After seeing the recent thread "A Fedora Core 3 manual?" my brain took me back in time. Many years ago I administered a small IBM mainframe shop. The software (VSE/SP) left a lot to be desired but the documentation was good, if not overwhelming. After moving into the Unix/Linux world one IBM manual I greatly missed was "Messages and Codes". Every OS message that was written to the console or system log file was documented in it. Each message was started with a code that identified which component of the OS it originated in, a unique message id, and an action indicator which specified whether the message was just informational, required immediate action, or required action but not immediately. If you did not know what to do in a particular case just look up the message code. For each message the manual showed the general form of the message, an explanation of the message text, possible causes, and recommended actions. The manual was big and took IBM a lot of effort to create and maintain. I found it very valuable. I think such a manual for Linux, starting with Fedora or any place else for that matter, would be an addition welcomed by many. Rather than hard copy, a database with a web driven search engine may be a more appropriate implementation. I have often googled or seached this list's and other archives for messages I have seen and frequently found lots of noise and little signal. Having to wade through 10 or 20 or more hits to find a good, authoritative answer gets quite time consuming. Consulting such a resource would be a useful first step in problem solving. IBM has an online Messages manual for their AIX/Linux Reliable Scalable Cluster Technology (RSCT) product and probably others. This would be a major undertaking but would provide opportunity for lots of people to contribute to the community, especially for those that know their stuff and for those that want to learn. What think ye? Is this feasible, useful, worthwhile or the dumbest thing you ever hear? Or maybe this already exists and I just have not learned about it yet. paul -- Paul Almquist paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Eau Claire, WI USA
