lars.)
>At the moment, I can honestly recommend Linux only to people who are
>quite familiar with the UNIX philosophy, which is obviously not a happy
>state of affairs.
I have to agree with you. However this will change soon. A pre-pre-alpha
version of the Linux Install Guide is being cooked over now. Sometime
Real Soon Now the book will be ready and a great burden on the Linux community
will be lifted. Once the User's and System Admin's guides are out then
we can safely rmgroup comp.os.linux. :)
However, some of your friend's questions can be answered by first reading
a book on UNIX to get the background and philosophy. Then it's not too hard
to hack around and figure out the Linux specific stuff. Also after reading
up on vanilla UNIX the Linux FAQ makes a lot more sense.
I think that's the one key problem with the Linux newbie community right now:
lack of basic information about UNIX. A lot of UNIX newbies are trying out
Linux and, honestly, are lost. That's to be expected--- UNIX is quite
difficult at first (compared to MS-DOS and Windows). What all Linux/UNIX
newbies need to do is go buy a good book on using/running UNIX (I suggest
books by O'Reilly and Associates for the good scoop) before even attempting
to dive into Linux.
Linux is not aimed for the UNIX newbie community. However UNIX newbies don't
need to remain UNIX newbies for long. Unfortunately the LDP can only do so
much about it. My Linux book assumes no UNIX experience, but does expect
the reader to go out and bone up with a good UNIX book once they finish
reading it. I don't want to reinvent the wheel and write a book on UNIX
for newbies. I want to get them started and then make it possible to go
out and read another UNIX book, keeping the Linux specifics in mind.
mdw
-- Matt Welsh, mdw@tc.cornell.edu "I met a girl named Sandoz..."