Linux administration

Find Linux Documentation on the Internet

Nguyen Hai Chau
Vietnam National University

The Linux Documentation Project, or LDP, promotes and develops Linux documentation
http://www.linuxdoc.org/
- Many mirrors
- http://www.mirror.ac.uk/sites/www.linuxdoc.org/
- http://www.doc-linux.co.uk/LDP/
The LDP is “working on developing free, high quality documentation for the GNU/Linux operating system”
“The overall goal of the LDP is to collaborate in all of the issues of Linux documentation”

A HOWTO is a document describe how to do something
HOWTOs cover a wide range of topics
- General overviews of topic areas, such as Printing-HOWTO
- Detailed instruction of very specific tasks, such as Bash-Prompt-HOWTO
- Information for particular groups of users, such as Belgian-HOWTO
Various authors
Varying quality

HOWTOs are written in a special mark-up language which enables them easily to be produced in several formats:
- HTML
- Plain text
- PostScript
- PDF ('Acrobat')
Some formats may be installed in /usr/share/doc/HOWTOs/
They are all on the LDP website:
- Good: They are all clearly dated, so you can see how recent their advice is
- Bad: A number of them haven't been updated for several years

Unsurprisingly, particular programs often have their own web presence:
- Less: http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less/
- The Gimp: http://www.gimp.org/
Linux distributions also have their own websites:
- Debian: http://www.uk.debian.org/
- Red Hat: http://www.redhat.com/
- SuSE: http://www.suse.co.uk/
- Mandrake: http://www.linux-mandrake.com/
May have specific mailing lists or web-based forums

There are many usenet newsgroups related to Linux
The international groups are divided by topic:
- comp.os.linux.setup
- comp.os.linux.help
- comp.os.linux.hardware
Search the archives for answers to questions:
- http://groups.google.co.uk/advanced_group_search
- Formerly DejaNews, or just Deja, but now hosted by Google
- May find the answer much faster
- It irritates people to encounter well-answered questions being asked many times
Not always the most friendly places for beginners

There have been several attempts to document questions frequently asked about Linux, with their answers
Many newsgroups have their own FAQs:
- http://www.faqs.org/faqs/by-newsgroup/
The LDP have a frequently-updated Linux FAQ:
- http://www.linuxdoc.org/FAQ/Linux-FAQ/
Again, search these before asking for help.

More localized forums are often friendlier
UK newsgroup:
- news:uk.comp.os.linux
- http://www.ucolfaq.lug.org.uk/
UK Linux users mailing lists:
- http://www.ukuug.org/sigs/linux/newsgroups.shtml
Many areas have their own Linux user groups
- http://www.lug.org.uk/lugs/
- Meetings
- Local mailing lists