Platform-specific "FAQs" are waaaaaay outdated

From: Peter Eisentraut <peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net>
To: pgsql-docs(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Platform-specific "FAQs" are waaaaaay outdated
Date: 2000-07-17 02:24:19
Message-ID: Pine.LNX.4.21.0007170346160.11173-100000@localhost.localdomain
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The platform-specific FAQs in the doc/ area have clearly been suffering
from, er, letter rot.

Quoth FAQ_Linux:

"This was a problem in 1.08 [...]. It is fixed in 1.09 and 6.0"

Some of the material goes on for pages about problems which have quite
obviously been fixed or suggests fixes which provably don't work.

To me this is clearly an out of sight/out of mind problem and it needs to
be fixed, like this:

* Platform-specific installation problems are documented in the
installation instructions. No after the fact, "sorry the real
installation procedure doesn't work for FooNix".

* Regression test problems are documented with the regression tests.

* Information about how to set up shared memory and other resources will
also find a home in the Administrator's Guide in a to be created
section.

* FAQ's will be destroyed, except for a select few.

In particular I'm looking at this:

* FAQ_AIX: The described problems are fixed and the information is
essentially given in the installation instructions.

* FAQ_BSDI: Information about resource limits, see plan above.

* FAQ_DigitalUnix: The summary of this is "I don't know why, but it
doesn't work for me either", which is no longer true AFAIK. Last update
Dec 1998 -- Remove.

* FAQ_FreeBSD: Same as BSDI

* FAQ_HPUX: We can keep some of this, but some of the problems are no
longer there.

* FAQ_Irix: Wildly obsolete. Better to remove and start over than to
confuse users like this.

* FAQ_Linux: same

* FAQ_SCO: Seems up to date.

* FAQ_Solaris: This information is better integrated into the main body.

FAQ_NT is probably more accurately named INSTALL_NT, and FAQ_QNX looks
more like a README_QNX.

All in all, there can't really be *that* many "frequently asked
questions". :-)

--
Peter Eisentraut Sernanders väg 10:115
peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net 75262 Uppsala
http://yi.org/peter-e/ Sweden

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