“What first drew me to investigate and ultimately review the
Linux knowledge base (lkb), being that I’m a woman in a field that
is over-populated with men, is the logo for lkb. It’s a picture of
a woman (fully-clothed, even) working on a laptop, and by the
caption “technical Linux info for technical Linux people” we are
given the impression that she is involved with Linux. She’s sitting
on a sofa with her bare feet propped up on the coffee table. The
expression on her face: a touch quizzical with a sprinkle of
disgust thrown in. This could be me! I can identify! Show me the
Knowledge!…”
“The top of the site shows you links to categories for hardware,
software, networking, development, quick information, and
miscellaneous stuff. Digging down through the links takes you to
ever more specific information. Navigating this way is good for
when you ‘sort of’ know what you’re looking for, or you just want
to do some free-form learning. At times when you’re honing in on an
exact target, you can type in a keyword and search the entire
database. For instance, a search on the keyword ‘linksys’ turned up
48 matches, and a search on 3com delivered 124.”
“In addition to standard ‘how-to’ links, there’s a collection of
MAN pages and access to Usenet posts. It’s a pretty good bet you’ll
find the information you’re looking for here.”
“Once I became a member, signing up for mailing lists was as
easy as a single click (Amazon, are you listening?). There are four
to choose from, so far: a discussion of the source code for the
lkb, a general discussion list, an lkb advocacy list, and lkb-tech,
to talk about issues with Linux.”