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مشروع ترجمة كتاب Debian Administrator Handbook

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عن الكتاب:

Translating Debian Administrator Handbook into Arabic 

Summary 

We want to translate the latest edition of Debian Administrator Handbook into Arabic, the Wheezy edition. 

Importance Of The Project 

Debian is an operating system composed of free/open source software and it is one of the most popular Linux distributions. Debian project is very deep-rooted, it was started in 1993 to create a high quality free/libre distribution. There are many distributions derived from it, most notably Ubuntu, Knoppix, Xandros and many more. Debian has a lot of unique tools like the Debian package management system (dpkg and APT), and the distribution installer that provides an easy installation process without hiding the details that are important to system administrators who may want to use Debian on servers. 

Debian has the largest market share in Linux web server market according to latest reports, with 58% of market share, not to mention that Debian derivatives (Ubuntu, Mint and others) occupy the first places on Linux PCs. 

This book is a complete reference for Debian, it presents its different aspects from the perspective of two experienced contributors to the Debian project. Translating this book into Arabic will help the Arab Linux users to understand the Debian project better, and it may be one of the few Arabic books that deals with advanced Linux administration. 

About The Book 

The book authors are two of the contributors to the Debian project themselves, and they have been contributing to the project for more than a decade. The first edition of the book was in 2004, and since then there have been 5 editions in French, the last one was translated into English (in 2012) and released under a free license which allows anyone to modify, redistribute and translate the book without royalties. 

Contents Of The Book 

The book starts by defining the Debian project itself: what is it, how is it organized, life cycle of the distribution and the project commitment to software freedom principles. It mentions the reasons that prefer Debian to other distributions, then it moves to system administration starting by system installation and presenting a lot of available applications and how to install and use them, up to setting complex services up, like LDAP, NFS and Squid, and mastering techniques like RAID and LVM without forgetting the different virtualization solutions available to Debian users. 

The book is rich with information that any effective administrator need, yet it has a ton of information that benefits the beginner. It is one of the best books about Debian and one of the few free documents that covers Linux extensively. 

The Team 

Muhammad Saied: Senior student of Informatics Engineering, University of Aleppo. I use Linux and Debian in particular excessively. I have translated a few materials in the last couple of years, among them ”Think Java“ book, some Inkscape lessons and others. I have also translated some chapters of the previous edition of this book; you can read them on the following links: 

         Chapter 7 

         Appendix B 

         Chapter 6 (incomplete) 

         Chapter 12 (incomplete) 

E-mail: msaied93(a)gmail[dt]com

Mohamed Amine: System and Network Administrator. Debian user for more than 5 years and a contributor to the Debian project. 

E-mail: med(a)mailoo[dt]org

How Can You Help Us? 

You can help us by funding this campaign, or by sharing it to reach the largest number of interested people. You can also help us by reviewing the chapters we translate and send us your feedback. 

Why Do We Need Your Support? 

We need your support to cover the costs of the translation (two people work for 4 or 5 months) so we can spend more time on the project to finish it earlier. 

What Do You Get In Return? 

Most importantly you will be one of the contributors to translating and publishing one of the most important references in Arabic under a free license that enables anyone to copy, redistribute and enhance it. The translated book will be available for download in PDF format and also ODT format that can be edited directly using LibreOffice Writer. 

Stretch Goals

If we reach 7500$, We will also update the translation to the next edition of the book as soon as it get released (the Jessy edition).

If we reach 10,000$, We will print the book! We'll ship a hard copy accompanied with a Debian Wheezy DVD to everyone who funded us with 100$ or more - shipping is free!

Work Plan 

We will work on the latest English version, which has been released in last December. It applies to the latest stable release of Debian (Debian 7 – Wheezy). Each one of us will translate half of the book, we estimate to finish the translation in 4 months approximately. We will publish the finished chapters and drafts online as soon as possible to receive readers feedback and comments before releasing the final translation. 

Why Did Not We Finish The Translation Of The Previous Version Of The Book? 

I started translating this book one month after the release of its previous edition under a free license (that was in June 2012 – see here), and Muhammad Amine joined me since the beginning, but we only translated 50 pages or so in mean time. There have been a lot of reasons that delayed the translation, most importantly Debian Wheezy was released at that time and we were waiting its version of the book, but the update of the original book took longer than we thought. We were also using po files managed by 'publican' in translation; this unfamiliar tool caused a lot of complications to us especially when we wanted to preview the result of our work. It was also hard to track separate paragraphs through po files, which lead to many missed typos and inconsistent translation. 

Is Not 4 Months Too Long? 

Any fast translation will lose some of its quality, and the longer the time we take the more reader reviews we can receive. We are going to publish drafts as soon as possible too, so you don't feel time length. In fact this period is similar to that of the translation of the original book; that one took about six month. 

What About Updating The Book To Later Versions? 

If we reach our 7500$ stretch we will work on updating the book to the next edition as soon as its release, otherwise any other person can work on it. The book usually takes 1.5 to 2 years to get updated. Interested people can have our work in ODT format for easy editing with LibreOffice Writer. We will try to provide the translation in the original XML format too. 

Why Did Not You Get Financed By A Traditional Publisher? 

It is hard to find a publisher to finance you, especially that most publishers today have two problems: First they want to keep redistribution and modification rights to themselves, and this does fit with a free/libre book like this one. Second, they can not cover all countries of the Arab world, but when we publish the book online every Linux user or curious new comer will be able to grab a copy easily with no hassle, no matter where he is in the world.