The Linux Information Project

http://www.linfo.org/

by jorgecastillo • 13 years ago

52 22 13 years ago

Very, cool site. I have used it before, and it is nice to see someone posted it! As a meta note, if you are into this type of thing, I have created a couple screencasts along the same lines:

  Crash Course on the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard [1]
  Crash Course on Common Commands [2]
  Hard and Symbolic Links [3]

[1] http://sysadmincasts.com/episodes/12-crash-course-on-the-fil...

[2] http://sysadmincasts.com/episodes/13-crash-course-on-common-...

[3] http://sysadmincasts.com/episodes/16-hard-and-symbolic-links

There were also many great threads on HN about UNIX commands:

  Unix Commands I Wish I’d Discovered Years Earlier [4]
  Useful Unix commands for data science [5]
  Favorite Unix Commands [6]
  Top Unix Command Line Utilities [7]

[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6360320

[5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6046682

[6] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5022457

[7] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4985393

Cheers

Oculus• 13 years ago

I'm sorry, but "easily accessible information" doesn't equal wall of text. If we want Linux to become more popular with the general population we have to make more user friendly sites. Walls of text just manage to scare non hackers away.

jorgecastillo4• 13 years ago

I hope nobody takes offense at what I am about to say. I don't care if Linux becomes more popular with the general population, as long as I can use Linux or any other Unix-like OS I am happy. Trying to convince people to use Linux is useless. Whenever there is an opportunity I tell people I use Linux, I express why I like Linux but I also make sure I talk about the downsides of Linux.

gojomo2• 13 years ago

There are plenty of good readers who aren't hackers, who will appreciate well-written, on-point "walls of text" – as long as such text is easy to find, matched to the reader's sophistication, well-organized, quick-loading, and readable on any screen.

That's "easily accessible" enough, especially as a start!

ekianjo2• 13 years ago

Wikipedia is a large wall of text with some pictures here and there. Who complains about it? Everybody uses it.

hjek2• 13 years ago

"Linux is a high performance, yet completely free operating system"

Of course switching to Linux is fresh if you are running Xnu or Ntoskrnl.exe, but you're gonna need an OS on top of that:)

Just to avoid confusion, e.g. about Android, which is using Linux, but is obviously not free, it could be a good idea to start calling things their proper names.

https://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html

jorgecastillo4• 13 years ago

A lot of individual projects make Linux and any other open source Unix-like system possible, I don't see why GNU deserves more credit than those other projects. I think I'll stick with Linux.

hjek2• 13 years ago

Well, yes, it's the same wonderful technology, no matter what you call it.

I was not thinking about whose credit it is, more about the logic of it. Calling it Linux could lead to some paradoxes. How would you for instance describe Debian GNU/kFreeBSD or Debian GNU/Hurd? "Linux without Linux"?

runn1ng• 13 years ago

I thought this is a historical site posted for some nostalgia value.

Is this actually a website from 2013? Wow.

gojomo2• 13 years ago

There's a certain no-BS authenticity about sites which choose this aesthetic, that I and many others appreciate.

But you raise a good point, that the look can also make people think they're seeing an old site, which lacks current utility and fresh updates.

So a suggestion to the creator (and others choosing this spartan sensibility): balance the plainness with some other prominent indicators of freshness.

This might include "last updated" dates, including the year, in prominent places. And, even where info is not changed for years – because it remains valid – add other indicators that it's still current. (This might be a "Reviewed" or "Valid through" date that's never more than a few months old.)

xtc• 13 years ago

There's a guide for optimizing dial up performance. It seems a tad dated.

jorgecastillo4• 13 years ago

As far as I could tell this site was last updated on 2007 but most of the information on that site is timeless.

ctogden• 13 years ago

I've been on LINFO before and wondered the same thing. But actually, it appears to have last been updated in 2007 (see http://www.linfo.org/additions.html). No matter, the site was still quite useful.

ekianjo2• 13 years ago

I was not sure if this was from 2013 either, since the date at the bottom of the page shows 2007.

Amadou• 13 years ago

I am pretty sure it is from 2007. Pages are dynamically generated so http last modified date is not helpful.

But, the home page refers to the root definition as being the most recently updated page and at the bottom of that, it says "Updated October 27, 2007."

http://www.linfo.org/root.html

CraigJPerry• 13 years ago

http://www.linfo.org/uptime.html

http://linux.die.net/man/1/uptime

I prefer the man page! This is just an example but i feel the same for all the pages i browsed.

Maybe it's just familiarity on my part, i know man pages so i feel more comfortable? Not sure, i just know my eyes were scanning for a synopsis section!

npsimons• 13 years ago

Different strokes for different folks; I too like man pages, but I feel that sometimes the best way to learn something is to get at it from different angles, different ways of thinking, etc, etc. As long as both (or more!) documents are well written, why not read them both?

jetblackio• 13 years ago

Absolutely love this site. It's incredibly well written, informative, and on point.

kevinoid• 13 years ago

Could anyone comment on how this compares to The Linux Documentation Project <http://tldp.org/>? It seems like there's a lot of overlap in objective. Why was it necessary to create a competing project (if it is competing) rather than combine effort on expanding TLDP?

nitrogen• 13 years ago

I had the same thought. TLDP is how I got PPP working on my 28.8k modem when I first installed RedHat in 1999, so maybe the information on TLDP is out of date?

krakensden• 13 years ago

It'd be nice if someone gave a shot at patching rather than forking, for once. It's not like the problem with finding documentation about Linux and its ecosystem was the lack of options.

The Linux Information Project

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