Topic: E-smith 'How To' guides

[Darrell]

I feel it would be very beneficial to all e-smith users if there was an area on the e-smith web site for posting searchable 'How To' guides.  I mean we use the forums for posting questions and getting help with implementing solutions however the forums tend to be very technically specific and often don't provide the complete answer as a good deal of Linux knowledge is assumed.  Once the solution is figured out it would be great if the entire process could be written out in detail, from start to finish, in a document and posted in a 'How To' section.

The goal of the 'How To' section should be to write a document that someone with limited Linux knowledge would be able to follow step-by-step to implement the solution in question.

I suppose I could have put this on the 'Wish List' but since the answers tend to come from the Advanced Forum users I thought everyone here would be better suited to comment.

So, any comments or suggestions?

[Brandon Friedman]

Hi

I also think it's a good idea - firstly we need to know from the e-smith users, what custom software, add-ons etc they have installed on their machine?

Then we need the 'How-tos' from them?

Regards
Brandon

[Jeff Williams]

Hey guys I am new to this but gee I could do with this now comming from Windows NT.

I will give any help even test the install if needed.

Regards

Jeff

[Charlie Brady]

Brandon Friedman wrote:

> I also think it's a good idea - firstly we need to know from
> the e-smith users, what custom software, add-ons etc they have
> installed on their machine?

I should remind people out there that any modifications which have been made to the e-smith software which have been passed on to others (customers, friends, etc) must be made publicly available - this is a consequence of the license under which the software is made available, the GPL.

And we'd also like you to know that e-smith is happy to provide ftp space on the ftp.e-smith.org ftp server for any contributions that people have available.

Regards

Charlie

[Darrell]

Charlie Brady wrote:

> I should remind people out there that any modifications which
> have been made to the e-smith software which have been passed
> on to others (customers, friends, etc) must be made publicly
> available - this is a consequence of the license under which
> the software is made available, the GPL.
>
> And we'd also like you to know that e-smith is happy to provide
> ftp space on the ftp.e-smith.org ftp server for any
> contributions that people have available.
>
> Regards
>
> Charlie

Charlie, what would be the preferred method for someone to submit a 'How To' document and any associated files?  Also, once submitted, where would the document be hosted for others to review?  As always with support documents, ongoing updates and changes may need to be made.  One key for this area to work is we should only have one 'how to' per topic.  I can see this area would benefit very much if it was moderated by e-smith with submissions coming from both e-smith and the user base.  It would also be a benefit if the author of a document was able to revise and update it directly as needed.

Regards,

Darrell

[Jeff Williams]

As a newbie to e-smith and linux I am creating documentation as I go.  I am happy to share this everyone and make life easy for others.  This is a new learning curve since 7 years ago when I used SCO zenix/unix.  Remembering unix commands is hard now.  

I am working on a document to setup e-smith as a Domain Server for use in a Windows network.  Information is a combination of info from the forums and what I have need to do.  

I am happy to be the tester of documentation for others.

Regards

Jeff

[Dan York]

Jeff & others on this thread,

> As a newbie to e-smith and linux I am creating documentation as I go.  I am
> happy to share this everyone and make life easy for others.  

Thanks for your interest in this and we'll take a look at how to
best host contributed documentation like this. Thanks... and stay
tuned.  I'll be back to you all as soon as we figure it out.

Thanks,
Dan

--
Dan York, Director of Training        dyork@e-smith.com
Ph: +1-613-751-4401  Mobile: +1-613-263-4312 Fax: +1-613-564-7739
e-smith, inc. 150 Metcalfe St., Suite 1500, Ottawa,ON K2P 1P1 Canada
http://www.e-smith.com/            open source, open mind

[Darrell]

Jeff Williams wrote:

> As a newbie to e-smith and linux I am creating documentation as
> I go.  I am happy to share this everyone and make life easy for
> others.  This is a new learning curve since 7 years ago when I
> used SCO zenix/unix.  Remembering unix commands is hard now.
>
> I am working on a document to setup e-smith as a Domain Server
> for use in a Windows network.  Information is a combination of
> info from the forums and what I have need to do.
>
> I am happy to be the tester of documentation for others.
>
> Regards
>
> Jeff

Hi Jeff, thanks for offering to be a tester.  I haven't had a reply from e-smith yet as to whether they want to get involved in hosting a 'How To' section.  I suppose I can always provide the web site space off of my site if they don't.  So, if they don't reply, when I get a moment I will set up http://netsourced.com/e-smith as a starting point and put some information on this page as to a preferred method for creating and uploading the 'how to' documents.

My initial thoughts are to create an HTML template and have everyone use this to submit the documents in html format with graphics and web links as needed.  Maybe just have people e-mail me their submissions for now.  I'll sort and place them in an index file for easy reviewing by users.

What do you think all?  Comments are welcomed.

Darrell

[Darrell]

Dan York wrote:

> Jeff & others on this thread,
>
> > As a newbie to e-smith and linux I am creating
> documentation as I go.  I am > happy to share this everyone
> and make life easy for others.
>
> Thanks for your interest in this and we'll take a look at how
> to best host contributed documentation like this. Thanks... and
> stay tuned.  I'll be back to you all as soon as we figure it
> out.
>
> Thanks, Dan
>
> -- Dan York, Director of Training        dyork@e-smith.com Ph:
> +1-613-751-4401  Mobile: +1-613-263-4312 Fax: +1-613-564-7739
> e-smith, inc. 150 Metcalfe St., Suite 1500, Ottawa,ON K2P 1P1
> Canada http://www.e-smith.com/            open source, open mind

Hi Dan,

I guess we were both posting at the same time so I missed your submission.  Thanks for looking into this Dan.  Let me know if there is anything I can do to assist.

Regards,

Darrell

[Dan York]

Darrell,

> Hi Jeff, thanks for offering to be a tester.  I haven't had a
> reply from e-smith yet as to whether they want to get involved
> in hosting a 'How To' section.

Well, it looks like our messages crossed in cyberspace.

The net of it is that we *are* interested in the matter. We
have been planning to put more documentation online,
including an online version of the manual and some other
documents we have.   We're just having some internal
discussions about how we can best incorporate community
feedback.  So yes, we'll get something up online soon!

> My initial thoughts are to create an HTML template and have everyone
> use this to submit the documents in html format with graphics and
> web links as needed.

We're using DocBook internally for the user manual, and
my preference would definitely be to use that as the format
(given that we can produce HTML easily *from* the DocBook,
as well as numerous other formats).  If people are not familiar
with DocBook, we can make some sample templates available.
If you can code HTML, coding DocBook is not that much more
difficult.

For those unfamiliar with DocBook, it is the format used by
the Linux Documentation Project and, at this point, pretty
much all the other Linux/open-source doc projects. More
info can be found at http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/

The LDP Author Guide is also a useful point to learn more:

  http://www.linuxdoc.org/LDP/LDP-Author-Guide/

Regards,
Dan