On Thu, May 3, 2012 at 11:57 AM, David dave@fiteyes.com wrote:

Is this the right place for a suggestion on minor documentation changes?

I actually needed build-essential and python-dev packages in addition to the python package that came with the default Ubuntu install on Linode.

Ubuntu is popular, but not that popular that this kind of change will stop here. This is really basic knowledge that IMO is reasonable for our docs to presume (anybody who is installing beta software is going to run into real issues sooner or later). So it isn't a minor change, it's a move in the direction of becoming a site for educating novice sysadmins, and we're going to end up providing similar HOWTOs for RHEL, Debian, ... (hopefully not Gentoo or ArchLinux, of course;-).

I don't have an objection to doing that, if somebody wants to put it together. I think it's quite plausible that Mailman 3 will be the first experience for many source-build virgins. But my experience with Emacsen suggests that people who are running into the "Windows-wannabe distros can't build software" issue is better addressed by a separate *set* of *distro-specific* documents (it might be in one file with per-distro sections, of course). Putting this stuff into the quick-start or full install guide is just going to deter novices and annoy experienced sysadmins.

Better yet would be a section of the FAQ pointing to a generic site for "So ya wanna be a beta tester" documents, but I suspect that doesn't exist.