Manual in one file

[heinziten]

Hello,
I just joined today. I have collected all the manual pages from the web site, and created a complete manual in one file. This would be suitable for downloading. Is anybody interested? Maybe it could be included with the .iso download (in a .zip or .rar file). Unfortunately I don't have a web site, so I can not offer a download link.

[admin]

Please don't distribute such unofficial versions of the manual. Everytime we have an offline copy the contents is just immediately out of date. This is the reason why we don't provide an offline version.

[heinziten]

If you notify me of changes and additions, I am willing to keep it updated. Hey, it's just an idea.

[n8bounds]

I have thought it would be nice to have a snapshot of the mediawiki manual taken and inserted into each released version at release-time however the following points immediately come to mind as a counter-argument:

1. It would grow the disc image. It's already big enough, thanks.

2. While it might be useful for situations where a connection to the Internet (and therefore the online manual) might be possible, those situations are probably very rare at this point, and only threaten to become more so. More and more these days, I wonder what I would do with a PC if I had to use it without ever having an Internet connection to go with it.)

3. Documents on the web, specifically this online manual, can be corrected easily and efficiently. If an important operational error were included in an offline manual snapshot, the people most likely to use it would be those without an Internet connection and they would be the most in need of reading the correction, which is self-defeating.

For an example in poor documentation practices, look no further than the Backtrack project.

[admin]

There were already offline editions of the manual, but that's too much effort to maintain that. I prefer one single edition, that other people can edit. And I also try to keep the french edition up to date as well as the english one.

[Barnes]

Hi there,

I known this topic has become a little bit old, but anyway today I had the same need for an offline manual as heinziten had 1 year ago.

Anyway I like to talk your arguments a bit:

1. It would grow the disc image. It's already big enough, thanks.

Correct, no good idea.

2. While it might be useful ...

I used my personal offline version for about 2 years and it was fine. A lot of the people I needed RescueCD live on a very countrified landscape in Germany. Those people indeed have no broadband internet. All they have is 64K payed per minute. That's why I cannot go there and be online all the time. And maybe you think the none industrial countries, like Sudan, Kenya, or so on.

3. Documents on the web, specifically this online manual, can be corrected easily and efficiently...

Correct, but as a user you do not need always the latest version. Most time you need just a hint, how to use the program. For details the man page is still a good point (Not sure if they are delivered with the CD)

I don't think it is a good idea to maintain two manual versions, but it should be a to or three day hack to provide a link to your page, which concatenates the content off all wikilinks. Maybe even a wget command might help here.

I understand you completly not wanting to have unofficial documents having spread around the net, but you could prevent this by using a license, which allows the documentation to be printed and changed for personal use, but not to be publicated without notifying the author.

Weel at least I would appreciate an offline version and spent a few thoughts about getting it by wget.

Thanks and regards
Christian

[vpc]

Hi there

2. While it might be useful for situations where a connection to the Internet (and therefore the online manual) might be possible, those situations are probably very rare at this point, and only threaten to become more so. More and more these days, I wonder what I would do with a PC if I had to use it without ever having an Internet connection to go with it.)

While I agree on this one, I also happen to be more often than not on the road and/or managing networks where there are network downtimes. That's the whole point in using SystemRescueCD, after all.

3. Documents on the web, specifically this online manual, can be corrected easily and efficiently. If an important operational error were included in an off-line manual snapshot, the people most likely to use it would be those without an Internet connection and they would be the most in need of reading the correction, which is self-defeating.

You can't be fool-proof anytime... Good ol' RTFM shouldn't be forgotten, and if you don't give off-line users a chance to do precisely that, you'll get the exact inverse result as the one you expected, I guess.

Besides, googling around, I found the Collection extension for MediaWiki, as it seems to be the one you use for the (One And Only True) Online Manual. It allows for instant export to PDF, OpenDocument, DocBook XML, and whatnot, see :
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Collection

That extension could allow for instant snapshotting the online manual, for example. And if you care about dumb users misunderstanding the *snapshot* concept, you can place a big red sign above and beyond the link, for example.

Thanks for your attention, and have a good day.

[stephanb2]

Hi There,
I am sorry to disagree with the SysResCD admins, but in real life, and in "rescue" situations, you may not have access to the net.

At present I pull the SysResCD + partimage manuals in one language with wget, sanitize the html files to remove the google ads, and edit the .css to have a content column extending to the right.

I am doing this on every release of SysResCD, I extract the files from the .iso, I add these html files uncompressed, and create a custom .iso. Filesize increase = 2.7MB.

If anybody is interested, I am happy to give details, sed script, etc.

[mringer]

(I have made cuts)

1. It would grow the disc image...

3. Documents on the web, specifically this online manual, can be corrected easily and efficiently...

I am sorry to have to disagree.

1. As of 1.3.4, the CD comes to 240 MB; the smallest CD Rom I could find in PC World was 700 MB.

3. Every time you change any of the programs, the manual is bound to be incompatible
with either the old or the new version (or both). It is unsafe to assume that you will be
able to read an online document if you get into difficulty in the middle of a rescue operation.
An out-of-date manual that you can read is more useful than an up-to-date manual that you cannot.
I would like to suggest that a stable version of the software could come with a stable version
of the manual.

[slamp]

An out-of-date manual that you can read is more useful than an up-to-date manual that you cannot.

I AGREE ;-)