The Linux Documentation Project Is 10 Years Old, Nov 01, 2003

Webmaster's note: Linux Online is proud and honored to mirror the LDP's documentation. Happy Birthday LDP!

Once upon a time, there was a general consensus that Unix in general, and Linux in particular, lacked good documentation. Matt Welsh decided to do something about this, and wrote the first Linux HOWTO - the "Installation HOWTO" - the first of what is now a huge collection of focused, solution-oriented documents. It became a movement just like Linux itself. More and more people joined in on the effort, tools were created, and documents were written, translated and published.

Ten years later, it is no exaggeration to say this issue has been dealt with thoroughly: today, TLDP is one of the largest Internet projects, where a few hundred people have written several hundred documents, ranging from small manual pages to in-depth guides that span over a hundred pages. The documentation covers nearly all aspects of Linux and is freely distributed, like Open Source software itself. In fact, many Linux distributions include the complete TLDP collection with the installation, helping both newcomers and more experienced users.