From: mdw@db.TC.Cornell.EDU (Matt Welsh)
Subject: Old documentation (was Re: Linux 0.98 Install HELP!)
Organization: Jim's Burger Hut and Ferengi Tavern, Deep Space Nine
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 22:52:23 GMT

In article <1993Jan24.191426.21115@sol.ctr.columbia.edu> surovi29@snybufva.cs.snybuf.edu (STUDENT) writes:
> Is there anyone that could give me step by step intructions on how
>to Install Linux 0.98 onto my Hard Drive.... There is NOTHING but DOS
>5.0 on my drive at this time ( I had a system crash ) I have the Install
>docs for 0.95 but they dont help me one bit... I did manage to get 
>the file copied over to my DOS partition, but then my C drive will
>not boot up anymore?  I am lost any help would be greatly appreciated!.

I've got a request to make. I know that a lot of work went into the Beginner's
and Installation Guides for 0.95 by Ian and Chuck, and I've used and 
appeciated their work. But, unfortunately, they are SERIOUSLY outdated, and
(let's face it), obsolete. I've tried to help lots of people install Linux
and solve installation problems, only to find out they were trying to install
the 0.98.1 boot/root with the 0.95 Install docs. 

This obviously won't do. I've taken references to these docs out of the FAQ,
but they're still sitting there, looking helpful, on the FTP sites. Newcomers
to Linux don't know that these docs aren't of any help--- they even instruct
you to edit the boot disk to change the root device. I've had people installing
SLS telling me that they're editing bootdisks at offsets 508, etc....

In short, the info in these docs is starting to confuse people. It's not
obvious that these docs really are only relevant to installing the old 0.95
boot/root stuff by Jim Winstead, and that's about it. Chuck's guide to
getting started with Linux is a great source of newbie UNIX info, but the
installation instructions therein are quite obsolete. 

In about a month I hope to have the new Install/Setup guide ready for
public consumption. Until then I'm afraid that having all of these "Getting
Started" docs laying around, which are doing more harm than good, is confusing
newcomers unless they know to ignore them and read the newest, relevant
documentation (that being the SLS, boot/root, etc. README files and FAQ).
I think we need to hide or move the old 0.95/0.96 installation docs. On 
tsx-11 I believe the proper place for this is "Attic". There needs to be a
README somewhere that tells newcomers that these docs really are old, and most
of their information is irrelevant. After all, we don't expect readers of
comp.os.linux to rely on the FAQ from last June. The same thing applies here.
Since these docs are no longer maintained or accurate they should be moved
or renamed so that newcomers don't rely on them. 

IMHO, the only releases newcomers should be installing are the most recent
SLS or the boot-root stuff by HLU et. al. (and CD-ROMs and any other RECENT
releases). I fear that newcomers installing old software and using old docs
are only going to run into big problems and will have to upgrade to the new
SLS or boot/root anyway.

Yes, those old docs were useful, and I've used them myself. This is not
to discredit those docs. But it's like expecting someone to use MS-DOS v2.0
on a 486. We need to cover some of our tracks in an effort to keep newcomers
from getting overly confused. These outdated docs either need to be moved
or removed from the FTP sites. 

What does everyone think? 

mdw

-- 
Matt Welsh     mdw@tc.cornell.edu     Cornell Theory Center
  "Donuts. Is there anything they can't do?" 
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux