Subject: Linux-Activists - DOC Channel digest. 93-3-21-14:37
From: "Linux Activists" <[email-masked]>
To: "Linux-Activists" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1993 21:51:57 +0300

Topics:
	 Re: Linux-Activists - DOC Channel digest. 93-3-14-10:34
	 Re: Linux-Activists - DOC Channel digest. 93-3-21-9:43
	 Re: manual for tty stuff  

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From: Michael Haardt < ([email-masked]) [email-masked].
Subject: Re: Linux-Activists - DOC Channel digest. 93-3-14-10:34
Date: Fri, 16 Apr 1993 20:25:08 +0300

> From: Drew Eckhardt <[email-masked]>
> Subject: Re: [ANNOUNCE] Old man pages restored, new man pages available 
> Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1993 13:26:38 +0300

> Unfortunately, when Michael modified the man pages, he often stripped
> out several entries and didn't give them their own pages (ie, write 
> from the read.2 page, setgid, setsid, setreuid, setregid from 
> the geteuid.2 page, and so on). 

Yes, I splitted them but I did not delete any: I have pages for both
read and write, and none of the *id* functions is missing.  I don't know
why you miss them.

I splitted pages where the functions don't share the same data types,
like read and write.  Pages like stat stayed together for now.  While
splitting pages, I added SEE ALSO sections which are supposed to be
changed into hypertext links once the pages are converted to texinfo.

As far as I know, the GNU folks document the GNU C library in texinfo.
The Linux C library is essentially the GNU C library plus extensions; I
hope that people who start with library documentation work together with
the developers, otherwise there might be reinvented wheels sometimes ...

I got suggestions to use SGML instead of texinfo for converting.  My
answer is: there are too less SGML tools right now, or I am not good
enough informed about existing tools.  These suggestions are not new, I
remember having discussed that quite some time ago already.  I think it
is easier to convert from texinfo to SGML than from roff to SGML, so
nothing speaks against texinfo for now.

Following the FAQ I don't start a texinfo vs roff war here, my point is
only to give my reason for splitting.

I started working on manual pages because I wanted some better pages and
nobody else showed interest.

Btw, I found some manual pages which I once wrote for Minix because I
hated looking up the functions so often in various books.  If someone is
interested in them, drop me a note and you will get them by email:

ctime.3	     fclose.3	  getopt.3     perror.3	    system.3
curses.3     fseek.3	  memory.3     sleep.3	    termcap.3
directory.3  ftw.3	  mktime.3     string.3	    wait.3

Work to do is to make them consistent to the template and looking up if
there are things which are Minix dependent and need to be changed.

Michael

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From: Rik Faith <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Linux-Activists - DOC Channel digest. 93-3-21-9:43
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1993 17:23:50 +0300

"[email-masked]" wrote (Wed, 21 Apr 1993 15:11:42 +0300):
> 
> Has anyone been documenting the tty drivers?  I see a manual
> describing things such as:
> 
> * ioctls
> * termios flags
> * the difference between ttyS? and cua?
> * how to configure modem cables
> * how to use ptys
> * keyboard mappings
> * console vt100 terminal emulation
> * etc.

This is section 4 material.  Please see the following files, in
ftp.cs.unc.edu:/pub/faith/linux/man.linux/man4:

tty.4, ttys.4: Current man pages that document this

sd.4: Example of a "relatively complete" section 4 man page which covers
ioctls, etc., and has lots of examples of formatting commands.  (See the
man.7 man page for documentation on writing manual pages in general, or
send me private email and ask questions about formatting and style.)

At this time, to the best of my knowledge, no one is actively working on
section 4.  Little, if any, section 4 work has been done since January.

Please commence with your project, considering your posting on the DOC
channel to be sufficient for you to "claim" the tty documentation as your
own (assuming no one steps up and says that they are already working on
this).  Please email me your results (uuencoded, gzip'd tar file if there
is more than one man page) when you have something you'd like comments on.

------------------------------

From: Rik Faith <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: manual for tty stuff  
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1993 17:33:18 +0300

"[email-masked]" wrote (Wed, 21 Apr 1993 15:11:42 +0300):
> Has anyone been documenting the tty drivers?  I see a manual
> describing things such as:

Sometimes I don't read things very well.  While some of the material that
Julian mentioned is suitable for man pages, it is clear that he was talking
about a more detailed "manual" on the tty drivers.

Therefore, I retract my comments, which hopefully appear above in this
digest.  I'd like to invite Julian, assuming he does a nice manual on the
tty stuff, to either make man pages as he goes along or to allow someone to
waffle lots of his material into man pages.

Please pardon the confusion I may have caused. . .

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End of DOC Digest
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