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Debian Reference
Appendix A - Appendix


A.1 Authors

Debian Reference was initiated by Osamu Aoki osamu#at#debian.org as a personal installation memo that was eventually called "Quick Reference ...". Many contents came from the archives of the "debian-user" mailing list. Also "Debian Installation Manual" and "Debian Release Notes" were referenced.

Following a suggestion from Josip Rodin, who is very active with the Debian Documentation Project (DDP) and is the current maintainer of "The Debian FAQ", this document was renamed as "Debian Reference" and was merged with several chapters from the "The Debian FAQ" with reference-like contents. Then "Debian Quick Reference" was formed as an excerpt.

This document has been edited, translated, and expanded by the following QREF team members:

QREF was short for the original document title, "Quick Reference..." and also is the project name at qref.sourceforge.net.

Many manual pages and info pages on the Debian system were used as the primary references to write this document. To the extent Osamu Aoki considered within the fair quotation stature, many parts of them, especially command definitions, were used as phrase pieces after careful editorial efforts to fit them into the style and the objective of this document.

Most of the contents of Debian fundamentals, Chapter 2 originally came from "The Debian FAQ" (March 2002):

These sections of "The Debian FAQ" were included in this document after major reorganization to reflect changes in the Debian system. Both documents are updated concurrently now.

The original "Debian FAQ" was made and maintained by J. H. M. Dassen (Ray) and Chuck Stickelman. Authors of the rewritten "Debian FAQ" are Susan G. Kleinmann and Sven Rudolph. After them, "The Debian FAQ" was maintained by Santiago Vila. The current maintainer is Josip Rodin.

Parts of the information for "The Debian FAQ" came from:

Some parts of "Tutorial" section were derived from

The authors would like to thank all those who helped make this document possible.


A.2 Warranties

Since I am not an expert, I do not pretend to be fully knowledgeable about Debian or Linux in general. Security considerations I use may only be applicable for home use.

This document does not replace any authoritative guides.

All warranties are disclaimed. All trademarks are property of their respective trademark owners.


A.3 Feedback

Comments and additions to this document are always welcome. Please send email to the Debian BTS system under the debian-reference package or under the respective translation packages. Use of reportbug makes it easy to file a thorough bug report. You may still send email to Osamu Aoki at osamu#at#debian.org in English or to each translator in their respective language.

Although I used to live in the USA, I am a non-native English user. Any grammatical corrections are welcomed.

The best feedback is a patch against the SGML version, but a patch against the text version is also welcomed. See Official document, Section 1.1 for the official document site.

The original SGML files used to create this document are also available in CVS at: :pserver:anonymous@cvs.sf.net/cvsroot/qref or http://qref.sourceforge.net/Debian/qref.tar.gz.


A.4 Document format

This document was written using the DebianDoc SGML DTD (rewritten from LinuxDoc SGML). The DebianDoc SGML system enables us to create files in a variety of formats from one source, e.g. this document can be viewed as HTML, plain text, TeX DVI, PostScript, PDF, and GNU info.

Conversion utilities for DebianDoc SGML are available in the Debian package debiandoc-sgml.


A.5 The Debian maze

The Linux system is a very powerful computing platform for a networked computer. However, learning how to use all its capabilities is not easy. Setting up the printer is a good example.

There is a complete, detailed map called the "SOURCE CODE". This is very accurate but very hard to understand. There are also references called HOWTO and mini-HOWTO. They are easier to understand but tend to give too much detail and lose the big picture. I sometimes have a problem finding the right section in a long HOWTO when I need a few commands to invoke.

In order to navigate through this maze of Linux system configuration, I started writing down simple reminder memos in text file format as my quick reference. This list of memos grew larger and I learned debiandoc in the meantime. The product is this Debian Reference.


A.6 The Debian quotes

Here are some interesting quotes from the Debian mailing list.


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Debian Reference

CVS, Thu Jan 18 11:52:15 UTC 2007

Osamu Aoki osamu#at#debian.org
Authors, Section A.1