FAI in italian

[Mathias Friman]

On Tue, 2005-09-06 at 22:21 +0200, Thomas Lange wrote:
> First of all, I appreciate that you like to help. Please translate the
> original english fai guide without any additions in the italian
> version. I like to keep all translations in sync. So if you have any
> improvements for the documentation, please send patches for the
> english version before including them into a translated version.
> 

Whatever you read below, I just love FAI. It has simplified my work for
about two years now, and I am really grateful for having it to lean
on. :) I've been on the list for about a year and a half now, and
I follow all discussions with interest.

On to my original purpose:

How does the list and the author feel about a complete remake of the 
FAI documentation? In my efforts to explain the usefulness and
excellence of FAI to my fellow technicians, I have developed a 
document (currently only in .pdf-format) that includes examples
and illustrations that they think simplified the understanding
of FAI greatly.

The people I work with have a long experience of the Microsoft (*ahem*)
platform and have only basic knowledge of Linux, mostly as users.
Personally, I think that the current FAI documentation is aimed at
already committed Debian GNU/Linux administrators, but leaves a lot of
catching up for those newly saved souls that decides to switch platform.

As of now, configuring FAI to handle all installations in an entire
network requires extensive knowledge in Debian GNU/Linux, user and
server applications, scripting and FAI configuration. The learning curve
for newcomers is steep and there is no single source of information to
cover all aspects of the work necessary to achieve a fully automated
installation structure (which is what we all want to have, right? :).

The documentation of FAI is rudimentary in some areas and could be hard
to grasp for a person newly introduced to Linux. It depends on several
different sources to be complete, lack explanation of and references to
certain key terms needed to further the understanding of FAI and the
underlying structure. It also has no pictures to simplify complex
textual explanations.

The present documentation of FAI covers about sixty pages of written
text. A single book describing a less advanced product like Microsoft
RIS and MSI packaging never encompass less than 500 pages. Even though
FAI for Debian GNU/Linux is a lot more flexible and configurable, the
documentation only describes the default setup.

The difference between FAI and any M$ solution is of course that
There Is More Than One Way To Do It, and covering all possible
solutions for all possible software packages would take a truckload
of paper to print.

My idea was to thouroghly and meticulously document the example
classes simple, advanced and beowulf included in FAI, document all
subroutines/tasks, helper scripts as ftar, install_packages,
mkdebmirror, fai-divert and so on. I understand that this is a huge
task to undertake, but it will hopefully save a lot of time for
people on this list answering the same newbie questions over and
over. :)

There is of course nothing wrong with asking and answering basic 
questions multiple times. However, if this can be avoided by improving
the FAI documentation, I think that it is a thing that should be done.

I'm working on a synopsis for the documentation which I was thinking of
publishing on this list if there is an interest for a revised
documentation.

Thomas and all involved in the development, thanks again for a great
tool. :)

Regards,
Mathias