Subject: New Networking Guide
From: [email-masked] (Olaf Kirch)
To: Multiple recipients of list <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 17 Jul 1994 10:19:52 -0400

Hi all,

I have just uploaded the new NAG to

	ftp.stolaf.edu:/pub/linuxdoc

When Philip Guenther has moved it out of incoming, it will
be available in as nag-0.7.tar.gz. Along with the NAG, I've
uploaded my LoTeX utility for converting LaTeX to GNU roff,
it's in the file lotex-0.9.tar.gz.

For your convenience, I append the README below.

Olaf
----------------------------------------------------------------

	   The Linux Network Administrators' Guide

This is the last pre-release of the Networking Guide before I go
public in August. I don't think I will change the contents of the book
very much anymore before August unless you find any grave mistakes. I
am interested in any sort of feedback; factual errors, spelling
mistakes, as well as problems when compiling the source on your TeX
installation. Before running the book through LaTeX, please check the
installation notes. You may have to fix your installation before you
can compile the NAG.

Given the fact that this is a pre-release, I beg you not to spread
this around too much yet, and not to mention it on the newsgroups.
Especially if you plan to publish the NAG and distribute it, I ask you
to wait until I put the final version on the Net. I wouldn't want to
have different versions circulating and people complaining about bugs
that may have been fixed in the meanwhile. Besides, I'm working with
O'Reilly and Associates who want to print the NAG as well; they are
currently running the NAG through their internal reviewing process and
will likely feed a big bunch of fixes back to me.

People have asked me in the past whether O'Reilly publishing the NAG
will mean that it won't be free anymore.  Let me assure you that
the copyright of the NAG's final version will remain as it has been
until now: you can print the book, and you can distribute it.
I would nevertheless ask you not to spill the news of O'Reilly's
involvement yet. Thank you.

The Book:
---------
The new NAG is an almost complete rewrite of the version I released in
August 1994. I features several new chapters, including the setup of
SLIP, PPP, NIS, and so on. It also has a complete sendmail chapter
now, which was written by Vince Skahan.

The NAG is written mainly for networking rookies (as I have been when
I started this project almost two years ago), but I hope it will be
useful to more experienced networkers alike. It explains everything in
pretty much detail, beginning with the basics of networking and slowly
working its way up to the configuration of mail and news.

The level of detail comes at a certain cost, which is the size of the
book. When running it through LaTeX, it comes out as exactly 399 pages
at the moment, counting table of contents, glossary, and index. This
is quite a bit. For the final release, I will probably break up the
whole thing in several big chunks.

The Details:
------------
At the moment, you can choose between a number of different output
formats, being DVI, PostScript, and ASCII.  Some nuances of the DVI
and Postscript output can be controlled by a configuration file which
allows you, among other things, to select a tighter printing which
reduces the size of the printed book by almost 100 pages.

The ASCII version can be generated from the LaTeX source using the
LoTeX tool I wrote for this purpose. LoTeX converts LaTeX input to
GNU roff output, which can then be formatted with groff. I am uploading
this package along with the NAG, and plan to release it separately
later.

Feedback:
---------
If you have complaints, suggestions, fixes, or questions, please mail
me at the address given below. If you have fixes to the NAG itself,
please don't use references like `page 87, second paragraph', but
rather give me a section number, or even a detailed description like
`In the mount section of the NFS chapter'. Although I _may_ find the
sentence you refer to when you use page numbers, there's no guarantee
the mistake you spotted is anywhere close to that page on my printed
copy.

Yours,
Olaf Kirch, <[email-masked]>
-- 
Olaf Kirch         |  --- o --- Nous sommes du soleil we love when we play
[email-masked]  |    / | \   sol.dhoop.naytheet.ah kin.ir.samse.qurax