David Both is an Open Source Software and GNU/Linux advocate, trainer, writer, and speaker. He has been working with Linux and Open Source Software since 1996 and with computers since 1969. He is a strong proponent of and evangelist for the "Linux Philosophy for System Administrators."
He has written articles for magazines including, Linux Magazine, Linux Journal, and OS/2 Magazine back when there was such a thing. He currently writes prolifically for OpenSource.com. He particularly enjoys learning new things while researching his books and articles, building his own computers, and helping his grandchildren build their computers. He has found some interesting
and unusual ways of problem solving, including sitting on one computer on which he was working.
David has published five books with Apress. Four solo works, “The Linux Philosophy for SysAdmins,” August 2018, and a three volume self-study training course, “Using and Administering Linux — From Zero to SysAdmin,” released in December, 2019. He has also written one book with co-author Cyndi Bulka, "Linux for Small Business Owners" that was released in 2022.
David currently lives in Raleigh, NC, with his amazing and supportive wife, Alice.
He can be reached via email at LinuxGeek46@both.org or on Mastodon at @LinuxGeek46@linuxrocks.online.
Authored Comments
Well, one reason is that I have never heard of it before. But now I have, along with some others that I also was unfamiliar with. For the article, I did want to stick with file managers that are provided by the Fedora distribution or an "official" repository such as RPMFusion. Even then, there were more than I knew about.
Great article, Rich. You nailed it!
I have been in the business for many years and documentation ranges from non-existent to horrible, to incorrect and - very occasionally - to really good. I have written a good deal of documentation myself and have tried to learn as I go. I do not recall ever having seen a class in how to do documentation.
Some of the things you mention were swirling all around even me as I read your article. One list I belong to had someone ranting that another person trying to comprehend some documentation, "learn English," while another list has a continuing discussion about missing documentation for an application I use.
Many web sites that are supposed to contain the documentation for software are so incomplete as to be useless. A lot of times they are requesting help with the documentation, but most people don't care enough and would rather complain than contribute.