The Linux Information Project | Hacker News Reader

The Linux Information Project

linfo.org

52 pointsjorgecastillo22 comments

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

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?

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is how I got PPP working on my 28.8k modem when I first installed RedHat in 1999, so maybe the information on TLDP is out of date?

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.

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!

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?

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

"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

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.

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"?

What logic? What paradoxes? Debian BSD and Debian GNU would be fine with me. There is no such thing as Linux without Linux, even in android you can find the Linux goodness if you want to.

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.

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.

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!

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

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

Is this actually a website from 2013? Wow.

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.)

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

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

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.

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

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

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