Information for writers and translators

This page offers some basic information for people who would like to help with the Installation Guide, either by writing/editing the original English version or by translating the manual.

Writing/editing

Help with the content of the manual is very, very welcome. It is very important to keep in mind that the manual documents the installation process for all architectures (and subarchitectures) supported by Debian. You can either take a general perspective or work on concrete installation instructions for a specific architecture. If you want to start working on the manual, please send an email to the Debian Installer mailing list.

Translation

If there is an existing translation for your language, please contact the current translators and offer to help. They can often be contacted through the l10n mailing list for your language (if one exists). If you want to start a new translation, please send an email to the Debian Installer mailing list.

There are currently two platforms used for translating the manual:

The first method is often preferred by translators if they are already used to translating using PO files. On the other side, some people prefer a browser-based webinterface solution (the second option).

Practical information

Information on checking out the manual from the Debian Installer repository and general information on translating the manual can be found in the translations.txt file. For translation using PO files, you should also read the translations_po.txt file.
Active translators are expected to be subscribed to debian-i18n@lists.debian.org.

Two options translators should be aware of are including optional paragraphs in your translation and translating or localizing entities.

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