The Missing Fedora Manual
Paul Almquist
paul at almquist.name
Sat Mar 19 07:09:33 UTC 2005
After seeing the recent thread "A Fedora Core 3 manual?" my brain took me
back in time. Many years ago I administered a small IBM mainframe shop. The
software (VSE/SP) left a lot to be desired but the documentation was good, if
not overwhelming.
After moving into the Unix/Linux world one IBM manual I greatly missed was
"Messages and Codes". Every OS message that was written to the console or
system log file was documented in it. Each message was started with a code
that identified which component of the OS it originated in, a unique message
id, and an action indicator which specified whether the message was just
informational, required immediate action, or required action but not
immediately.
If you did not know what to do in a particular case just look up the message
code. For each message the manual showed the general form of the message, an
explanation of the message text, possible causes, and recommended actions.
The manual was big and took IBM a lot of effort to create and maintain. I
found it very valuable.
I think such a manual for Linux, starting with Fedora or any place else for
that matter, would be an addition welcomed by many. Rather than hard copy, a
database with a web driven search engine may be a more appropriate
implementation. I have often googled or seached this list's and other
archives for messages I have seen and frequently found lots of noise and
little signal. Having to wade through 10 or 20 or more hits to find a good,
authoritative answer gets quite time consuming. Consulting such a resource
would be a useful first step in problem solving.
IBM has an online Messages manual for their AIX/Linux Reliable Scalable
Cluster Technology (RSCT) product and probably others.
This would be a major undertaking but would provide opportunity for lots of
people to contribute to the community, especially for those that know their
stuff and for those that want to learn.
What think ye? Is this feasible, useful, worthwhile or the dumbest thing you
ever hear? Or maybe this already exists and I just have not learned about
it yet.
paul
--
Paul Almquist
paul at almquist.name
Eau Claire, WI USA
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