[GRLUG] Suse

John-Thomas Richards jtr at jrichards.org
Mon Nov 3 15:52:01 EST 2008


On Mon, Nov 03, 2008 at 03:36:37PM -0500, Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
> On Mon, 2008-11-03 at 16:22 -0400, Michael Mol wrote:
> > On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 4:17 PM, Adam Tauno Williams
> > <adamtaunowilliams at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >> The official web site is particularly un-helpful.  :(
> > > Verses recreating every document and HOWTO like the Ubuntu crew enjoys?
> > I hate to topic-shift, but documentation is one area where Ubuntu
> > fails *hard*.  Online tutorials with high PageRank values are
> > perpetually two or more releases behind, and don't even *think* about
> > looking for a man page for any Ubuntu-specific tool.  See man(5)
> > undocumented.
> 
> Which, of course, is the inevitable result of their utterly massive
> re-branding approach (vs development & attribution/contribution).
> Sheesh, I've seen a HOWTO entitled "How to find duplicate files with
> fdupes on Ubuntu".  Uhm.... let me guess "man fdupes"?  What is Ubuntu
> (or anything) specific about that?  The same commands work the same way
> on AIX.  Ubuntu is 10% a LINUX distro and 80% a marketing campaign (not
> sure what the other 10% is).

Does Ubuntu require man pages for its packages?  Debian does.  In fact,
the Debian developers write many of the man pages for the utilities/apps
for which the upstream does not provide them.  Does any other distro do
that?  (This is not intended to become a distro-flame-fest.)  Having the
command work the same way on all *nix systems  and having a man page
available with all its options is another story.
-- 
john-thomas
------
There is no more irritating fellow than the man who tries to settle an
argument about communism, or justice, or liberty, by quoting from Webster.
Mortimer J. Adler, philosopher, educator, and author (1902-2001)


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