It has long since been my own personal experience that Linux documentation is largely ignored by Linux beginners in exchange for the interactivity of Linux forums. The reasons why will be further explored in this piece; however, today I have located a solid exception to the rule. Not only does this article provide the clearest, most no-nonsense method to getting SAMBA working without boring people to tears on the intricacies of the process, but they are also addressing something very important — poor documentation.

Distro Documentation is Generally Good, But… One distribution that comes to mind when thinking about great documentation is Ubuntu. Anything you need to know, from NDISWrapper to utilizing restricted codecs, is listed in their documentation project. Unfortunately, it remains intimidating to many new users. Not the information so much, rather the reminder that they are essentially starting over.

On the flip side, documentation is documentation, period. As long as it is there, accurate and readable, we are satisfied. And sadly, this is what has led to so many unneeded forums postings for new Linux users. Since they feel overwhelmed, they end up on various forums, asking the wrong questions and often times, getting the wrong answers.

Why You Need to Care. These are beginners, who cares, right? If there is one constant complaint coming from beginners, it is the complete lack of giving a whoop about anyone within our community that does wish to spend every waking moment learning the long way through Linux town. I find it distasteful and tiresome. And thankfully, it appears to be changing.

But I digress. My original point is simply that the continued improved hardware support and need for more development effort comes squarely from the continued adoption of new Linux users. Without them, any need for improvement would likely have stopped short with the bare essentials on the GUI front. So each of us needs to make sure that instead of ushering beginners off to the forums, we are helping them to understand that the existing documentation is nothing to be afraid of, really.

More pipe dream than reality, there is little question that until all Linux users collectively understand the availability of valid documentation, how to access it and also making sure that it is worded in a manner that anyone speaking the language it is written in, we will continue to have work on our hands as a community. We are off to a good start, but many users are simply struggling to find themselves the need to relearn computing after feeling like the ‘king of the jungle’ in the Windows world.

Bridging the Gap. We need to do away with those ’sticky’ posts in forums, while redirecting users to projects like this, but with the target distro in mind. Notice the inclusion of simple step-by-step instructions rolled together with easy to follow screenshots.

Wiki-styled pages are great for those who enjoy opening one tabbed page after another just for a concise how-to, but for most people, Wiki’s are best for learning about single topics, not for complete documentation.

At the end of the day, it will be up to the community and the people who work hard to put this documentation together in the first place. What I feel is helpful may not be for others who share considerably different opinion on how to best present documentation to Linux users as a collective, not as separate groups of new and advanced users.

This article has been republished with the kind permission of our friends at Mad Penguin. For more news about the Open Source community, go give ‘em a look or Subscribe to Mad Penguin’s RSS Feed!

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[tags]Linux, Open Source, linux documentation[/tags]