I did not receive this message from the list, and ezmlm has been
complaining that it bounced, don't know why. I had to manually retrieve it
from the archive - so my answer is overtly late O:-)
The 02.11.23 at 01:27, DJ wrote:
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 15:24:25 -0600
From: DJ
because SuSEconfig.susehelp is broken so no index is produced ( as far as I can tell) to fix SuSEconfig.susehelp around line 40 replace indexsusehelp with susehelpindex
CER>> I renamed the script "/usr/sbin/susehelpindex" as CER>> "/usr/sbin/indexsusehelp". Interestingly, in the script its own name CER>> is refered in two different ways:
I've been trying to follow this suse faq/help thread and I'm a little lost.
That's normal :-)
Maybe after you expert guys figure it out, you could summarize what we SuSE newbie's need to do ;-)
Well... depends on what you intend to do. As it comes, susehelp only works from inside kde konkeror, and you have to jump through some loops to make it work anywhere: mozilla, lynx on a text console, gnome, etc. Ok, if you want to do that (you might not) you have to: * Install apache * Ensure firewall is installed too. * Install sdb and related packages - sorry, I forgot which ones. I'll recognize them when I see them, though :-) * Start the apache server, either manually (rcapache start) or automatically (yast, insserv) * Edit "/etc/sysconfig/susehelp" similarly to this: DOC_HOST="nimrodel.valinor" DOC_ALLOW="localhost .valinor" DOC_AUTOINDEX="yes" * Edit /sbin/conf.d/SuSEconfig.susehelp as Togan suggested (there is a misspelled call to /usr/sbin/indexsusehelp, which should be susehelpindex, and also the lock file is wrong - at the end of the file - this is a bug) * Run SuSEconfig.susehelp Suse doesn't do this any longer (dochost was set on by default before 7.1) because there is a security risk having apache running (thus it's better if you use a firewall), and because it takes longer to boot. It is documented somewhere in the books, or it was: I simply have my notes from a year or two ago :-) , but in every version they change it somehow.
I just logged on to SuSE KDE and I can't find the FAQ link anywhere. Are we suppose to see a link to the FAQ some place?
Nop, because it is "unofficial" :-)
However, when you subscribed to the list, it was mentioned that there is a
FAQ in the confirmation message:
| Send mail to the following for info and FAQ for this list:
|
Also, in the SuSE "User Guide", hard copy, on page 325, it shows an "Advanced" tab. My SuSE Help doesn't have this (which is why I think I can't do the multiple word search). Is the "Advanced" tab suppose to be there? With regards to what you guys are talking about, will it fix it? :-)
Nop :-) Probably the books went to print, but they continued changing things. Susehelp shows this: | SuSE Help | Home Content Search Search: _____________________ | Options [ Search ] | | ------------------------------------------------------ | | * SuSE Linux | SuSE specific Documentation | * Support database | Your question- our answer! We have already found | the answers to most of your questions. In the | ... | * SuSEFAQ | * Unofficial SuSE FAQ | Unoficial FAQ and their answers for installing | and configuring SuSE Linux (network, firewall, | mail, booting concept, kernel etc.) Under search options I can select where to do the search: | SuSE Help | Home Content Search Search: _____________________ | Options [ Search ] | | ------------------------------------------------------ | | Maximum number of results: [5___] Method for combining | search terms: [and] | | * [X] Support database | * [X] SuSE Reference [...] | * [ ] Unofficial SuSE FAQ Notice the FAQ listed at the bottom - for this you need to install the nice rpm Togan made :-) Also, notice that you can select the method of search as AND or OR. I don't know the syntax, there is no help.
On page 324, there is a url that is incorrect, http:/localhost/hilfe/index.html.en Does anyone know what it should be? I tried a couple of variations and I couldn't figure it out.
That file does exist, but as "/usr/share/susehelp/docserver/index.html.en". It is parsed by apache and served as "http://localhost/susehelp/index.html"; the main local page comes from "/srv/www/htdocs/index.html.en" - all this in 8.1, other versions are different.
There are a lot of errors in the SuSE documentation that sometimes I just through up my arms and then try to figure it out on my own or use other sources. If you are trying to get something done and learn in the process, the last thing you need or want, is to try and figure out what the documentation should have said.
True enough. But, the worst errors I found were in Suse 7.3: the Spanish Suse documentation came in _German_, and the same happened for the Italian and French versions. It has never been corrected. I wrote to them (I reported around 12 big errors) and got no answer... :-/ Very disappointing, as the printed docs were surprisingly good.
I went to the link, http://sdb.suse.de/sdb/en/html/bugs81.html (actually in the documentation on page 42, this was also incorrect, but I guessed the /de/ should have been a /en/), listed in the Administration book, and I was kind of excited to see an Errata for the documentation. But when I went to the Errata link, http://sdb.suse.de/sdb/en/html/errata-81-d.html, there was nothing there.
Ugh.
I don't think anyone proofreads the manuals. You don't have to go to far to see the first problem. In the Administration book, in the Preface, the very, very first word is incorrect. Actually it looks like a macro is not being substituted, because it says, "[SuS02b] showed how easy it is to install and operate your new SuSE Linux...".
Marketing pressures :-? For me, there are worse errors than that one. There are some links in susehelp that do not work; and in gnome a good number of programs report "such file not found" when I click on "help". It is not that the file is missing, but that it is on a different place. It happened the same in suse 7.3, but in 8.1 I have not figured out how to solve it yet. There are a number of bad issues with gnome that have not been beta tested :-(
There seems to be a lot of old stuff in the manuals, too. Things that are no longer true for 8.1. imho, if I buy the Professional (not the update), I want the majority of the text to be 8.1. There is some version cleanup necessary in the documentation.
I haven't checked that, but it could be.
I originally found out about the FAQ by seeing it in a signature block. So I only knew about the FAQ on the net. Too bad SuSE won't incorporate the FAQ on their Web site.
Well, it is not an official FAQ. They instead have the SDB, which is very, very good. However, the FAQ is mentioned on the list instructions... - true enough, I me-self didn't notice it, I thought it was more of the mail list handling stuff.
Please keep the FAQ up. It is helpful.
It is :-)
Sometimes we don't report these items because we're too busy and need to get the work done, we don't think it makes a difference or the report goes into the bit-bucket, we get tired of too many little annoying type errors, we think someone else already reported it, or we don't know how it is suppose to work in the first place.
[ rant mode on ;-) ] I don't write reports any longer because mine were ignored. I can understand a no answer, but no that those bugs were never solved, nor mentioned in the sdb. Why should I bother, then? I know they make a good job, and work hard at it. It is a very good distro. But these things make me wonder... I would like my preferred distro to be perfect, or close to it. When I try to convince some one to try linux, specifically Suse, those things give a very bad impression to the would be newcomer. They, I, pay, so we expect everything to work smoothly. Specially newcomers from the windows world: they have the idea that linux is free, free of charge. But they hate the work involved: pulling files form inet, compiling, testing, etc. So they turn to a distro, but "free" ones also need a lot of work configuring things. So I say to them: "if you want that job done for you, you have to pay for it. Buy a serious distro". So they buy Suse - I always recommend Suse, that way when they go back for questions I know my ground ;-) - but you can not imagine the faces when told that "to make ZZZ work you have to... because there is a bug". :-(
Short surveys are always a nice way to get feedback.
Hmm... If they are read :-? -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson