Re: [tlug] State of "Linux" documentation [C&C]

[Edward Middleton <emiddleton@example.com>]

Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
> Jonathan Byrne writes:
>
>  > In my view, those are all different operating systems that share a common
>  > kernel (more or less; good luck with dropping a Red Hat kernel into a
>  > Debian system) and userland (more or less), that run - for the most part
>  > - common windowing environments or full desktop environments.
>
> I think it's defeatist to call those different operating systems, just
> as it's outright silly to say that a Hummer and a Toyota Yaris are
> "different transportation systems".  I think it is indeed sad that (up
> to the income and preferences of the driver) the Hummer and the Yaris
> are both "cars" sharing the same UI, but we're lightyears away from
> being able to say the same thing about open source OSes, which share
> far more parts than the cars do, but somehow manage to totally miss
> the point of that commonality.
>   

But then to a mechanic a Hummers manual isn't going to help you much 
working on a Toyota Yaris.  I guess if you take this analogy further the 
automatic car interface would be your gnome/kde gui, which is pretty 
much distribution natural, except when a distribution decides to  merge 
a left hand drive with a right hand drive to get the best of both ;)

>  > Nobody's wringing their hands or the fact that a book on Solaris
>  > might not be all that useful to a person using HPUX.
>
> Since when have they stopped distributing manuals as part of the
> package, though?  You buy Solaris, you get a pretty good book.
>   

We didn't, unless you count the online documentation.  Looking at the 
Sun site, things appear to have changed[1]


Edward


1. http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/get.jsp