On Thu, 15 Sep 2005 at 2:20pm, Clive Galway wrote

> Is there any documentation other than the official manual ?
> The one I have (dated june 26 2005, so I presume it is recent) is
> woefully poor and has in some cases made the install harder, not
> easier.

Err, how many OSS projects do *you* know that have 350+ page manuals?  
Now, what are the sizes of the development teams for those projects?  For 
a project the size of amanda, that manual is nothing short of a wonder, 
and I applaud those who took the time to put it together.

> Some examples:
> Chapter 2.2.1 - last line of page 33, start of page 34:
> it talks about the $prefix dir and the various command-line parameters
> that use the $prefix variable. If users have to change some things,
> then, like me, they will be lulled into thinking they should use
> something like --llibdir=/etc/amanda/lib
> This would cause a problem though because then some things would be
> installed under the prefix dir and some would not.

Isn't that the point of mucking about with configure parameters -- putting 
some things in one place and some things in others?

> For god's sake, just list the --prefix= command.
> If users are advanced enough to want dirs scattered all over the place,
> let them dig for the information in the ./configure --help pages.

So, here you're complaining that the documentation is *too* comprehensive?  

> Chapter 2.3.1 - top of page 36:
> "If you are running NIS (aka YP) ..."
> Yeah. Right. Cause we all know what that is and whether we are running
> it.

NIS isn't one of those services that automagically run in the background 
without your knowledge.  It won't be running unless you set it up.  And 2 
min with google would let you know what it is.

> Why is it that all linux documentation seems to be like this ? I know
> catering to the lowest common denominator sucks, but at least catering
> for the user with medium experience would be nice.

To my eye, the manual looks to cater to folks of all experience levels.  

> 100+ man-hours and counting to set up AMANDA for just backing up one
> server... And I have a bloody LPI cert in linux so I am not a drooling
> newbie... This is ridiculous.

Then offer some *concrete suggestions* as to what could make it better.  
Just coming in and ranting at a group of volunteers rarely is helpful.

Myself, given your, err, complaints, I think that perhaps a quick-start 
chapter may be in order.  Now where did I put those circular tuits?

-- 
Joshua Baker-LePain
Department of Biomedical Engineering
Duke University