# About The LDP

The Linux Documentation Project (LDP) was started to provide new users a way of quickly getting information about a particular subject. It not only contains a series of books on administration, networking, and programming, but also has a large number of smaller works on individual subjects, written by those who have used it. If you want to find out about printing, you get the Printing HOWTO. If you want to do find out if your Ethernet card works with Linux, grab the Ethernet HOWTO, and so on.

The LDP provides documents to the world in a variety of convenient formats and also accepts submissions in a number of formats. The current standard for storing the source documentation is a format known as DocBook, see .

> LDP Manifesto located at http://www.tldp.org/manifesto.html

> The Linux Documentation Project (LDP) is working on developing free, high-quality documentation for the GNU/Linux operating system. The overall goal of the LDP is to collaborate in all of the issues of Linux documentation. This includes the creation of HOWTOs and Guides. We hope to establish a system of documentation for Linux that will be easy to use and search. This includes the integration of the manual pages, info docs, HOWTOs, and other documents.

The human readable version goes more like this: The LDP consists of a large group of volunteers who are working on documentation about Linux and the programs which run on the Linux kernel. These documents exist primarily as shorter HOWTOs and longer Guides. Both are available from . This Guide focuses primarily on how to write your own HOWTOs for submission to the LDP.