HowTo.sh                                         HOW-TO Reader
Ver 0.3                        USM Bish <bish@nde.vsnl.net.in>

Introduction

HOW-TO documents are an integral  part of Linux, and have been
distributed with all  major distributions. These documents are
kept in  separate directories. The  location of the  docs vary
between distributions ... but  usually in /usr/share/doc or in
/usr/doc. Essentially, there are two sets of HOWTOs  and mini-
HOWTOs.

Some distros, like Debian,  keep them in .txt.gz format, while
others,  like Slackware,  in pure  .txt format.  These  can be
viewed either  by going  to the directory  and using mc  or by
gunzipping before reading.

Scope

The scope of this shell program is to make them all available 
on a menu, and readable under the same interface.

Dependencies

This script is dependent upon the "dialog" program.  For, "X",
"Xdialog" is recommended, though it can  very  well  show in a
dialog interface in an xterm; the output, however, leaves much
to be desired.

Usage

a) The first thing to do is to go through the program and edit
   the first few lines for your distro, regarding the location
   of the HOW-TO and the MINI-HOW-TO files. The configurations
   for Debian and Slackware have been stated.
   
b) Once this is done, the HowTo database should be initialised
   with root privileges (either as "root" or su to root). 
   
   #HowTo.sh -i
   
c) If  this builds successfully,  as a user fire  HowTo.sh and
   enjoy ...
   
d) The database needs to be re-initialised if more HOW-TO docs
   are added.

e) Note : This script expects the HOW-TO  in a  .txt.gz format
   only. In case of distributions like Slackware, where HOW-TO
   docs are kept in plain .txt format all the files need to be
   gzipped:
   
   #gzip -v *.txt   (from within the HOWTO sub-directory)
   

TODO

It is possible to check the  whole  hard disk for locations of 
the HOW-TO files and gzip all that is not in a  gzipped state.
I wonder if this functionality is really required  ... Willing
to put in this effort if user response indicate so.
