Devuan shouldn't have an install guide

2019-05-12
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What should an Install Guide accomplish?

These are some thoughts which came from thinking about the problem of documentation for the Devuan Linux distribution. I wanted to take some time to think an opinion through here.

I don't think a Devuan install guide should exist, and any interested people would be more helpful upstream.

I would think "Devuan is Debian without systemd" means most documentation has already been done. It is a great position to be in, as it leaves only a few things to do:

1. Make it easy for Devuan users to find the equivalent Debian documentation, especially their basic install and user guides.

2. Write any documentation which doesn't exist in Debian, e.g non-systemd or on systemd-removal.

3. Rewrite "a better version" of any existing Debian documentation. This is a beautiful idea and a trap I adamantly oppose. Contribute upstream.

I think good software should make such basic documentation unnecessary. The current installer is fantastic in most places, making install documentation only necessary to:

1. Let non-programmers help cover a problem while the project waits for programmers to improve things and obsolete that documentation.

2. Document corner-cases, aid in troubleshooting, point people to user support or bug submission (even upstream to, or past Debian), and follow users around like biographers writing diaries of problems and solutions being brought up.

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rant

Documentation creates a sub-project with its own developers, community and politics, enlarging the scope of the distribution and changing what ought to be absent, optional, or minimal to instead be self-perpetuating and necessary.

It is a the "enlarging the government" of a distribution.

Imagine the following: I get excited, I take all (and I mean all) Debian documentation and in three months I rewrite it perfectly, with example code, animated gifs and videos, for Devuan. I support it version by version, doing what any other ten people couldn't. It is glorious and it is legendary.

Things go south, e.g. "the bus problem", and Devuan is screwed. It became dependent on its documentation and its documenters, and the project will suffer if it doesn't persist. What became a benefit has become a burden. That's the extreme and obvious version, but the burden still creeps in when the bus never hits, acting like a kind of scope creep.

I hope the bus problem is good enough for most, but maybe another idea is more effective for some.. In a particular tactic I have in mind, there is the insertion of a person as being "particularly helpful" as a way of making themselves a linchpin who then manufactures a position of power with access to inside information. This is done for good ends, e.g. for anti-terrorism, but you can also think of it in political, business, or economic terms. Oh, hello systemd.

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