Book: LPI Linux Certification in a Nutshell Section: Chapter 6. Documentation (Topic 1.8)
### 6.2 Objective 2: Find Linux Documentation on the Internet No doubt you've heard media reports regarding the genesis of Linux from a bunch of hackers, the profits of the major distributions, high-profile corporate relationships with Linux, and Linux as a Wall Street darling. It is well known that coders around the world are contributing to the Linux code base. Rarely mentioned, however, are the many dedicated writers working in the public domain to make sure that Linux is as well understood as it is stable. Most of the people who contribute to the LDP do so on their own time, providing information learned from their own experiences. In most cases, the people who write for the LDP provide their names and email addresses so you can contact them with questions that remain unanswered. These writers are partially responsible for the widespread growth of Linux, because they make it understandable to individuals through documentation efforts not usually seen with commercial software. #### 6.2.1 The Linux Documentation Project Most of the documentation in /usr/doc and elsewhere on a Linux system is part of an organized approach to system documentation. The Linux Documentation Project, or LDP, is a loosely knit team of writers, proofreaders, and editors who work together to create the definitive set of documentation for Linux. The main web site can be found at http://www.linuxdoc.org/ and at many mirror sites throughout the world. The LDP contains a collection of freely contributed documents. Like Linux, all of the LDP's content may be freely distributed, copied, and even published for a fee without royalties to authors or to the LDP. Documents that are contributed to the LDP can be licensed a variety of ways. The LDP offers its own licensing terms, but authors aren't tied to using it. Some have opted to write their own license, while others have published their work under the GNU Public License (GPL). The Free Software Foundation has recently produced the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL), which may become a standard for many of the LDP content. The scope of the LDP is broad, ranging from online documents such as manpages to complete books in the form of reference guides. Some of the documents have software-style version numbers to assist with keeping up-to-date. Some of the more commonly used LDP reference guides include: Installation and Getting Started Guide The Linux Users' Guide The Linux System Administrators' Guide The Linux Network Administrators' Guide The Linux Programmer's Guide The Linux Kernel The Linux Kernel Hackers' Guide The Linux Kernel Module Programming Guide Some of these LDP guides have been published in traditional book form, with mixed success. Any publisher can produce its own edition of the text, but since content must be identical, competing publishers can find themselves in a discounting exercise. This, coupled with frequent and unadvertised modifications, makes printed versions of LDP documents a speculative business venture at best. #### 6.2.2 Usenet Newsgroups Usenet newsgroups can be thought of as a worldwide bulletin board service, with topics beyond your imagination (some of which probably belong beyond your imagination!). Unlike the older traditional proprietary bulletin board services you may remember from the early online days, Usenet is a distributed system, where messages are posted to a user's local news server in a newsgroup. The message is then copied among thousands of news servers worldwide that also serve that same newsgroup. Some newsgroups are moderated by a responsible party to keep the content from getting out of hand. Many are not monitored at all and are a free-for-all of opinions, ideas, and occasional off-topic color. You can access Usenet content through your Internet Service Provider's news server, if one is offered, or you may use a web-based news reading service, such as Google Groups (http://groups.google.com/). Regardless of the method you choose, the content is the same. Messages posted to newsgroups are stored on your news server and not on a remote origin server. This fact sometimes leads ISPs and corporations to abandon news services altogether, due to the sheer volume of information that gets relayed on a daily basis. If you use a Usenet news server, you will read messages with a news reader application. Many mail programs and web browsers contain news readers that communicate with Usenet news servers. Standalone GUI- and text-based news readers are also available. Since Usenet messages are plain text, they can be viewed by any paging or editing program. However, many news readers optionally group messages by thread, which makes following a particular discussion easy. Another benefit of using a news reader is that they manage read and unread message status, marking messages for later review, and so on. A search for Linux in the growing list of newsgroups yields hundreds of individual groups, far too many for any single individual to keep up with. There are groups specific to development, to distributions, and to hardware platforms. There are Linux advocacy groups (both pro and con) and security groups. Perhaps the most popular are those under the comp.os hierarchy, which are moderated by a person who filters incoming messages before sending them out to subscribers. Some Linux-related newsgroups you should follow include: comp.os.linux A general discussion on Linux comp.os.linux.advocacy A less technical discussion of Linux, mainly by enthusiastic supporters comp.os.linux.development A Linux-related software development discussion comp.os.linux.announce Announcements from vendors, programmers, and so on comp.os.linux.hardware A discussion on hardware issues specific to Linux comp.os.linux.answers A Q&A forum comp.os.linux.networking Internetworking discussion, with such topics as TCP/IP, the Internet, etc. comp.os.linux.x A discussion on the X Window System Subscribing to one or more of these groups for at least a few weeks will give you a good feel for the type of communication that goes on and how useful they may be to you. ##### 6.2.2.1 Newsgroup archives Given the explosive growth of the Usenet service, many people turn to newsgroup archives on the Internet rather than watch specific groups on a daily basis. Many groups serve hundreds of messages a day, so unless the topic is very close to your daily activity (or heart), monitoring a busy group can become a full-time job. For example, unless you are a kernel developer or are debugging specific kernel problems, watching redhat.kernel.general won't be of much interest to you. Archives offer information as you need it. A few popular newsgroup archives are: Google groups (http://groups.google.com/) Google.com has acquired the Usenet group archive of Deja.com. They provide a searchable archive of Usenet postings that can be helpful when you need to find recent or historical comments on a particular topic. Remarq (http://www.remarq.com/) This site purports to join people together in communities. Like deja.com, remarq.com contains a searchable database of Usenet articles. Newsgroup archives provide you with an alternate view of Usenet threaded topics. Rather than posting a request for information and waiting for a response, searching an archive may yield immediate answers found in communications that have already occurred. An archive can free you from reading the headers to messages that are ultimately of no interest to you. ##### 6.2.2.2 Contributing to Usenet Depending on your level of expertise on the topic you're reading, you will inevitably come across a user question that you can answer with authority. Such a question is an opportunity for you to help someone. Think of the time needed to construct a helpful response as the payment for all the tips and assistance you yourself have received from other Usenet users over time. #### 6.2.3 Mailing Lists Usenet provides an organized set of communications channels on specific topics. Often, however, a system administrator or an organization will want to set up a limited group of users with basic messaging capabilities. Without universal demand, or failing to make the case for a legitimate new Usenet group, a mailing list is often constructed using list-processing software. A mailing list is an email autoresponder with a known list of mail recipients. Any inbound mail to the list server from among the known list members will be mirrored to each of the other recipients on the list. This service keeps list subscribers tuned into their topic but increases email volume, and subscriptions to a few active mailing lists can fill your inbox daily. On the other hand, a mailing list is proactive, and email received may be more likely to be read than Usenet newsgroup information. Usenet messages are easily missed simply because recipients are not paying attention. Mailing lists can be found on many web sites, where instructions for joining the lists are available. For example, the LDP maintains a general-discussion mailing list that you can join by sending email to ldp-discuss-request@linuxdoc.org. This list is for the discussion of LDP issues, document proposals, and other commentary. Your local Linux User's Group (LUG) probably also has a mailing list to keep members up-to-date on events, meetings, and opinions. #### 6.2.4 Vendor Web Sites and Other Resources It is impossible to list the ever-increasing number of Linux-related sites on the Internet. Each distribution and many major projects have their own sites, as do groups such as the Free Software Foundation. Table 6-5 lists some of the most popular, grouped into categories, in case you've missed them.

##### Table 6-5. Some Linux-Related Web Sites

Category | Web Sites
--- | ---
Certification | http://www.brainbench.com/ http://www.linuxcertification.com/ http://www.lpi.org/ http://www.redhat.com/training/rhce/certification/
Commerce | http://www.elinux.com/ http://www.linuxcentral.com/ http://www.linuxmall.com/
Distributions | http://www.calderasystems.com/ http://www.debian.org/ http://www.linux-mandrake.com/ http://www.redhat.com/ http://www.slackware.com/ http://www.suse.com/ http://www.turbolinux.com/
Documentation | http://www.linuxdoc.org/ http://linux.oreilly.com/ http://www.searchlinux.com/
General | http://www.linux.com/ http://www.linux.org/ http://www.linuxberg.com/
GUIs | http://www.afterstep.org/ http://www.eazel.com/ http://www.gnome.org/ http://www.kde.org/
News | http://slashdot.org/ http://www.linuxplanet.com/ http://www.lwn.net/ http://www.linuxjournal.com/ http://www.linuxtoday.com/ http://www.linuxpr.com/ http://www.oreillynet.com/
Open source | http://www.fsf.org/ http://www.gnu.org/ http://www.kernelnotes.org/ http://freshmeat.net/ http://www.sourceforge.net/
Projects | http://www.apache.org/ http://www.squidcache.org/ http://www.linuxrouter.org/ http://www.linuxppc.org/
Search engines | http://www.google.com/ http://www.altavista.com/ http://www.northernlight.com/ http://www.yahoo.com/
Support | http://www.linuxcare.org/
Training | http://www.lintraining.com/
X Window System | http://www.x.org/ http://www.xfree86.com/
Of course, it's impossible to create a static list of resources that will fulfill your ever-changing needs. If standard and familiar sources don't offer what you're looking for, don't hesitate to use a search engine. A targeted search on a quality search site can be surprisingly fruitful.