TLDP Weekly News

TLDP Weekly News

Issue Number : 9
Publication Date : 2003-06-17
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Table of Contents
1. History of The LDP
2. New documents
    2.1. Proposed new documents
    2.2. Submitted for review
   
   
3. Updates
    3.1. HOWTOs
    3.2. Guides
    3.3. FAQs
   
   
4. Happenings in the LDP world
    4.1. Italian LDP effort
    4.2. Updating LDP XSLT stylesheets
    4.3. HTML to DocBook equivalents
    4.4. Update on Lampadas
   
   
5. Feedback and Contributions

1. History of The LDP

let us see what we can find about 10 years of writing docs by volunteers.

As Matt Welsh, one of the co-founders, puts it: "The history of the LDP is a
pretty murky memory these days." It started in 1992, before the World Wide
Web existed - hard to imagine how we did without HTML, but in those days
almost everything was FTP and Usenet, and dial-in to a BBS most likely. In
the beginning, most of the documentation was in one big file, split up in
sections, called the Linux FAQ. But as Linux capabilities grew, it was no
longer possible for one person to maintain it, and pretty soon not even for
several people to manage the job. Thus the HOWTOs were born, each describing
a part of the original big chunk of information, an easily extendible system
that allowed for many authors to contribute their part in their area of
specialization.

That effort lead to the use of SGML, allowing for fast generation of all
sorts of output formats, including HTML, from one source file or set of
files. The first tests were conducted at Sunsite (a famous server machine at
the University of North Carolina), which was the first web site offering
information about Linux. Also when you wanted to download Linux software,
sunsite.unc.edu was the place to go. It still contains some kernel archives -
probably by accident, there are also a lot of empty directories these days.

Before the crash last month I was able to find, via FTP, a document referring
to two maintainers of the LDP as it was ran by the end of 1994 at UNC. It
pointed to Jon Magid and a mysterious Erik with no last name, who was still
at Sunsite in 1996. Will his last name be revealed in the next edition? Check
it out next week!
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2. New documents

2.1. Proposed new documents

  * Sven Linker [http://lists.tldp.org/index.cgi?1:mss:4596:200306:
    giaipgnmlbppaelhfenf] offered to translate the Wake-on-LAN-HOWTO into
    German, and wanted to know if anybody is already doing this.
   

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2.2. Submitted for review

  * Emma Jane Hogbin is working on a [http://xtrinsic.com/geek/articles/
    acpi.phtml] ACPI HOWTO and is interested in receiving feedback.
   
  * Daniel Nofftz submitted an [http://lists.tldp.org/index.cgi?5:mss:5127:
    200306:ocohcdbfahehmdnmmika] Athlon-Powersaving HOWTO, which is ready for
    comments.
   

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3. Updates

3.1. HOWTOs

  * We received the [http://tldp.org/HOWTO/CSPM-HOWTO/] Complete System
    Performance Monitor HOWTO v2.0, by Chris Lorenz.
   
  * Werner Heuser sent in v3.6 of his [http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Infrared-HOWTO/]
    Linux Infrared HOWTO.
   
  * Vivek Venugopalan fixed some dead links in the text of his [http://
    tldp.org/REF/CVS-BestPractices/html/] CVS Best Practices to update it to
    v0.6, worth a read if you're using our TLDP CVS system or when setting up
    your own.
   

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3.2. Guides

  * Machtelt Garrels sent in the v1.5 of the Introduction to Linux - A Hands
    on Guide.
   

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3.3. FAQs

  * David Merrill submitted the reorganized [http://tldp.org/FAQ/Linux-FAQ/]
    Linux FAQ now at v2.1.
   

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4. Happenings in the LDP world

4.1. Italian LDP effort

They have been around for a while, but now they've officially joined the LDP:
A warm welcome please, for our Italian colleagues from [http://
ildp.pluto.linux.it/] ILDP and the Pluto Linux User Group!
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4.2. Updating LDP XSLT stylesheets

  Dan York sent in a message to the <docbook@en.tldp.org> list inviting
volunteers for testing and updating the LDP XSLT stylesheets with the latest
version (1.16.2) of the DocBook stylesheets. The LDP stylesheets are based on
version 1.44, which apparently do not work, because, the way documentation in
the standard stylesheets is done has changed. If you are interested in doing
this, you might like to help David Horton who has [http://lists.tldp.org/
index.cgi?2:mss:423:200306:mllcepbomdkmklcadjai] volunteered to do this.
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4.3. HTML to DocBook equivalents

  If you have just started using DocBook and you are looking for DocBook
equivalents of HTML tags, Martin A. Brown's short help with examples should
be useful. The DocBook tags are of-course available from [http://
www.oasis-open.org/docbook/documentation/reference/html/docbook.html]
DocBook: The Definitive Guide.
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4.4. Update on Lampadas

  David Merrill sent in a mail inviting an IRC discussion on [http://
www.lampadas.org/] Lampadas for discussing (1) [http://www.plone.org/] Plone
work, (2) a possible resurrection of the old Lampadas mod_python code but
with a much more limited scope and (3) any other concerns you have. David
Lawyer was of the opinion that new volunteers could be of help with Lampadas
provided they done some programming in the past. Elsewhere, to David
Merrill's comment that he would like to modify the CMF to use a plugin system
for raw content, Nicolas Chauvat [http://lists.tldp.org/index.cgi?1:mss:4595:
200306:nibfaikpkkpacdojonbm] said that David Merrill should not try doing it
on his own but needs co-ordination, because, plone has OpenOffice support and
was progressing at a very fast pace.
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5. Feedback and Contributions

Please help us create this weekly newsletter. Seen a site putting in a story
with a link to the LDP? Completed the translation of any HOWTO? Know of any
articles about the LDP published in newspapers or magazines? You can update
us by sending in links and information at <feedback@en.tldp.org>.

LDP Weekly News is edited by Machtelt Garrels, Torsten Schlabach and Y
Giridhar Appaji Nag with help from several other people.