LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Alan Kennington <ak.linuxsa@topology.org>
  To  : David Lloyd <lloy0076@adam.com.au>
  Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 18:03:37 +1030

Re: docbook "hello world" for SuSE linux

On Fri, Jan 03, 2003 at 07:28:01AM +1030, David Lloyd wrote:
> 
> Alan,
> 
> > Obviously not..... Unless someone can tell me different.
> 
> Unless your SuSE is super ancient you should be able to do:
> 
> % docbook2pdf hello.sgml
> % docbook2html hello.sgml
> 

David,

Indeed that's exactly what I tried, with dozens of variations.
But the docbook2html just didn't like my choice of "public identifier".
It gave me dozens of lines of useless error messages.

> Did you know that the Definitive Guid
> (to Docbook) is available for free download:
> 
> * http://www.docbook.org/
> 

In fact, that's where I got my "hello world" document from.
The problem - as I now understand it - is that the docbook2html
style of invocation just doesn't match that "hello world" document.
I consulted numerous introductions, manuals and man-pages.
These are some of the useful links I found:
http://www.topology.org/soft/docbook.html

What I really needed was documentation for "Configuring your DocBook/SGML/XML
Environment". 
All of the available documentation seems to assume that some guru
has set up your environment and all you have to do is start
typing documents.
I'm sure the documentation I needed was out there somewhere, but the SGML/XML
literature on the net is so vast and poorly written that I couldn't find
the right tree in the forest.
When I say poorly written, I mean that every piece of DocBook/SGML/XML
literature assumed that you were already knowledgable about the subject 
and just needed a bit of extra detail on something.
It's what I used to call Kontextfrei when I encountered this 
style of documentation constantly while working in Germany. 
Everything I read on DocBook/SGML/XML was either useless philosophical
generalities (apparently written for babies or managers), or else
fine details of syntax (apparently written for gurus).

> 
> DSL
> 
> (ps: welcome back--did you go on a Safari or something?)
> 

Thanks. I went hermit - to write a book on differential geometry full time
for 18 months while waiting for the IT industry to get back on its legs.
This DocBook problem was just so painfully frustrating, I finally
decided that it was time to resubscribe to linuxsa.
There are some problems that are so difficult that all the man-pages,
online documentation, O'Reilly books, specialist mailing list archives,
the Google encyclopedia, examination of the source, and deep meditation 
just can't solve.
Then it's time to throw oneself at the mercy of linuxsa.

-- 
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