Suggest Debian text

[Paul Lussier]

Karl <33karl at verizon.net> writes:

> For example, I would like to know the purpose and structure of the
> zillion files referenced during boot.

Well, knowing that the first thing the boot loader does once it's
loaded the kernel into memory is to run init, you might start with
reading the initd source code.

That will lead you to reading /etc/init.d/*, all of which are bash
scripts.  Each of those scripts does something to set the system up
and get things running for login.

Another thing you can do is read man pages.  man man, check the Sea
Also at the bottom, then run man on each of those.

Another great book, mentioned ad nauseum by me and ddm over the years
is the excellent sysadmin bible by Evi Nemeth, et al.  The
Linux-specific version being Linux Administration Handbook.  It's not
Debian specific, but it's an excellent sysadmin text.

Also, check the documentation link off of debian.org.  It references a
number of Debian specific texts.

A word of warning though, I've found most documentation regarding
Linux in general to be rather crappy.  As much as I love Debian, keep
in mind, that like most distributions, it nothing more than a
re-packaging of "a bunch of packages" with some extra glue and magic
wrapped around it.  The "glue and magic" is what most people getting
deeper into any given distro really want to understand, and is,
unfortunately some of the most esoteric, arcane, poorly written and
more poorly documented "stuff". (for examples, read the source to
apt-move and debootstrap, both of which re-exec themselves to be
interpreted by 'ash' instead of 'bash'!).

The Linux Documentation Project (TLDP) seems to have suffered over the
years, much of the documentation there is old and not up to date with
the software it purports to document.

Overall, I'm greatly disappointed with the quality of documentation
for Linux in this area.  There are a number of HOWTO's which are okay,
but none of the great.  Most are "Here's how I did it, maybe it'll
work for you too!".  There is precious little good documentation about
the infrastructure and architecture of Debian packages and
repositories.  

You're best bet, imo, is to read source, and ask questions (here or
elsewhere).

Hope that helps, and doesn't discourage you too much :)
-- 
Seeya,
Paul
- who has spent entirely too much time debugging stuff supposedly "documented"