>There are far better resources out there for teaching Linux
>newbies.  Instead, voip-info.org attempts to provide the sorts of information
>that is useful for those already familiar with Linux

I can appreciate that.  And I can appreciate being at the other end of the 
pipe, as I like to gloss over all "obvious" details when I have to write up 
something.  I'm not suggesting that VoIP should become a Linux tutorial, but 
that, where possible, every line that must be typed to get to a desired end be 
explicitly included rather than assuming that a one sentence comment will 
empower the reader to type in a whole page of bash stuff.

>You could certainly compare and contrast the documentation for other
>large daemon applications

I would concur with your thoughts here.  The terse style is endemic to 
everything Linux.  I bought a commercial Linux app recently and it didn't even 
have a single word about installation.  Turns out there was no configuration, 
so you could just drop it into a directory and make a shortcut icon if you were 
using Gnome or something.  But at least a line stating that would have saved 
the author an E-Mail exchange..Oh yes, and then there was the library it needed 
that wasn't in the distro.  It would have been useful if the Readme mentioned 
that.  Anyway, you get the point.

>It's certainly instructive that the continuing advances in
>open source browser technology was what spurred Microsoft to once again
>invest time into its own browser 

True, but I can open IE and use it and then open Firefox and intuitively know 
what to do.  It doesn't say you can use Z or -M or --Query all to do the same 
thing, (possibly with identical parameters, or possibly with parameters 
formatted differently) but -M only works on Fedora and --Query only works on 
Suse (contrived by true to life examples).  It is this sort of thing that makes 
the Linux learning curve steep and makes it challenging to provide detailed 
instructions for something like installing a package.

Based on a number of conversations over the last year or two, I have become 
convinced that those for whom these command automatically flow off of their 
fingertips are mostly clueless as to how unintuitive some of this stuff is when 
first encountered.

Wilton
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