From the Canyon Edge -- :-Dustin

Friday, February 27, 2009

Improving Manpage Content

For those looking to contribute to Ubuntu (and in general, to Linux)
documentation, I'm pleased to announce a new vector.

I have previously posted about the Ubuntu Manpage Repository:

Earlier this week, I rolled out a new feature, whereby each page has a tiny "bug" icon near the top. Such as:

Clicking on the bug icon will bring you to a Launchpad page where you can report a bug against the package providing incorrect manpage content. Please file these bugs with:
  • Importance: Wishlist
  • Tags: manpage
For example:
Note also that you can download the source of any given manpage directly from the manpage-repository webpage. See the link to ecryptfs.7.gz:

For information about generating a patch, see:

From the manpage source, you can correct the manpage documentation, generate a patch, and attach it to the Launchpad bug. If you do this, make sure you:
  1. flag the attachment as a patch
  2. mark the bug as 'In Progress'
  3. assign the bug to yourself
  4. subscribe the appropriate team for uploading
    • ubuntu-main-sponsors
    • ubuntu-universe-sponsors
And in the interest of being a good Open Source Citizen, please also forward your patch to the appropriate upstream project (and/or Debian)!

:-Dustin

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for that, Dustin :) I think it's a welcome addition, however I believe when clicking on the ladybug the link should not be directly landing in Launchpad, but instead somewhere with instructions and information you give in your blog post.

    Or maybe provide the hints you blgged about before linking there and pre-fill fields or else... not sure.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Magicfab-

    Can you or anyone else give me some information about pre-filling fields in Launchpad via the URL? I would *love* to do this. Believe me, I tried. But I didn't get much further than just getting the link to land on filebug page against the correct package...

    :-Dustin

    ReplyDelete

Please do not use blog comments for support requests! Blog comments do not scale well to this effect.

Instead, please use Launchpad for Bugs and StackExchange for Questions.
* bugs.launchpad.net
* stackexchange.com

Thanks,
:-Dustin

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