Thankyou for your replies. Below is my summary of these replies
and also the original question.
Thankyou again for your help.
Sue
---------------------------------------------------------------
The original question was:
We have had answerbook for a while, but haven't installed it. I
have a few of questions.
1. What is the latest version of AnswerBook out now?
2. What do I need to get it up and running efficiently in an X
environment? Do I need to have it on a disc or is cd-rom quick
enough? I have noted several summaries a while back about using
AnswerBook with X.
3. Which window manager does it work best under?
4. How useful is it, ie do you use it a lot?
Thanks, in advance, for your help.
Sue
---------------------------------------------------------------
The short summary:
1. The latest version of AnswerBook appears to be linked to the
latest version of the OS.
2. It doesn't run under vanilla X, you need to do a couple of
things, see longer answer below. Whether you use a disc or CD
really depends on your needs and how much and how quickly you want
the info.
3. Works best under open windows.
4. Most people found it useful, particularly for beginners. Some
used it a lot, while others thought it a little bizaar.
For more info - please see the extended summary below.
Thanks again for your help.
Sue
---------------------------------------------------------------
Extended SUMMARY:
- makes the beginning of a new point or a different reply to that
point.
1. What is the latest version of AnswerBook out now?
-Sun distributes several AnswerBooks: almost one with every new software
release, so the latest version (of the system AnswerBook) should be the one
that comes with solaris 2.4. Other AnswerBooks exist for SunNetManager,
SPARCworks, SPARCcompiler, Wabi, etc.
-I had come to the
impression that AnswerBook was now only available as part of SunSolve.
The reason for that is that I have not received an AnswerBook update in
ages. My latest AnswerBook CD is called Solaris 1.1 SMCC Version A
AnswerBook for SunOS 4.1.3 and OpenWindows Version 3.
Since then I have been receiving SunSolve updates regularly. But as I
think about it, it seems that the update process involves linking the
AnswerBook for the SunSolve Searh Tool. I'm not sure if the actual
AnswerBook info is being updated or not. The latest SunSolve is for
April 1995 and is Version 2.6.
-Answerbook is in lock step with OS releases.
-Answerbook has been updated each time the operating system
is upgraded. Thus there is a version 2.3 for Solaris 2.3 and
2.4 for Solaris 2.4. I have never seen any upgrades other
than for the operating system upgrade.
-As far as I know versions of answerbook are tied to the OS version.
(or to the release of the software it documents)
2. What do I need to get it up and running efficiently in an X
environment? Do I need to have it on a disc or is cd-rom quick
enough? I have noted several summaries a while back about using
AnswerBook with X.
-It runs with OpenWindows and with any X server containing Display Postscript
(DPS), e.g. the Xsun server within the OpenWindows package.
-It can be made to work somewhat with X11 and Ghostscript
(from GNU), but my understanding is that it is not entirely
satisfactory.
-Can't help you there. I run mine under OpenWindows 3 and have never run
it from the CD.
- Running it from hard disk is much faster although the penalty
you pay in disk space is high. If you don't mind waiting or
you are short on disk space or you are not going to use it very
often then you might want to run it from the CD.
-I keep all of the reference
material on the CD-ROM, with only the operating software (which needs
to be fast to do searches) on my hard disk. There are hundreds of megabytes
in that CD-ROM, and eventually I found this method best ... plenty fast!
-Answerbook will NOT work in a "stock" X environment. Answerbook
requires the X server to have the DPS, Display PostScript, extensions.
3. Which window manager does it work best under?
-I use it on Solaris 2.4 with the sun Xsun server and the "fvwm" window manager,
but i wouldn't say: it works better with this or that window manager -- the
clue is the X server you are using.
The AnswerBook works fine with Openwindows and CDE.
-Open Windows
-I can't offer a comparison, but have no complaints under OpenWindows.
-It works with OpenWindows...Dont' know about others.
-We use it under olvwm. I don't know if this is the best.
-In theory, Answerbook is independent of the window manager.
I have used it with tvtwm, olwm, and olvwm without a hassle.
4. How useful is it, ie do you use it a lot?
-Since it is the "only" documentation shipped with Solaris: yes, i use it very
often and i think it's very useful (especially for beginners).
-I like it because Sun has made a particular effort to explain how
managing a machine. For example many questions regarding problems
administrations on Solaris can be found in the answerbook.
It's simple to use.
-If only 1 or two (or a few)
people use answerbook occasionally, and you have a cdrom drive to
dedicate to it, then the minimum install is satisfactory. Installing
the indexes on the hard disk (medium install) is better. I have never
needed to use the heavy install -- performance is quite adequate for
me.
-Very useful. I use it a whole lot, and don't even fully utilize it. I
have set up SunCourier, but never used it. SunCourier in case you're
not familiar with it, provides you with a GUI for placing service
requests via email. You have a template personalized to your site that
prompts for all the pertinent info needed for a request. Looks pretty
nice.
-It can be a little basic, and the search feature will astond you with it
bizzar lookups.
-I frequently use it when trouble shooting because it is faster
than searching through the manuals. Often the same information is
available in the man pages, but the cross referencing feature has
frequently saved me time and trouble. However, if I want to learn
about a particular topic, I usually resort to the manuals.
-To answer this question, several things need to be asked :
1) Which Answerbook ? (e.g., end user, admin, Fortran, C, C++, Ada,
Pascal, software developer)
2) What do you expect to get out of it ?
3) What are you doing with your computers.
Many thanks to the following:
From: Juergen Peus <grobi@uni-paderborn.de>
From: rene%Leila@chenas.inria.fr (Mr Rene Occelli)
From: anderson@neon.mitre.org (Mark S. Anderson)
From: Ross.Stocks.INSDRS01@nt.com
From: epl@caps.kodak.com (Gene Loriot (epl@kodak.com))
From: tscas1!tscas1.tscas1!fs@ncsc5.att.com
From: "David L. Elliott" <delliott@src.umd.edu>
From: misawa@physics.Berkeley.EDU (Shigeki Misawa)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Fri Sep 28 2001 - 23:10:26 CDT