[Samba] New Printing Howto collection is soooo good!!! (I learn a lot from theory)

Kurt Pfeifle kpfeifle at danka.de
Tue May 6 02:23:12 GMT 2003


LinuxNewbie tuxfriend at gmx.de wrote on Samba-Digest:

> Mon May 5 23:50:57 GMT 2003

[ LinuxNewbie, please may your GMX mailer to break lines earlier,
   for example at 75 characters  ]

> Hi, I must say that i admire very much 
> the printing documentation written by
> one of your samba team. I wish 
> every documentations is like this!  -- 
> It explains to a newbie like me what
> I need to know. It is amazing: i read 
> it and in my head a few questions start 
> to go round. I read 1 page more and
> the questions are answered. 

Thanks for the compliments, I feel very much flattered now   ;-)

> It is not 
> good  that the other documentation pages 
> of the howto collections are not do
> good. 

Yes, I see a lot of rough edges there too. But be patient.
It is being worked on. It takes time. If you have never
written docuemtation yourself, you don't know how *much*
(if you want to make it well). Sometimes I think it takes
longer  than the code it describes...  ;-)   [Hey, you
developers:just kidding....]

> I have seen it has increased 
> its size very big. The PDFs have now 
> 200 page or more.

Here you see Jelmer's, Jerry's and John's (and all the
contributor's efforts to extend and expand the explanations
you are expecting.

> I read about Kerberos
> and don't understand.

Same for me...  ;-)
I can fully understand your feelings. But it is being worked
on. I myself am looking forward to read and study from all
the newly written chapters once they are released. (I started
to read chapter 4, and I think it has improved a *lot* from
4 weeks ago! I understand that part now better....)

> I read 
> about print and do  understand. Why 
> is the new print pages not in the  PDF.

It will be soon. I just am not good in writing DocBook XML
markup. Somebody else is helping to convert it. As soon as
that is done, I may be able to  maintain the XML source
version of the document. Currently I write in HTML.

> Why   can you not teach Kerberos 
> like you teach print? Why can you
>  not teach LDAP? I read LDAP but dont
> understood. Yes you written  "do this - 
> do that" on Ldap but I still dont 
> understand. But my head is spinning. 
> From many new things I read I do not 
> understand what you mean: Pam, nsswitch, 
> mySQL?

I don't know if it will be of any comfort to you: but I
don't understand it myself (from reading the old level
of docus). The old docus start at just a too hi level and
pre-require too much prior knowledge. I didn't have time
to look and search for good beginners's docu on those
topics. If I would have encountered newbie-friendly
documentation stubs about these topics *inside* the
Samba HOWTO Collection, I might have made the effort to
struggle though it. But I just didn't manage to make
the first jump, because the initial step was too high
for me to gear up...

> xml and TDB? (no not TDB. this is 
> explains in print HowTO document, what 
> it is. 

Thanks for this praise.

> But how must I configuration TDB 
> for user data?)
> 
> Can you explain more better? Please, 
> please, please. We new Samba fans and
> Linuxfriends must learn more
> from it. But you must be good teachers 
> because the  lessons are heavy. How
> have you learned?

I have learned the "hard" way. By reading a lot of "bad"
documentation and by maeing my own experiments. I have
prior knowledge about printing (from my experience in
the Microsoft world). I *know* what my initial questions
were, and I know what most users (and many admins, for
that matter) don't understand well. These things I want
to spell out. I try to write docu as I myself would like
to read. But maybe, for many people this is too verbose....

> I think it is very good software from 
> you to make   SAmba. It has makes my
> old LInux 8.0 working with my 
> Windows 95. But i have now new computers 
> (1 computer and 1 laptop) got.  I
> have new operation systems 
> installed  and Samba works not more.
> 
> I have windows XP home and Linux 8,2. 

Windows XP Home has an issue with networking inside
Domains. It is simple: it can't participate in a domain.
Microsoft has left out that part of the functionality
from Winows XP Home. It can only do "share level" (in
Samba-speak) security much like Windows 95). So it
depends a lot on your smb.conf.

But be patient. Wait another week or two. Then re-visit
the new HOWTO Collection. I am sure it will be an
incredible step forward.

> Can they make Samba?  I can not. But
> my Cups print now works like
> a dream. From reading Samba print 
> dokuments (new).  But only prints with
> Linux 8.2,

Well, isn't that an achievement?

> not with Windows
> with samba to Linux 82. I can print  
> fotos and they are good. The fotos  are
> better from Linux 8.2 as  from XP.

This is what I hear often, especially for the Gimp-Print
drivers and the HP hpijs drivers. But I myself don't
own a photo printer.

>  Not big difference but XP  is not so 
> good prints on photo paper.

I hope you tell (and show) your still-Windows friends.....

> Linux is
> half so speed -- this is not so good. 

I guess the higher quality has a price. This price is
speed losses for the sake of more exact rendering
algorithms. But I hear this will improve soon too...  ;-)

> I 
> burn CD  on XP with foto and do CD in 
> my Linux and print. Please learm me
> how Samba can make my fotos 
> come through my cabel from windows to 
> Linux.

I am sure we will soon be able to get that to work.

> Thank you very much. Have a nice day. 
> Have a lot of fun. Enjoy.

I do.

> LinuxNewbie

Cheers,
Kurt




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