1.1. Fresh@LDP

Chr. Clemens Lee sent in version 1.0 of the Debian Binary Package Building mini-HOWTO. The document explains how to build a minimal Debian (.deb) package for use on your systems.

1.2. Submitted for review

• The PDF version of the DNS HOWTO. This document dates back to 2001 but does discuss Bind 9 configuration. However, be sure to download the latest release when working with Bind (fixes among other issues security issues with parameters discussed in Chapter 6 of the HOWTO).
• Tabatha Marshall, our Review Coordinator, took over the Reviewer HOWTO and converted it to XML, checked the links and made it reflect the current review process.

2.1. HOWTOs and FAQs

• By Rick Moen: the WordPerfect on Linux FAQ, v1.4.14.
• Rahul Sundaram, published v1.1 of his Linux Documentation (LDP) FAQ. A good reread of the initial release corrected spelling mistakes and puts the finishing touch on the content.
• Giles Orr will some day be at the top of one of our edition. Meanwhile, here's v0.93 of his Bash Prompt HOWTO (not to be mistaken for the Advanced Bash Scripting Guide or the Bash Programming - Introduction HOWTO).
• This is not a mistake. We can hardly keep up with Miroslav Skoric. Here are the new versions of his FBB Packet-radio BBS mini-HOWTO v1.27; LILO mini-HOWTO v3.16 and Linux+WindowsNT mini-HOWTO v2.16.
• David Ranch's Linux IP Masquerade HOWTO reached version 2.0, worth to mention.
• The XFree Local Multi-User HOWTO by Svetoslav Slavtchev is now at v1.3

2.2. Guides

• The Pocket Linux Guide by David Horton at v2.0.
• Gerard Beekmans published v5.0 of the Linux From Scratch HOWTO.
• Also from David Ranch, the TrinityOS Guide. This document is a step-by-step example-driven explanation of how to build a very functional Linux box with a strong emphasis on security. In the new version David fixes version numbering issues on many of the daemons he mentions, and corrects a couple of statements having to do with the different Linux Distributions.

3.1. HOWTOs Lacking Depth

A long discussion ensued following a feedback mail from Laurent Bedubourg stating that the PHP HOWTO by Alavoor Vasudevan was highly opinionated. David Lawyer said that his (Al Devs) HOWTOs lacked depth and technical correctness and was of the strong opinion that they should be removed from the collection. People said that Al Dev did not respond when they tried to contact him, though he did respond in a private mail from Tabatha about the ongoing discussion. John Levon posted details as to why the RCS/CVS HOWTO, C/C++ beautifier HOWTO and the Kernel HOWTO should be removed from the collection. Machtelt Garrels posted a summary.

3.2. Document Rating System

As a byproduct of the chain on review and removal of HOWTOs lacking Depth, several people suggested that there should be a document rating system. Lampadas was to solve all the problems, but since it is not ready yet, people suggested Bugzilla, A pre-set document lifetime, using wiki, and many other suggestions.

3.3. LDP HOWTO Generator

Stein Gjoen sent in an update to his LDP HOWTO Generator which he announced in August. The generator has now been tested with actual input, works with Netscape as well as IE, the resultant SGML is validated using sgmlcheck and it converts nicely into HTML.