From: Jacek Radajewski <jacek@usq.edu.au>
To: "'hartr@redhat.com'" <hartr@redhat.com>, extreme-linux@acl.lanl.gov,
Subject: PROPOSAL : Beowulf Dumentation Project
Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 13:02:41 +1000

I think that a book is a very good idea, but the main problem with
technical books is the fact that they get very quickly out of date.  
Please don't get me wrong.  I do acknowledge the fact that there is a
need for a text book/reference type book, but to keep up with the ever
changing technologies (e.g. new versions of RH Linux) there is also a
need for HOWTO type of documentation. 
As some of you know, I have been writing  Beowulf HOWTO together with
Douglas Edline, trying to document the design and building process
Beowulf clusters.  One of the things I discovered is the complexity of
writing a document which covers everything.  For example I have been
administering various Linux servers, computer laboratories and clusters,
but have very little experience with writing parallel code.   I think
that there is a need for complete set of Beowulf HOWTOs covering
everything from A to Z.

I propose Beowulf Documentation Project (BDP) which will be a set of
HOWTOs which will cover everthing from the choice of hardware all the
way to writing parallel applications.  The following is my
recommendation for the first few HOWTOs :

1.	Beowulf HOWTO  - Introduction to Beowulf, definitions of terms,
hostory, links to other HOWTOs etc
2.	Beowulf Architecture Design HOWTO - Douglas, I think most of
your stuff from the existing HOWTO should be here.
3.	Beowulf  Parallel Programming - PVM, MPI, NAG Fortran etc etc
withing Beowulf architectures
4.	Beowulf Administration HOWTO - most of the stuff I've already
written would probably go here.

Possibly many more.

I think BDP group should be formed, and include all people who are
interested in writing some documentation.  Each document could be put
together by more than one person.  I would like to work closely with Red
Hat as without any doubt they have the most commonly used Linux
distribution, and as far as I understand, the only company which has a
distribution specific for parallel processing (RHL extreme CD).

Please comment.

Regards

Jacek Radajewski

Network Manager
Distance Education Centre 
University of Southern Queensland
Australia

		-----Original Message-----
		From:	hartr@redhat.com [mailto:hartr@redhat.com]
		Sent:	Saturday, June 13, 1998 2:10 AM
		To:	extreme-linux@acl.lanl.gov;
beowulf@cesdis1.gsfc.nasa.gov
		Subject:	Beowulf documentation

		Hi

		Whilst we at Red Hat realise that parallel computing is
not (yet) for
		the masses, we can see from the interest in the Extreme
Linux product
		that there is broader than expected interest in the
technology.

		Whilst we also know that there is a growing amount of
documentation
		being written, it seems to us that there is a need for a
formal
		documentation effort to make this technology more
approachable to
		potential users.

		The problem with this is that building and running
clusters/compute
		farms is more interesting than documentaing how to do
this (and people
		have limited time anyway).

		So - Red Hat software would like to offer an idea for
consideration:-

		   1) People who know about Beowulf/Extreme would be
more likely to
		      write documentation if they had the prospect of
being paid for the
		      effort.

		   2) Red Hat believes that a book on this technology
would be a
		      marketable item.

		   Consequently, Red Hat would like to actively
encourage one or more
		   people to develop a proposal for a book on Linux
clusters that Red
		   Hat would publish.

		It is our intention that the text of such a book would
be freely
		distributable (so it could be placed on web sites, put
on CDs, printed
		elsewhere etc) and we are developing an appropriate
documentation
		licence to cover this.

		If there are people (individually or severally) who are
interested in
		working on such a book, please could you get in touch
with me by
		*personal* email?

		Many thanks,

		-- 

		Robert Hart
hartr@redhat.com
		Red Hat Software Inc.		Phone: +1-919-547-0012
Fax: +1-919-547-0024
		4201 Research Commons Suite 100, 79 TW Alexander Dr.,
Research Triangle Park,
					NC 27709, USA