Re: Is Changes to be renamed?

G Sumner Hayes (sumner+@cmu.edu)
Fri, 12 Jul 1996 11:41:51 -0400 (EDT)

hpk@prim.han.de (Holger P. Krekel) writes:
> Hello,
>
> some time ago (I think when Linus was away) there was a discussion
> about renaming the Documentation/Changes to something like "READMEFIRST"
> or "WARNINGS" or whatever in the toplevel directory.
> This could prevent this list from questions like
> "my ps does't work anymore" or "make doesnt work" etc. This is because there
> will be similar changes in the future, won't there?
>

I think it would make a lot of sense to maintain a "Changes-2.0.x"
file (or "Changes-2.1.x") for each version released that requires new
software. A global "Changes" file would also be useful. That way,
people who grab every other kernel could just check to see what was
new and people whoupgrade wholesale would have a place to check what
versions of everything they need. Alas, maintenance of this would be
difficult. Perhaps a single "NEWS" file which contains the diffs that
were applied to "Changes" for this version? *sigh* I'd much rather
have Linux writing code than fending of onslaughts of "Make/PS/PPP are
broken!" queries.

Adding a top-level "README_BEFORE_INSTALLING" file would be nice -
Documentation/Changes could be moved here or it could just be a
pointer to that file.

As a third thought, having "make config/menuconfig/xconfig" give a BIG
BOLD MESSAGE saying to read Documentation/Changes would be a Good
Thing(TM).

TTFN,

Sumner