Work started, 5/27/2003. Update 11/9/2003:

Here is the new manual. It is in Docbook XML format, which is
becoming the new standard for documentation. The advantages include
more precise tagging, figure and table support, and a very strongly
supported toolchain. There is a fairly brief cheatsheet.xml here which
will probably tell you all you need to know, especially if you've
worked with debiandoc before. The Definitive Guide to DocBook by Norm
Walsh is indispensable for figuring out why your tags don't work the
way you think they should:

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/docbook/chapter/book/docbook.html

So far, there are files corresponding to all the sections of the old
manual except for 'tech-info' and 'kernel'. There are also some new
sections like 'using-d-i' and 'modules'. The document structure is
mapped out in docstruct.xml. We need to think about how that works for
other languages.

Denis is looking into l10n systems for DocBook, particularly poxml
which was used in the KDE docs. 

See doc/manual/build/README for build instructions.

For the future, big plans^Wdreams:

* Incorporate whatever is practical from the progeny manual. 
* Screen shots.
* Quick Start section for techies that just need a reminder.
* Quick Start section for newbies.
* Add lots of pointers to the Debian Reference.

As much as possible, let's try to hide the gruesome details, so they
are there if you need them and out of your way if not. Whenever
something is covered well in an existing document like the Debian
Reference (source at qref.sourceforge.net), please reference it with a
URL to www.debian.org/doc/user-manuals#quick-reference instead of
incorporating the text.

All help is welcome! Submit patches to the debian-boot list.