I spent my teens installing linux from floppies and Infomagic CDs. Back then the distro would often by default include the howtos package bringing in the whole

I spent my teens installing linux from floppies and Infomagic CDs. Back then the distro would often by default include the howtos package bringing in the whole enchilada of knowledge. They were generally relevant to the versions of software included, and updated when the rest of the system did. Things started getting messy as everyone got connected 24x7 and increasingly diverged from what packages distros were shipping, and of course the HOWTOs in general just stopped getting maintained/created until we arrived at today's misery.