Building a Large Linux Knowledgebase

linuxfan writes "It looks like LinuxQuestions.org is aiming to build the largest independent Linux-related knowledgebase using a Wiki. They are using the same software as Wikipedia (MediaWiki), are using a Creative Commons license and look to be off to a good start."

Comments

All you'll ever need to know...

[ackthpt]

void main()
{
printf("42");
}

Re:All you'll ever need to know...

[El]

That isn't all I need to know... I also need to know what the question is!

Re:All you'll ever need to know...

[ackthpt]

I also need to know what the question is!

As Marvin said, it was in the patterns of Arthur's brain and a simple matter to tell them.

Arthur asked this question many times: "What?"

Re:All you'll ever need to know...

[Anonymous Coward]

void main()

tsk..tsk..tsk..

main cannot be void

Re:All you'll ever need to know...

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you get when you multiply 6 by 9?

Re:All you'll ever need to know...

[Anonymous Coward]

Gosh! 4 lines -> 4 errors.

1: you fail to #include stdio.h
2: main returns an int
3: the printf needs a newline ("\n") character
to properly flush the stdout buffer, or a fflush(stdout) call.
4: you must end the program by returning to the
external environment your error code, if any, or the EXIT_SUCCESS constant (==0).

Go study the C Faq! ;^)

Re:All you'll ever need to know...

[Kyouryuu]

I think a centralized Linux Wiki would be a great idea. Wiki is a powerful and underutilized Internet technology.

In the Unreal community, there exists the Unreal Wiki. Anyone can contribute to the knowledge base and the result is the most comprehensive guide on every aspect of Unreal development. It is an invaluable resource with new entries and updates everyday.

I can only see good things coming from a Linux extension of the same idea.

Re:All you'll ever need to know...

[Geek of Tech]

Maybe it's "How many roads must a man walk down"....

If only we had something more scientific.... like scrabble....

Re:All you'll ever need to know...

[maxwell demon]

Real gurus don't need I/O libraries. They use

int main()
{
return 42;
}

This also explains why we'll never find the question: While main may (and in fact must) return an int, it cannot return anything else. And the question surely is large enough that it cannot be encoded into an int.

They have that....

[JustinXB]

It's called Google.

Re:They have that....

[ciroknight]

I know this a stab at being funny, but...

The truth is pretty simple. Google's not enough. Sometimes for the most obscure questions, either most people consider you a nub and tell you to RFTM (which, in many cases, no manual exists), or they don't know themselves how to solve the problem. So, we often spend hours and hours going through google to find out how to get X hardware to work on Y configuration to find that Alan Cox had brilliantly broken my soundcard in 2.4.20... These are the kinds of things that there really should be a one-stop place to find what you need..

Surprisingly, it's taken this long for anyone to realize this...

Re:They have that....

[JungleBoy]

You just need to click on the 'groups' tab in google. :) So many linux mailing lists are piped onto usenet, that just about every question asked shows up there. Essentially google groups lets you globally search nearly all linux mailing lists.

Re:They have that....

[timeOday]

The other big problem is that information goes rapidly out of date.

Say you need to make a file over 2GB (very common in video processing) and you stumble across this page. You come away thinking linux doesn't support large files, when really it does. In this case you can scroll all the way to the bottom and the author is nice enough to have timestamped the page - 1998. But still, how do you know whether the old information is outdated? Even if you choose some arbitrary cutoff date ("information after Jan 1, 2003 is likely to be fresh") how do you tell google to only find information after that date? You can't.

Unfortunately there's no easy solution to the problem of outdated information. Useful documentation takes attention and manpower. But perhaps an easily modifiable Wikki-format will encourage more updates and more participation than comparable efforts such as The Linux Documentation Project, which is really just a smattering of FAQs, HOWTO-s, guides, and man pages with no real coherence - full of duplication and stale information.

Re:They have that....

[cabingirl]

I agree. Often, search Google with the text of an error message results in endless LUG mailing list posts of "what does this error message mean?" Sometimes there's even an answer, but not usually.

Re:They have that....

[timeOday]

Sorry I botched the link to The Linux Documentation Project in my previous post.

Re:They have that....

[gringo_john]

I've often used google to find out solutions to strange linux problems.

My fear is the day that google ceases to return objective search results. Anyone who tried msn search for linux/linux related terms would know what I am talking about.

If google becomes linux-unfriendly, a large chunk of knowledge embeded in the usenet archive might be *lost*.

An attempt to build a useful/searchable/indexed linux knowledge base would be most welcome.

Re:They have that....

[M1FCJ]

So what? There are so many expert mailing groups/web sites ou there, you just go to your favourite and ask the question. Experts-express is my favorite collobration site. Putting these kinds of info into a wiki is not very useful because what you need is a question-answer driven mechanism, if you can't find the solution to your problem in google.

I've just been into linuxquestions's wiki page and browsed into X11 configuration... It tells me that mouse is the hardest thing to get going. Rubbish. Absolutely rubbish. I know, since it's a wiki, it will be fixed by me or someone else but it's not a good start. There's no wan stop place, Google is the starting point. You won't have any information on a Wiki page about your broken sound card module...

Re:They have that....

[Sabalon]

While I'll agree it's my first place to turn for Linux help, it can sometimes be hard to determine what someone else may have called the sme problem.

Did the program "break execution", "abend", "dump core", "crap out", "stop working", "fault in the xyz subroutine"?

Sometimes the word one person would use would be completely different than another.

Or, if you simplify your search too much to avoid the above, you get so many hits, most not relevant.

But hey...it's still better than the MS Knowledgebase for the most part.

Re:They have that....

[moonbender]

I've just been into linuxquestions's wiki page and browsed into X11 configuration... It tells me that mouse is the hardest thing to get going. Rubbish. Absolutely rubbish.

It certainly was true for me on both X11 installs (manual ones - first Debian then Gentoo). Getting the USB mouse recognized by the kernel in the first place was confusing, but it took me even longer to make X11 look for a USB mouse with 3 buttons and a wheel - not that the wheel worked in all apps even when the X11 configuration seemed/was right. I think the reason why the mouse was the most difficult thing for me, and remains the top issue for many people, is that other configuration parts are handled somewhat automagically, by the configuration tools or whatever. IIRC, the mouse wheel was the only thing I really had to work with the config files themselves to get it to work.

Re:They have that....

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah someplace, pad're has the *nix answers, but not THIS site and not NOW. I checked their rap. LINKLINKLINK , then just more byte_boyz ebonics blather.
The casual *nix self_adminning lusr is still fscked.

Re:They have that....

[DenOfEarth]

I like this idea more for the people who are starting out using linux. I've been on it for a while, and have had my share of problems looking for simple answers to simple questions. Something like this will go a long way to providing a solid resource for people new to the OS, which is a very good thing.

Of course, being a Wiki and all, it applies that same supercool open source ethos to the answering of questions. You can put that information about large file sizes up there to help someone out when they need, and if it does go out of date, it's probably easier to update the wiki than to write a new document.

So, to summarize, I think I agree with you...cheers. :)

Re:They have that....

[evilmrhenry]

Even if you choose some arbitrary cutoff date ("information after Jan 1, 2003 is likely to be fresh") how do you tell google to only find information after that date? You can't.

Google advanced search:
Return web pages updated in the:
anytime,
Past 3 months,
Past 6 months,
Past year.

I'm still glad to see this effort, though.

Re:They have that....

[osm the otter]

I personally have never run into a wiki that has information that detailed. Mostly it's very general, completely uninformative junk.

Take a look at this entry for KDE.

Utterly useless for pretty much anything. It's also not very unbiased: "And believe me, it still is Kool, now more than ever with the new KDE 3.2, which offers its users plenty of eye candy." While I agree with that statement, it has no place in something that's supposed to be "informative." It sounds more like a sales pitch.

I don't get the fascination with wikis. I haven't found them to be very useful at all. They always seem to be like reading through sales brochures.

Re:They have that....

[chgros]

Well, they have this, and they use Linux themselves, so somehow I doubt they'll become "linux-unfriendly" any time soon.

Re:They have that....

[maxwell demon]

This Wiki will help Google to return useful Linux links.

Re:They have that....

[Smallpond]

"abend"? Are you a COBOL programmer, by chance?

You forgot "halt", "hang", "fail", "die", "crash" and "go wonky".

Re:They have that....

[Sabalon]

Actually, when I was in college (late 80s, early 90s), the mainframe still used that term. I think it was also in one of our theory of programming language classes or something like that.

And sadly, yes, I did spend two years in hell doing cobol programming. :)

Re:They have that....

[KevinDumpsCore]

> The Linux Documentation Project... full of duplication and stale information.

Sounds like a Wiki to me! Seriously, have you ever seen a Wiki that didn't contain off-topic, duplicate, or contradictory information?

In order for technical documentation to be usable, it must be clear, complete, correct, and current. The Wiki zealots *want* incomplete and unclear entries to encourage participation. IMHO, this reduces Wiki's usefulness for technical documentation.

Re:They have that....

[timeOday]

Seriously, have you ever seen a Wiki that didn't contain off-topic, duplicate, or contradictory information?

Does Wikipedia.org count? I'm very impressed with it.

But no, I don't have unrealistic expectations for the Wikki approach to documenting Linux. I only hold out some hope that the ease of editing a Wiki will make invite more participation than linuxdoc.org has. But I think the odds of "success" are significantly less than 50%.

Eh? Largest? Huh?

[Dark Lord Seth]

What about The Linux Documentation Project? Provides plenty of knowledge to me about pretty much anything Linux related...

Re:Eh? Largest? Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

"It looks like LinuxQuestions.org is aiming to build the largest independent Linux-related knowledgebase using a Wiki."

Re:Eh? Largest? Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

The only problem with the Linux Documentation Project is that it tends to have a lot of outdated information there.

The Wikipedia should be more up-to-date.

Then again - I just Google. . . . .

Re:Eh? Largest? Huh?

[_Sharp'r_]

Next they'll be wanting a special search index at Google like BSD users have...


... oh, that's right, there is one for Linux.

Re:Eh? Largest? Huh?

[ciroknight]

Maybe it's just me, but I find that site hopelessly in-navigable. Hours of clicking in circles and the unfriendly color scheme, and you get about sick and tired of trying to learn the operating system. Maybe if they had a tutorial on how to use the site, I could learn more... ;)

Re:Eh? Largest? Huh?

[chipster]

The difference is that this is a wiki. Anyone can update the wiki. Updating LDP docs ain't that easy - and goes through a lot of (and much needed) review cycles which takes quite some time before it is actually published.

This wiki knowledgebase idea is novel, in that it will allow more docs, pushed to the users in much more rapid fashion.

Re:Eh? Largest? Huh?

[gotr00t]

Most of the stuff there is very dated, probably because of either the fact that GNU/Linux is developing at such a rapid pace, or because nobody bothers to write documentation when they see any sign of existing doc.

For example, there currently is only _one_ Chinese support on Linux FAQ, and it not only does not talk about Simplified Chinese, which is, last time I checked, a standard, but is terribly, terribly outdated.

The very structure of LinuxQuestions.org may allow them to produce documentation that is much more recent. While tLDP is all contributed articles by anyone who had some time to write something, LinuxQuestions is on the basis of Q&A. If they make a knowledgebase out of just questions and the most helpful response, it could very well be more useful in terms of bredth than tLDP, though probably not as much so in depth.

Re:Eh? Largest? Huh?

[koody]

tldp has a lot of articles, but unfortunately very few people will have the energy to contact the maintainers to correct errors. A review takes days, weeks or months and is done all too rarely. Many will see updating a long document as a very daunting project to undertake.

A wiki would solve this problem, since it is so easy to add information.

I've read many howtos with information that has been slightly wrong, a path has changed, a new configuration option has been added. Usually it has been quite obvious to see how to adapt the howto to the current situation. I've never reported any of these slight mistakes to the maintainers (yeah, lazy me...) but with a wiki the threshold would be much lover.

I'll be sure to help with what little I know.

Re:Eh? Largest? Huh?

[El]

Anyone can update the wiki. Including Microsoft employees... anybody but me see a potential problem here?

Re:Eh? Largest? Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

GNU/Linux

It's just Linux.

Prefacing your operating system--the program actually operating your hardware so you can use it--with every application you use is ridiculous.

I don't use KDE/OpenOffice/XFree86/GNU/Linux. I use Linux. I might use some GNU apps once in a while while I'm in X.

Re:Eh? Largest? Huh?

[Daytona955i]

I agree... LDP has gone down in quality over the years as linux has gotten more popular. Outdated stuff stays up and their site is a pain to navigate and search. I mean, how many different kinds of tutorials do you need? You have HOWTOs in both regular and mini sizes though authors really don't do anything different. (like making the mini ones shorter and to the point) Then you have Guides which are more like books. While they may have their use, I have never really found one on a topic I need an explanation for. (Especially that in-depth) Therefore I'm more likely to look at a book for information of that scale first as they are usually better. And again, a lot of times if you do find something that might be useful, it's mostly out of date. Then you have FAQ's... There aren't that many and I doubt questions obout the topics listed are really asked all that frequently.

I mean it's a nice idea and most of the guides that were around when I first started using linux (about 9-10 years ago) were excelent. In fact, some of them are still useful but they need updating!

TLDP also needs a redesign of their site. Maybe have a section for newbies and then other sections based on what you want help on instead of just grouping all the HOWTOs together. It's a beast to look through. If I want to find information on an editor I need to know to look for vi or Emacs.. it would be nice to click on an Editors section and see all the documentation relating to editors.

Re:Eh? Largest? Huh?

[Geccoman]

The best part of your comment was that it prompted me to try http://google.com/windows

The requested URL /windows was not found on this server.

Re:Eh? Largest? Huh?

[h2odragon]

yeah man. "This stuff is too hard! because the color scheme sucks."

People get the support they deserve.

Re:Eh? Largest? Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't get your hopes up there, Linux-bot.

Re:Eh? Largest? Huh?

[Geccoman]

It's less Linux-bot and more dummy that didn't bother to try anything but windows.

Thank you AC, you were my only hope.

Re:Eh? Largest? Huh?

[Mr. Piddle]

Anyone can update the wiki.

I can't wait to see the changelog for the article, "So, Which Linux Distribution is Right for Me?"

Re:Eh? Largest? Huh?

[bgeer]

I am probably out of date and things are much better now, but I (and probably a lot of other people) have an aversion to anything named a HOWTO after spending many futile hours trying to decode them in the mid-to-late 90s when there was no other help available.

For those of you who mercifully missed out on this era, generally a HOWTO would

(a) Point you to software that no longer compiled on any platform known to man

(b) Advise you to use configuration options that existed only in development versions and never worked even then.

(c) Assume that you know how to use an equally complex program that has its own HOWTO which points you back to the one you started with.

(d) give great explanations like: Ok for this file you just use syntax like a=1 to set a equal to 1. For example to make it fly to the moon just type:
$foo53r45$::564.config <-> FALSE
DiskBo$xInvolvement.Underpantsgnome = $PROFIT$

etc...

I am exaggerating VERY slightly. Anyone remember the DIP HOWTO? According to legend the suicide rate among Linux users tripled within three weeks of its release.

Re:Eh? Largest? Huh?

[Welsh Dwarf]

They require registration. That's more than wikipedia does, and they're doing just fine, any abuse is just rolled back five minutes later by the next visitor

Re:Eh? Largest? Huh?

[KevinDumpsCore]

> Anyone can update the wiki. Updating LDP docs ain't that easy - and goes through a lot of (and much needed) review cycles

You're assuming that Wikis don't have review cycles. You're wrong, they're called "edit wars".

IME, Wikis are just as likely to have obsolete information. Think about it... The Wiki model is a giant litterbox where everyone dumps their crap. Wikis build up with off-topic, duplicate, and contradictory information. It's up to the reader to filter out the information they need.

OTOH, the LDP model at least has a person or team responsible for the information. Since their reputation is on the line, they are more likely to make sure the information is good. The maintainer model is the one used in the Open Source community for its source code. Would you use source code that was collected using the litterbox model? Would it even compile?

Perhaps we can boil this debate down to quality vs. quantity.

then...

[DerryBlack]

what if google dosent deliver?

Re:then...

[Anonymous Crowhead]

What if google dosent deliver?

If there is no answer on Google (groups that is), then there is no question.

Re:then...

[synaptik]

If there is no answer on Google (groups that is), then there is no question.

"Si in googlis non est, ergo non est."

Re:then...

[maxbang]

Either that, or a dark programmer has removed that reference from Google's mighty Hall of Cached Pages, and only a programmer with the most funky of skills and an army of wasp-like minions and their cheaply made robots would be able to do that. Then again, I'm just a stupid little Jedi-in-training with my own cute little light saber that I stole from Johnny Quest.

Re:then...

[Geek of Tech]

>> What if google dosent deliver?

Then your next answer's free.

But are we really ready for armagedon?

Re:then...

[Hast]

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.

(Google the phrase for enlightenment.)

Great!

[AtariKee]

This is a great idea for those of us who find certain aspects of Linux a bit daunting. Between outdated HOWTOs and sometimes cryptic MAN pages, newbies such as myself can get a bit frustrated.

My hope is that this database doesn't grow out of control with redundant and/or meaningless data.

Re:Great!

[Raagshinnah]

"My hope is that this database doesn't grow out of control with redundant and/or meaningless data."

yeah, another slashdot would be too much for the internet to handle

Re:Great!

[Smallpond]

Linux is easy:

gunzip
tar xvf
perl Makefile.PL
make
make test
make install
run
WTF!!!
search google
repeat

Re:Great!

[Anonymous Crowhead]

Newbie thinks to self: "must be a permissions problem. Perhaps if I chmod 777 /* that will fix it."

Re:Great!

[moonbender]

You might be joking or not, but you're right in any event - I'm afraid I know that from personal experience. It did help, too. :P

Re:Great!

[Bombcar]

Yup.

Newbie Linux is to run as root.

Moderate Linux is to sudo as root.

Expert Linux is to actually run as a user.

Not quite true, but close! Hehehehe.

rats!

[theMerovingian]

The one thing keeping me from switching to Linux has a topic, but no one has posted any information there.

Does linux gaming work, or do you just have to play Neverwinter Nights over and over? (reply some good stuff here, and stick it in the wiki, too).

Re:rats!

[Smallpond]

I have a copy of Heroes3, best game for Linux I've seen.

Re:rats!

[Zakabog]

Depends on your video card, if your card is from nvidia it supports most of the games and you can play, WC3, Diablo II (really hard to get this working though), any game from ID software, UT2K3, UT2K4, Half-Life (any mods too, well haven't tried in a while I heard it no longer works :-/), there's a bunch of games too these are just games I've played.

Now if you're unfortunate enough to be using an ATI card (and fortunate enough to get the drivers working, I did, once, and then just again 2 hours ago but then it stopped working again) your options are pretty limited. Maybe a few wine games might work and maybe ID software titles (I'm pretty sure those work, I think I played Quake 3 with the ATI card.)

Re:rats!

[Anonymous Coward]

You answered your own question.
Yes it works, as proven by neverwinter nights.

It needs developer support.. which requires a userbase.

So you just sit there, giving your market share to Microsoft, and keep wondering why noone develops
any games for linux.

Genius!

Re:rats!

[Dark Lord Seth]

Hmmm, I thought Unreal Tournament 2003 & 2004 came with a native Linux version on CD? And so did Uplink ( great game! ) if I remember correctly. Coupled with NWN, this gives you some quality FPS, quality RPG and quality uhm... something... ...whatever kind of game Uplink really is...

Re:rats!

[Anonymous Coward]

All you need is Nethack.

Re:rats!

[bersl2]

A few extra things:

The Loki installer for Unreal Tournament is still freely downloadable, for those with the Windows version. You can play that.

The binaries for Quake and Quake 2 are still linked to glide (I think). Fortunately, both games' source is under the GPL, so you can recompile for GLX.

There are many ATI drivers (XFree86, ATI's binaries, DRI, Gatos), but none of them do everything well (or so I've heard). NVidia's drivers are wonderful, but binary-only ([sigh]... NDA...). I wish they were able to let us help with the drivers. XFree86's nv driver is still pretty good.

You can use WINE to play many games non-native to Linux, like Half-Life (Damn You, Valve!(TM)), but it usually takes some tinkering. There is WineX, a commercial fork of WINE that specializes in getting games to work.

Finally, just have a look around; you'd be surprised at what's available.

Re:rats!

[Orien]

Perhaps you should be looking at some official sites? You might find info a lot faster that way.

Re:rats!

[Welsh Dwarf]

One link, The Linux Game Tome.

Have fun :-)

Re:rats!

[adaran]

Well, I consider myself a linux gamer - one without a windows partition. My interest in games has been a bit declining recently, resulting in me having only time to play the "big" games (it's hard to play more than one or maybe two games competitively at the same time, and I left out trying out new games to "relax" from the more "serious" games). Each genre has its references, or very popular games, multiplayer of course. For first person shooters that is Counterstrike, period. Now personally I don't like the game, but I can say I have successfully run it under WineX. Other "important" FPS games that run under WineX are Battlefield 1942 or Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy. Many FPS such as UT2003, any ID Game (Quake 3 Arena, RTCW, Enemy Territory) come with a linux client so that's even less of problem.

The real time strategy genre hasn't seen any good linux clients so far, but there are only three really established RTS games out there, Starcraft, Warcraft III and Age of Mythology, of which I can say that I've played all except the latter one under WineX. As for other genres, I don't know. I doubt that Fifa games run very well. Missing some other genres, the biggest multiplayer RPG (not MMORPG) is NWN right now, I think, which, after a one year delay, finally has gained linux support.

Short: If you are a "casual" gamer who likes to constantly try out new games, you should inform yourself and think before switching. Should you focus your attention on single games in order to climb the ladder or participate in tournaments, there's a good chance for success. In any case, check out www.transgaming.com, click on "Games" on the left and check the working rating for your favorite game.

Well, finally I can say that having an nvidia card spares you a lot of pain most of the time (better drivers). And oh, if you're one of those "strictly GNU" fanatics -> forget it, you're not going to like WineX (somewhat open-source, but 5$ a month).

Re:rats!

[Sweetshark]

Well I play:
FPS:

Enemy Territory

Americas Army

Quakeforge RTS:

Starcraft

Stronghold Crusader TBS:

Master of Orion 3

Freeciv Arcade:

Scorched3d

Crack-attack

armagetron For me, that is enough to get rid of a windows partition. Still: more games would be better of cause!

Re:rats!

[kragaroth]

Gaming is coming along quite well. It can be a bit painful to get some games installed and up and running when using wine/winex, but at least it's possible. I'm not a big gamer, but I've gotten a little hooked on UT2004 (native=) lately. I also have BF1942 and NFSU working nicely. I think the only big game that doesn't work at all is Halo, which uses too many fancy DirectX calls.

Must have chosen LinuxQuestions.org...

[spood]

...since README.org was already taken.

Re:Must have chosen LinuxQuestions.org...

[SpaceLifeForm]

Will they link to this someday?

Software Knowledge = Hard

[darkmeridian]

This sounds like a good idea. However, there are two issues that would hinder something like this:
1. Variability between Linuxes. There are many distros out there and they all have their own ways of doing the same things.

2. Variability within Linuxes. Different distros also change their commands between versions. Any knowledge-base specific enough to be of help would have to be extremely thorough. A person working with a 2.4.22-gentoo-r3 kernel, for example, might have a different kernel than someone with the vanilla 2.4.22.

However, if enough knowledgeable people use the system, then it will hopefully conquer these problems and be useful. But for now, see the gentoo forums for what open source documentation done by a community is capable of. (However, this is only within one distro that is relatively new so it has an easier time of things.)

2.

Re:Software Knowledge = Hard

[dbIII]

1. Variability between Linuxes. There are many distros out there and they all have their own ways of doing the same things.

It's not as different as you might think, so long as you don't try to apply visual memory of where menu items go on a button (ie. the MS Windows approach). The first time I used Redhat after using only slackware I found that only a few config files were in different spots, same with debian. My linux knowlege meant that I could do things the first time I sat down at an Irix, Solaris and AIX system. The difference between widely seperated varieties of *nix are far less than the differences between Win98 and any type of WinNT in terms of the commands you use. So long as the answers aren't to click on the third widget on the left, the knowlege can be applied across the board - after all, you can use RPMs on debian and do apt-get on redhat.

Different distros also change their commands between versions.

Often the answer is to run the old command, or download it again. Linux does not suffer from "DLL hell", while the default behaviour of rpm is to replace old libraries, if you really need them you can keep them. I have a jigsaw game on my machine that was last compiled in '96, so long as it can still find the original libraries it runs, and everything else just uses the newer version of those libraries - that's why they have names like somelibrary.6.2.so

Re:Software Knowledge = Hard

[ciroknight]

Truthfully, I've never used Gentoo (I don't desire to compile every piece of software by hand), but I've found that most of the time their forums are actually quite helpful. Why? Because someone down the line of creating Gentoo thought they should drop their elitest "I r t3h m4st0r h4xx0r" attitude and actually help people. This has been one of the reasons Linux has such a poor adoption rate, even though it's on the shelves right next to Windows in most cases.

There are plenty of more reasons behind Linux's adoption rate, but think about it this way; if Microsoft and all of it's software was found to be illegal and everyone had to switch over tomorrow, how many governments, how many libraries, how many volumes of people would never touch a computer again because learning new software was too hard, due to people who knew how to use it feeling superior? GNU is all about sharing the knowledge, it's really time that we linux users take to the meaning of the GPL, and not just use it as a license to throw in people's faces.

Re:Software Knowledge = Hard

[bios10h]

Shouldn't it be Linuces?

Unix => Unices
Matrix => Matrices

I don't know... I'm just asking.

Re:Software Knowledge = Hard

[caluml]

Truthfully, I've never used Gentoo (I don't desire to compile every piece of software by hand)

Yawn. That's not what it's about. A little program like ufed lets you set flags saying that you'll never need ldap support for any programs that you install. Then, next time you "emerge mod_php", it will leave out ldap support. (I know, that's a bad example because you have to specifically enable ldap support in it, but hey.) And you don't compile by hand. emerge package does it all for you. Try it out. It's good. Why do you think so many people go on about it? Here's a clue: It's not because we're brainwashed Gentoo-ites.

Comment 1002.

Re:Software Knowledge = Hard

[ashayh]

Gentoo Forums are great. I switched to Gentoo when I found myself going to gentoo forums for all kids of general linux help.

Linux Documentation project

[LittleLebowskiUrbanA]

I know it's already being attempted but Linuquestions has the benefit of thousands of visitors a day that are constantly learning and you can actually _watch_ their learning process through the posts. And when they want to give something back...Viola, this new Wiki!

woohooo

[Anonymous Coward]

I sure hope it contains Linux dating tips!

Re:woohooo

[Shut the fuck up!]

here you go

Re:woohooo

[good(k)night]

there was a joke:
son has asked his father:
"how to pick up a lady?"
"that's easy -- first you have to buy her some roses. take her to some expensive cinema with your red jaguar. then go to the fancy restaurant. pick the best wine there.." and so on...
his sister interrupted:
"but dad.. what about holding hands, walks in a moonlight, by the lake and all that romantic stuff?"
dad replied:
"ow... that's the idea of those GNU/Linux zealots -- they wanna get laid for free."

Re:woohooo

[CycoChuck]

If thats the case, then MS must be a woman. They sure seem to like taking my money and giving me nothing in return.

To clarify!

[Daath]

http://google.com/linux/ - Linux searches ;)

Re:To clarify!

[boarder8925]

Try this
http://www.google.com/linux/

Re:To clarify!

[boarder8925]

Crap I meant http://www.google.com/linux.

Re:To clarify!

[martin_b1sh0p]

SAWEET!!!! I didn't know Google had that! Thanks for the link!

Re:To clarify!

[Anonymous Coward]

2nded.

19 Articles!!!

[Timesprout]

Without wishing to sound too sarcastic, you are going to need a tad more than 19 articles to convince me you have a valid knowledge repository. I'll stick with the Linux Documentation Project for the moment thanks

Re:19 Articles!!!

[craXORjack]

Patience, Grasshopper. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single footstep.

Re:19 Articles!!!

[Hank Chinaski]

--
Repeat after me, we are all individuals not me

Re:19 Articles!!!

[Captain Nitpick]

Patience, Grasshopper. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single footstep.

Yeah, but when you're trying to jump the chasm of disbelief, that single step will send you falling onto the sharp pointy rocks of obscurity.

Re:19 Articles!!!

[An Onerous Coward]

Just out of curiosity, I checked the license for the TLDP documentation, and it looks liberal enough that we could start dumping copies of the HOWTOs into the new project.

yet another wiki

[tronicum]

Of course you can never have enough wikis. Question if how different they are and how they will do moderation (if they do)

Wikipedia is a projekt driven by an community, LinuxQuestions.org is somewhat unclear to characterise: not clearly a community only or a business company selling ads within their content.

As on always you should read the Rules before posting. registration is required, but email is optional.

This is a great idea...

[CrackedButter]

Infact I used wiki last night looking for some information on file formats, and its not the first time i've used it either, but last night rather than find out all about the chewbacca defense, goatscx man and the underpant gnomes I had found some good stuff for my college project. Its much better than paid for resources with adverts and membership programs.
I contributed to its brilliance via Paypal and I'm glad there will be a linux variation of it as well, I don't use linux personally (OSX) I know I will in the future, and what better place to look?

Wikis everywhere

[koody]

It seems like wiki's would be the future of content creation on the web. It's becomeing increasingly popular, just look at the growth rate of wikipedia. Now volunteers are documenting tips and instructions for mozilla in a knowledgebase.

Wiki's seem to bring together the reasons why the web is seen as useful (disregarding the free pr0n). Easy content creation, accessibility and ease of use. With wiki's you get the added benefit of a central repository to look for the information you need.

As wiki's grow and become known the need for search engines might lessen. The first resort for information will change from google to the relevan wiki. Google will be seen as second in importance. After all, wiki has the structure of yahoo with the benefits of quality content.

Re:Wikis everywhere

[moonbender]

After all, wiki has the structure of yahoo with the benefits of quality content.

Wiki has all the structure its users give it, including none at all. Wikis can be great, but they can also be worse than useless, including but not limited to faults such as outdated, derelict information, extremely confusing structure, layout and organisation, misinformation, and so on and so on. This is not a criticism of the Wiki idea as such, I'm just saying it's not a cure for everything. With good administration and maintenance, not to mention users bringing in quality content, a wiki is cool.

In fact, I'd argue that with an increasing number of Wikis, good search engines increase their value a great deal - the Wikis have the content, hopefully in a correct and up-to-date state, the search engine helps getting to the specific content you're interested in without having to care about the organisation of any Wiki.

Re:Wikis everywhere

[ITgrrrl]

Collaborative tools like Wiki do not grow well without the activities of a moderator or group of moderators. Collaboration is, after all, really a set of behaviors. The activity of a moderator(s) can model the behaviors and disciplines for the rest of the community.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Wait a second.

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't OSDN trying to do that already? Why is an OSDN board advertising an upstart competitor like LinuxQuestions? Is this article an inside joke Michael?

Selective Intelligence

[ackthpt]

It's called Google.

Yes, but that's what they* want you to know and when they* want you to know it.

*'They' being those who buy words on Google.

Re:Selective Intelligence

[justMichael]

I think you may be confusing your search engines. I have yet to see any search on google where AdWords has any effect on the actual search results.

Since they are listed down the side of the page and not mixed in with the search results and the "Sponsored Links" at the top, it's kind of hard to mix them up.

And if you can buy better results from google, please let me know. Google surfers convert at a much higher rate than all of the other PPC options.

Re:Selective Intelligence

[Anonymous Coward]

Do a search on "hydrocodone" and see what you come up with...

Re:Selective Intelligence

[justMichael]

Are you referring to the froogle links at the top or am I missing something else?

I will admit that is the first time I have seen froogle content in the google results, but to the best of my knowledge you can't buy placement on google other than the two Premium spots at the top and the AdWords.

The last time I checked the Premium spots required a 3 month, $15k minimum. The AdWords are in a bidding war for top spot so the cost varies from $.25 - $50.00 depending on your keywords. I'm not positive about the minimum, none of my keywords are that low and I haven't used google PPC for a while.

You have to be logged in to edit!

[Will2k_is_here]

Kind of defeats the purpose of a wiki doesn't it?

the internet is almost full

[Anonymous Coward]

please post less and save internet space. thx.

Question

[Overly Critical Guy]

Does it strike anyone as a bit of a negative attribute that you have to have a massive knowledgebase to use your operating system?

Microsoft has a knowledgebase as well, but only for troubleshooting, service packs, and development. I've been to their site maybe twice.

However, I've always had to rely on poorly-written HOWTOs and other documents to spend three hours just getting a sound card or USB mouse to work under X.

Call me crazy, but needing a huge database of tutorials to actually get things up and running is not exactly something you should be shouting from the rooftops.

Re:Question

[ackthpt]

Microsoft has a knowledgebase as well, but only for troubleshooting, service packs, and development. I've been to their site maybe twice.

I tend to avoid it, it's got lots of reference stuff but is pretty short on examples, which probably explains all the good user supported sites/knowledgebases around the web.

Re:Question

[Hast]

Do you know all the little tricks there is to know about Windows then? Like where you can override a DNS name with an IP for instance? That ones is quite easy but I bet that there are a load of untapped features in Windows. I mean it took me a while before I learned of the windows-e shortcut for explorer.

It's not only for when you want to solve a problem but for when you want to know what you can do. And that's usually a lot harder to find out by Googling.

Re:Question

[TobiasSodergren]

You ought to have some occational challenge, it keeps your brain sharp ;).

Some distros let you vote on stuff that you think should be fixed if you do have the money, but not the time or energy to fix things yourself.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

So dop you know what the Windows - Break (or Pause/Break) does ?

Re:Question

[Overly Critical Guy]

For things like that, I can certainly understand having to turn to some sort of knowledge base.

I'm referring more to common things like getting basic peripherals working, or a graphics card, or setting up XFree86 to use your monitor correctly, or getting a mousewheel to work. All things that automatically work in certain other operating systems.

Re:Question

[Welsh Dwarf]

Does it strike anyone as a bit of a negative attribute that you have to have a massive knowledgebase to use your operating system?

The answer is that you don't, the wiki is more aimed at people who just want to find something out about Linux (ie 'How do they read e-mail without Outlook?'), are looking for a good distribution to try, or are curious and want to learn more about it (hence the technical parts)

However, I've always had to rely on poorly-written HOWTOs and other documents to spend three hours just getting a sound card or USB mouse to work under X.

Sounds like your distro isn't that recent (or that you're useing Slack or Debian, in which case the Howtos are to be expected). Modern Distros generally take care of your mouse and sound card in a few seconds while you watch the progress bar

Not to diss you, but Linux just isn't that hard anymore.

Re:Question

[moonbender]

And such things automatically work in certain Linux distributions - or so I hear.

Re:Question

[Xabraxas]

Does it strike anyone as a bit of a negative attribute that you have to have a massive knowledgebase to use your operating system?

You don't need a massive knowledge base to use Linux. The main difference is that documentation for Linux usually covers a lot more than just the kernel. It usually covers a ton of popular programs in addition to the kernel, including two entirely different desktops. Not to mention the fact that you can change so many more parameters in Linux than you can in Windows or MacOSX. For example, it is fairly simple to install another kernel if you want to on most Linux distributions but you also have the ability to compile your own kernel. This will take more documentation than either Windows or OSX but it hasn't made anything more difficult.

Re:Question

[Ganennon]

Since "everyone" is using Windows, it's easy to get help in real life. Also, Swedish highschools force their students to learn the basics of Windows in an obligatory course. It's really supposed to be a general course about computers, but in reality it's all about Windows. Once a not-so-advanced Windows user wants to do something "odd", the lack of a well-known Windows tutorial is apparent. For example, very many (newbie mudders) do not know how to turn on the echo function in Windows telnet. There's lots of tutorials online on how to do this, but few seem to know where to look.

Re:Question

[Ironica]

I'm referring more to common things like getting basic peripherals working, or a graphics card, or setting up XFree86 to use your monitor correctly, or getting a mousewheel to work. All things that automatically work in certain other operating systems.

All things that sometimes work automatically and sometimes don't in "certain other operating systems". I have visited MS and third-party knowledge bases for ALL of those things (well, not for getting XFree86 to use the monitor correctly, but DirectX? Sure) over the past few years, all in Windows.

What was your point again?

Re:Question

[spauldo]

As far as getting hardware to work, I can't comment since I'm still stuck in the slackware way of doing things (i.e. recompile your kernel, install necessary software to support device, etc.).

However, quite a few of the HOWTO's cover things such as setting up an X-Terminal network, remote booting, setting up your own DNS server, and things of that nature. For those things, a HOWTO is great - I learned bind by reading the HOWTO enough to get it up and running, then reading through the bind docs and RFC's to expand my knowledge. If not for the HOWTO, I probably would have had to buy a book for it.

Sure, there's some HOWTO's out there for what people might think of as "simple" things - the equivalent of that little book you used to get with windows (do they still send that?) - reading your email and whatnot - but a linux user really only needs evolution/kmail/whatever. The HOWTO is for people who set up multiuser servers and want their users on elm, pine, mh, etc., or want to set up majordomo or a custom sendmail setup, etc.

Re:Question

[drinkypoo]

You don't need a huge database of tutorials to get the functionality supported by your distribution working. You sometimes need them to get weird obscure shit working though. This is no different from Microsoft's KB, the only difference being that the maker of the OS provides the KB, and Linux ain't an OS, it's a kernel.

BTW X doesn't have anything to do with sound cards. Maybe you meant esd or something?

Re:Question

[Quino]

I read it differently; instead of being a place needed because people can't get X working, it'd be a place to learn how to do new things with Linux.

The availabilty of source code, after all, means that people can (and do) fashion unique things (say like those Linux live cds) and this would be a great place to learn how to tinker away. I think it's a great idea, and has less to do with the reasons Microsoft might have a knowledge base and more to do with the fact that Linux has always been and will continue to be on OS you can study and tinker with (aside from just using).

Not to mention if you like running crazy-packackage-version-v0.01.rpm it'd be nice to have the help you need in one place. Getting the basics set up just isn't much of an issue anymore on mainstream hardware in my personal experience, that's definitely improved leaps and bounds (and continues to improve), and it's not the only reason to set up a knowledge base in Linux.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it strike anyone as a bit of a negative attribute that you have to have a massive knowledgebase to use your operating system?

Nice straw man you have there. I bet he goes up in flames pretty easy.

Seriously - who (besides you, and other MS shills) says that you need a "massive knowledgebase" to use our Operating System?

Microsoft has a knowledgebase as well, but only for troubleshooting, service packs, and development. I've been to their site maybe twice.

It's interesting that all of the things you have there have to do with administration, not use of Windows.

I've always had to rely on poorly-written HOWTOs and other documents to spend three hours just getting a sound card or USB mouse to work under X.

So, because you use poorly- or un-supported hardware, this is a failure of X? If you had problems getting those same pieces of hardware to run under Windows, do you think that you'd find information on troubleshooting it on MS's site? (Honestly, you wouldn't.)

Call me crazy

Oh, you're not crazy, you're just a stupid troll.

needing a huge database of tutorials to actually get things up and running

Again, who says it's needed?

Take your troll somewhere else, moron.

Re:Question

[blixel]

So dop you know what the Windows - Break (or Pause/Break) does ?

dop you?

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it strike you as a bit negative that you have to pay for software with security holes? Software that tells YOU how to work?

No thanks, I'll stick to Freedom and I DO have the knowledge to understand the source.

O_C_G: Ballmer's Handle when trolling /.

Re:Question

[ouznext]

If Windows were documented enough if would be easier.

Actually it's kind of an obfuscated OS: don't ask what is does, neither how, neither when. It simply does it (and sometimes doesn't).

With any UNIX/Linux OS you can always read how work the scripts, the config file they relie on, and for non opensource software you always can relie on good documentation.

Comercial OSes' documentation tends to be rather good* -- you also pay it --, in the case of Linux you have to contribute it yourself if you want it to get better.

I thank all those who contribute to document things.

(*: IMHO this is particularly true for hpux and all HP products, but not so true for SUN products unfortunately...)

Re:Question

[t0ny]

Microsoft has a knowledgebase as well, but only for troubleshooting, service packs, and development. I've been to their site maybe twice.

Ignorance is bliss, maybe? Because you can find out just about anything Microsoft related via Technet. This includes troubleshooting, white papers, documents on best practices, general network design, security, etc.

If you actaully work with MS products, and dont use technet, you are definitely not working smart.

It would be NICE to say you dont need a large database, but it would be pretty ignorant to think that anything could be that way. Auto mechanics, lawyers, doctors, EVERYONE who works on complex matters is going to need a well organized resource to help them out. There is far too many details for someone to think they will know it all.

The only people who seem like they never encounter problems are those who are just good at troubleshooting and using their reference sources.

Re:Question

[Hast]

Depending on the distro you can get pretty much full autodetection n Linux too. It's not something that's only available on Windows or Mac.

Besides how do you handle a situation were Windows loads the wrong driver resulting in that the device is rejected by the system? (I had a Bluetooth dongle that didn't even show up in the device manager.) It was a lot of annoying work to make that work, in other operating systems I could just have changed a line in the right file.

How would I find that file? If I didn't use man files I bet I could find it in a knowledge database.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

It strikes me as negative that an ignorant MS user does not need a knowledge base because his big daddy Gates decides what is best for fucking idiots that are stupid enouh to use MS systems. Happily Windows CDs can be used as necklaces for pinheads like you.

Re:Question

[jdhutchins]

Most common things DO work in linux. Most of the time. And if they don't, you're probably going to need help to get them to work. This is no different from Windows, where things don't always work. The difference is that under Linux, you can do EVERYTHING to get it to work, and under windows, you're pretty much at the mercy of the manufactuer.

Re:Question

[dheltzel]

Does it strike anyone as a bit of a negative attribute that you have to have a massive knowledgebase to use your operating system?

Not really. If you want to run Linux like most people run Windows, you don't need no stinkin' KB. Whenever your programs stop working right, just re-install the OS. Prob solved.

There reason a KB is needed for Linux is that a higher percentage of Linux users want to know how things work and how to fix it. The ones who "just want it to work again" can restore from backups.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

There was evidence to prove that Overly Critical Guy is a lying cocksucker, but he deleted it. Think independently.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

There was evidence to prove that Overly Critical Guy is a lying cocksucker, but he deleted it. Think independently.

Re:Question

[mattyrobinson69]

yesterday, i reinstalled everything on my computer (slackware and windows - then all the programs), because i wanted my partitions to be more accurately sized for how i use them - anyway:

i installed windows xp first (so i didn't have to reinstall the bootloader again at the end). I had to piss about with the hardware quite a bit (the c-media snd card was being gay). i played with hardware profiles, which was also being gay. its the restrictiveness of windows that makes it hard for me to use (and probably other people too). in linux, i can just edit a configuration file, any GUI on top of that (eg. swat for samba) just edits the config file for me - not hides the settings away in some 'registry'.

by the way - a simple kernel compile (that i was going to do anyway) fixed the sound card in linux

Already exists:

[Anonymous Coward]

ls /usr/share/man/*

Re:Already exists:

[spun]

You forgot:
apropos 'foo'
ls /usr/share/doc/*|grep 'foo'
ls /usr/local/share/doc/*|grep 'foo'
ls /usr/local/share/man/*|grep 'foo'
info 'foo'
ls /usr/share/info/*|grep 'foo'
ls /usr/local/share/info/*|grep 'foo'
grep 'foo' /*

All that, and I still couldn't find any information about foo!

Re:Already exists:

[Anonymous Crowhead]

You forgot:
....

#pkill -9 joke

useful wiki application

[rtv]

I wish your comment was on a Wiki, because then I could edit it to remove all those apostrophes.

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

This sort of theme is becoming increasingly prevalent these days. Take a look at ESR's recent article on trying to get CUPS to work. The bottom line is, rather than wasting energy writing more HOWTO's to get some impossibly-difficult-to-install software working, how about spending the time making the software easier to install?? Hmmmm? Or is Linux doomed to be used only by elitists?

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[DA-MAN]

Or is Linux doomed to be used only by elitists?

Linux is an OS by geeks, for geeks. 1 size does not fit all. As Linux gets easier and easier to use, it will take n more users of all types, but dont for one second think that it will stop being by geeks or for geeks first.

Which is not to say that software shouldn't be easier to install, just saying that it isn't about elitism.

This is great untill

[miyako]

This seems like a great idea, untill some smartass decides to mask harmful commands as solutions to obscure problems.
Since it looks like anyone can update this thing, what happens when someone sneaks into a solution a command to write morse-code on the hard drive, or some command to rename all the files in /bin so that when you list all the files it does an asciiart of the goatse guy, or just throws in a "sudo rm -rf /" or something.
Not that I don't think this is a good idea, but without some sort of review process I would personally feel nervous about sending some of my more inexperienced friends to the site and having them execute commands all willy nilly.
I know that 99% of the users who would post something would do it out of an honest desire to help, in fact I will probably post a few things that I have had to do as obscure solutions to weird problems myself, but it only takes a single post to a problem that is just commen enough but not too comment to get a lot of people to fsck up their machines.

Re:This is great untill

[jjohnson]

Wikipedia gets enough traffic, and has enough regular users, that all changes are reviewed by at least a couple people, in practice; that's all that's needed to keep vandalism manageable, it appears. On a few obscure pages I've authored, mass deletions and nasty comments were removed within hours; the higher traffic pages are even more monitored, to the extent that 'editing wars' break out over them, requiring editors to lock pages for a period of time to let tempers cool.

So what the linux questions wiki needs for reliability is a critical mass of users; the rest takes care of itself.

Re:This is great untill

[FsG]

or just throws in a "sudo rm -rf /" or something

I know this is beside your point, but I feel like nitpicking today.. Those of us who have tried this command, know that it wouldn't do as much damage as people believe. That's because it works recursively, alphabetically deleting all files. This means it'll start with /bin/, and will come to a stop when it gets to /bin/rm, leaving everything that comes after it (including everything in the other root-level directories) untouched. If you want to do the most damage, you should recursively list the files, filter out /bin/rm, and pipe that list to the rm command.

Re:This is great untill

[drinkypoo]

I don't know what ghetto-ass Unix you've been using, but the way it's supposed to work is that the file is unlinked (this is why the "delete" function is unlink() and not delete() or something) but still open. This means that A> the filehandle for the open copy of rm will still point to the proper block, and more to the point, B> the blocks will not be overwritten by someone trying to allocate new blocks for a while until the filehandle is closed.

rm -rf / will do just as it advertises, without seeming to harm anything on the system, provided you're not trying to open any new files, unless you are on some seriously busted Unix variant, or using a seriously screwed up filesystem.

Re:This is great untill

[eddie can read]

This seems like a great idea, untill some smartass decides to mask harmful commands as solutions to obscure problems.

Possibly some sort of slashdot-like rating system for the code might help to distinguish solid code from questionable code. The greater the proportion and number of positive votes for a piece of code, the more likely it is to be solid. The greater number of views without negative votes, the more likely it is to be solid. The longer it has stayed up, and (a) gotten consistently positive votes and (b) stayed intact, without changes, the more likely it is to be solid.

Additionally, contributors can develop reputations. A karma-like system, in other words.

Re:This is great untill

[Bombcar]

You're correct.

In fact, if you were some kind of sick freak, I guess you could compile emacs statically, load it, delete it, and never reboot.

But that would scare small children.

Re:This is great untill

[Daengbo]

Yeah, but then the Perl freaks would be modding the Python code down as trollish, or something..

Re:This is great untill

[eddie can read]

Yeah, but then the Perl freaks would be modding the Python code down as trollish, or something..

A possibility. However, there are responses even against that, even going beyond Slashdot-style meta-moderation. For example, you personally could collect together a list of moderators that you found to be serious about Python, and filter for their results, and immediately downgrade moderators that called your preferred contributors "trolls" as well as immediately downgrade contributors that your preferred moderators called "trolls". That already might solve most problems.

If that sounds like hard work, keep in mind that the Internet is all about delegating, spreading the workload, sharing. There's always a dedicated fanatic who makes life easier for the rest of us. Specifically, if you trusted just one person (and I think it's not too hard to find one person to trust) and he was sufficiently interested to put together a list of serious contributors and moderators, then you could just use his list.

And if the list is small to begin with, you or he could even grow this list Google-style: Google gives more weight to web pages that are themselves heavily linked to, thereby creating a chain of reputation: the reputation of one website boosts the reputation of another website. Similarly, you could take a small list of serious Python contributors and moderators and generate a list of all the contributors and moderators that they themselves moderated highly.

I think that a reputational system can be extremely robust once it has been well-implemented. Online, people are still struggling with refining the implementation.

Re:This is great untill

[drinkypoo]

If you just stop at the word "emacs", the process will still scare small children :)

Re:This is great untill

[bshanks]

Great ideas. You may be interested in the wiki pages MeatBall:RatingGroups and MeatBall:WebOfTrustModeration where there is discussion of similar ideas.

tips

[Coneasfast]

If you want some tips on making some good documentation, look at the freebsd handbook, that is simply excellent. you can usually find what you are looking for in there. i know i can.

whilst in linux what i find is documentation is all around the place, man pages, howto's etc, which are helpful, but sometimes not very convenient

Re:tips

[MaxiCat_42]

Totally agree with this. The FreeBSD Handbook is a comprehensive, and more importantly, well indexed resource. It covers topics from getting started to configuring kernels and adding devices. Someone (or many people) have gone through the configuration and use process and said 'what do people need to know to complete this process?'. This then appears as a heading in the handbook.

From my own experience, it has the only good explanation of how xdm works in the X11 system and how to set it up.

Phil.

linuxquestions not just linux

[bbowers]

I'm a contributing member of the linuxquestions site, and I personally thing Jeremy (the owner/admin) is doing a wonderful job of keeping the site up to date and adding new things. Most recently they showed their support at linuxworld with other companies and .orgs. THe addition of the wiki will further increase what they're trying to get across. I've found threads on there that I havn't found anywhere else on google or mailing lists, and most everyhting I've needed has a solution. Responses are fast, and the people are very nice, I'd reccomend it to anyone with questions.

Now keep in mind they don't just do linux, theres Solaris forums, Programming forums, AIX, distro forums, and many many more such as hardware forums, networking and a very nice HCL. I guess this is turning into an ad but I'm just trying to help out cause a little bit I guess. You'll find me there as the user Astro

Re:Um...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nay!

sorry - just had to be contrary

Re:Money goes to...

[RoadkillBunny]

Sorry, wrong story. Mean for the Gates of spam one.

linuxquestions, huh?

[slide-rule]

I dunno if the "wiki" part is anything newer than what I saw a month ago, but after jumping through several account creation / e-mail verification / etc hoops to try to post a detailed, working answer to someone else's problem (the problem and distro which happened to be the same as mine -- and for which no "good" answer had yet been provided), I kept getting denied any ability to actually post a reply to the thread. Tried for several days and gave up. I'm hoping it was a fluke... I know I need answers all the time for things, but the one time I CAN HELP and try to do so, DENIED. Blah.

Re:linuxquestions, huh?

[eddie can read]

I know I need answers all the time for things, but the one time I CAN HELP and try to do so, DENIED. Blah.

You'll get your chance. In the meantime, it's your sort of people that are the reason Wiki, open source, and voluntary online collaboration generally are working out so well. Hope that makes you feel better.

Fucking Slashdot Mods

[Anonymous Coward]

So completely typical. Somebody makes a comment that doesn't bow before the greatness that is linux and he's a troll?

How is linux ever going to gain any ground on the desktop if linux advocates are just going to bury their head in the sand and pretend that microsoft = bad/evil, and linux = perfection. He makes a fucking legit point.

I hope this post comes up for me to meta-mod.

Re:Fucking Slashdot Mods

[Anonymous Coward]

The very reason Linux is so easy to use (for something a little more advanced then getting a mouse to work) are all the community written howtos and guides out there. O don't think I could ever get ethernet bridging or TCP/IP Load balancing to work without them. All docs around the web about Linux is unmatched by any other OS.

Re:Bad idea?

[Daytona955i]

Wikipedia

I know you are just a troll but there are a lot of crappy wiki's out there. This is one example of one that rocks!

Bad link - Corrected

[Daath]

Damn the trailing slash ruined it - the url is http://google.com/linux...

Then you'll like Wiki

[lawpoop]

The great thing about wiki is that it's very open. If you see redundant or meaningless data, delete it! Yes, you! It's very empowering.

But wait, hold on! Did someone write trollish nonsense all over a beatiful how-to? Just roll back the changes.

If this scares you (and it should, it's very powerful, very new), check out wikipedia.com. It's totally self-policing and very well-kempt. You will quickly move from scared to excited.

Re:Then you'll like Wiki

[avenj]

I disagree. The *bad* thing about wikis is that they're open. In a wonderful world where people were smart, it'd be great. Unfortunately, the reality is that wikis tend to be filled with garbage by every moron and their mother who thinks they can write. The only way to keep them usable is to have a pretty massive number of dedicated contributors who run around rechecking everything all the time to make sure nobody fucked it up. In fact, in just the last couple hours while I was watching a movie, I noticed a few pages on the Linuxquestions.org wiki go from thought out, clean, well-written copy to total garbage. I could sit here and take a bunch of time that could otherwise be spent productively and fix it up and wait for the next idiot to make a dumb change, but it'd be almost as futile as reading Slashdot.

Re:Then you'll like Wiki

[eddie can read]

I could sit here and take a bunch of time that could otherwise be spent productively and fix it up and wait for the next idiot to make a dumb change, but it'd be almost as futile as reading Slashdot.

And yet you are reading Slashdot. So you will make the fixes, yes?

wikipedia.org????

[bobsalt]

I went there once, took me 2 days to get out!!

amazing site...

Re:wikipedia.org????

[bobsalt]

serioulsy, i went there to look up the flu, ended up reading abotu the black plague, then on to brown rats, black rats, THEN went onto to read abotu roman history -lol I think that wikipedia is the supreme example of HTML...

Re:wikipedia.org????

[MikeCapone]

I think that wikipedia is the supreme example of HTML...

Totally agreed.

I've said it many times and I'll say it again: Wikipedia is currently the coolest thing on the web.

int main()

[n0nsensical]

What you need to know is that main returns int!!!

Re:int main()

[Anonymous Coward]

int main(void)!

In C, anyway, empty parentheses in a function declarator are obsolescent, and don't create a prototype.

However, it's been obsolescent since C89, so who knows if it'll ever go away.

Re:Yet ANOTHER 42 joke

[Anonymous Coward]

After some grits and a beowulf cluster of SOVIET Profit! that are belong to us, redunant jokes, for one, welcome me.

Problem-oriented documentation

[lawpoop]

The problem I see with linux documentation (or any other documentation for complex stuff) is that it's usually not at the right level for me -- too high, too low, etc.

I would like to see documentation that's prolem oriented. It would start with "How do I ...?". It would list the most basic, high level steps. Then, each of those steps is a link to its own "how do I...?". You could then drill down each step that's a problem to you, and find out how to do the step. That way you don't get stuck. Sure, it would take a long time to build, but then you have pretty complete, robust documentation.

Re:Problem-oriented documentation

[value_added]

I agree, but consider that if you wrote technical documentation for a living, would you spend your time documenting How Things Work, or would you put that aside and compile a list of how to's and tips? I'd suggest that overlap aside, they're very different approaches intended for different audiences.

If you want everything in a "How do I?" format, then you'd be best served by narrowing web searches by using "FAQ" or "tutorial" keywords. You'll discover that that many are written separately and by different groups. Here's an example: one of the most extensive "How do I?" documents I've recently come across is the Vim FAQ. The first line reads "This Vim FAQ is created from the questions and answers posted to the vim@vim.org user mailing list and the comp.editors newsgroup". It's detailed enough that you could actually use it to learn from, but the point is that it's been authored by someone else and is being offered to a different audience.

If it helps, you may find that after reading enough tutorials, you'll find yourself re-reading man pages because you want more "complex stuff."

wiki vs TLDP

[Trestran]

I have been using Wikipedia for a while and one of the biggest selling point IMO is the great browsing experience. I often find myself actually surfing again by going from hyperlink to hyperlink, trying to soak up all the information, something I have stopped doing a while ago with most other webpages. There is lot of very good, indepth content on there.
TLDP is a bunch of mostly technical articles (HOWTO's, guides, FAQs and man pages) that are very usefull, but don't really form a coherent whole. It would be wonderfull to have a somewhat more encyclopedia oriented linux documentation to consult, that is updated consistently to boot. A encyclopedia aproach also alows you to cover a wide spectrum of topic, from, say, obscure technical details to general *nix design philosophies.
However, wiki's for this type of large projects (like wikipedia) need a certain critical mass of contributors for it to, I would think. While I don't know if this project will be "it", I think a wiki aproach would be a great idea.

Why the opposition to docs or info?

[weeboo0104]

Seriously. I visited the local LUG and was appalled at the attitude some of the older members had whenever a relative newbie or younger kid asked them a question. The boilerplate answer from the "gurus"?
"Just read the man pages".

I tried to hit them up for a simple answer to the nodev, user and suid options in fstab and all I got was "Read the man pages".

I wasn't looking to the answers to everything, only the differences between "user" and "nodev" options and when it is best to use them.

Re:Why the opposition to docs or info?

[Dr.Knackerator]

Not surprising. I don't know why these sorts of guys go to these things unless its some awful self esteem thing.

Mind you its just like local photography groups. nobody tells you anything and unless you have the 'right equipment' all your work is crap, no matter how good it is

Re:Why the opposition to docs or info?

[AlXtreme]

It's not the answer that matters, what does is the road you follow to get yourself the answer. Or something like that atleast.

Point is that nobody knows all the answers to everything, and new users shouldn't expect more knowledgable users to know everything. That includes fstab options. The difference between so-called 'gurus' and average joe is that the former rather finds his own answers first and the latter uses someone elses.

I should now throw the give-a-man-a-fish metaphore in here, but you're guru enough to google for it

'RTFM-ing' is also the only way to save your cool when you don't know the answer :)

Re:Why the opposition to docs or info?

[multipartmixed]

> I should now throw the give-a-man-a-fish metaphore
> in here, but you're guru enough to google for it

What, the one about giving up your monopoly on the fisheries?

My biggest beef with Linux (FWIW, I consider myself a UNIX guru) is that half (if not more) of the friggin' man pages say they're out of date, and to dig up the info documents.

Well, I don't like info. I like nroff -m an. What the fuck's wrong with man pages? And what the hell is point of support *two* types of documentation? If man is so bad (what, linux has a problem with the establishment?), ditch it entirely and make it a wrapper for the info utility -- and make info pages for everything.

But I truly prefer man, except maybe for things like the display filters in ethereal. Christ almight, there must be six thousand screens full of information there.

Re:Why the opposition to docs or info?

[eddie can read]

I wasn't looking to the answers to everything, only the differences between "user" and "nodev" options and when it is best to use them.

Just read the man pages.

(kidding!)

Re:Why the opposition to docs or info?

[eddie can read]

Seriously. I visited the local LUG and was appalled at the attitude some of the older members had

I have found that one of the best times to get information from someone is right after he has gone through the incredibly painful experience of doing something and wants to tell his story. "Oh, man, that was so hard, there was hardly any help anywhere. Here's what I did...here's what ended up working...here's the line I added to this file...Here's the website that gave me real answers...etc."

And of course it's not the older users but the new users and the newer users who are most likely to have just figured out that thing that you are trying to figure out, and who are dying to tell you about it.

Re:Why the opposition to docs or info?

[weeboo0104]

It's one thing to find your own answers first, and completely another to treat a curious person with disdain because you're too self-rightous to say the words "I don't know".

I have found some of the comp.linux.* newsgroups to be very helpful. I sometimes even post answers to other peoples questions too. I still may not know much more about fstab options, but if anybody needs help setting up multiple printing ports or getting a PC card CF reader working, I may be able to help.

Re:Why the opposition to docs or info?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I don't like info. I like nroff -m an. What the fuck's wrong with man pages?

GNU suffers from "not invented here"-syndrome. Badly.

Re:Why the opposition to docs or info?

[Resident Geek]

You might have elicited that response because surprisingly enough, the manpage does an adequate job of explaining the subject matter. They have better things to be talking about than walking around like an encyclopedia.

A 'wiki' does not contain knowledge

[ahdeoz]

My numero uno criteria used to decide whether or not to use a software product when evaluting (usually open source) is whether it uses a wiki for documentation. If it does, I do not investigate that product any further.

Re:A 'wiki' does not contain knowledge

[MikeCapone]

I know it's not software, but you better not go to wikipedia, then, because you might have to stop using the world.

Re:A 'wiki' does not contain knowledge

[KevinDumpsCore]

> My numero uno criteria used to decide whether or not to use a software product when evaluting (usually open source) is whether it uses a wiki for documentation. If it does, I do not investigate that product any further.

LOL! You hit the nail on the head.

In the pre-Wiki days, I would look for a complete on-line manual. If it had a lot of empty sections, I knew the project was just a developer's plaything: d00dz, I'm too busy coding to write docs!

Maybe after the Wiki fad dies down, project maintainers will come to recognize how important documentation volunteers are. Maybe we'll be treated with recognition and respect.

I, for one, don't welcome our new Wiki kiddie overlords!

Another personal favorite...

[virid]

Elite Google

Re:Another personal favorite...

[mujin]

Elite Linux Google

Re:Another personal favorite...

[big_groo]

Slashdot moderation at it's finest. *sigh*

-_-

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be helpful if SIT didn't block it and the Wikipedia.

Re:-_-

[boobsea]

What the hell is a college doing blocking websites?

The second my college starts blocking anything (bandwidth hogging issues aside) is the second I leave.

Re:-_-

[Anonymous Coward]

Their network accomodates several campuses encompassing half the South Island of New Zealand. And it is all bandwidth hogging issues.

You also have the occasional blocking of Google which prompts small riots outside the IT department.

MediaWiki

[teslatug]

Here is a link on MediaWiki and one on a list of sites using MediaWiki.

MediaWiki is GPL-ed, and more programmers are always welcomed.

Dear mods--a BIGGER question

[Overly Critical Guy]

Mind explaining why my post is "Flamebait?"

I simply made a point; an opinion of my own. If you disagree with it, reply or disregard, but don't mod it down. What makes Linux so great that it's above criticism?

Re:Dear mods--a BIGGER question

[Anonymous Coward]

What makes Linux so great that it's above criticism?

But bare in mind the shoddy moderation system that is used here. Any 14 year old kid can get mod points. And for 10 or so minutes - he feels like a "k3wl 1337 h4x0r, yo". Do really think he's going to be objective? He's just going to mod down the first 5 posts that disagree with his rebellious, immature, idiotic sense of what said moron perceives as idealism.

Re:Dear mods--a BIGGER question

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe because you only post to appologize for Windows or bitch about Linux?

Just a thought

Re:Dear mods--a BIGGER question

[mangu]

I simply made a point; an opinion of my own. If you disagree with it, reply or disregard, but don't mod it down. What makes Linux so great that it's above criticism?

No. Linux isn't above criticism. But it just happens that some slashdot mods do install Linux from time to time, and they realize that your post didn't contain any new information, it was just an old chestnut about "how Linux is difficult to install", when any decent Linux distro in the last seven years or so takes pretty good care of the points you raised. "sound card or USB mouse", indeed! I'm writing this from a dual-boot computer where the modem works under Linux, but not under Windows-98, so you can see which is really harder to install! Well, I suppose you work for Microsoft marketing, so you are just doing your job...

Re:Dear mods--a BIGGER question

[Anonymous Coward]

There was evidence to prove that Overly Critical Guy is a lying cocksucker, but he deleted it. Think independently.

Re:Dear mods--a BIGGER question

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it's an opinion, but you have the dubious distinction of believing that your opinions are facts. Couple that with the fact that you are a known troll and you hate anything to do with open source and it makes sense. You're purposefully throwing out your same old tired and discredited points of view for the sake of starting a flamewar while trying to grab some positive karma for yourself with these kinds of self-serving posts.

Congratulations. You've succeeded.

How do you protect a wiki?

[Mantorp]

From the FAQ on the site: Removing genuine work from this site is nothing short of vandalism

How can you make sure some numbnut doesn't get rid of useful stuff?

Re:How do you protect a wiki?

[Vaevictis666]

Typically, it's revisioned. If someone thrashes the content, an editor can go and revert the page to something that has content. At least thats how it works for wikipedia.

Re:How do you protect a wiki?

[Anonymous Coward]

The LQ Wiki has a "rollback" feature. Anyone can report a post and then a moderator can just bring back the last good version. With enough people frequenting a Wiki, the community kind of patrols itself.

129 articles!

[anarcat]

You know, when you posted this, there maybe was 19 articles, but right now, they are at 129, and growing, as the slashdot phenomenon actually does something useful.

I encourage the whole slashdot community to participate, it's easy and much more constructive than just crashing servers for nothing.

The wiki won't help if distributions don't chip in

[Mr. Piddle]

One of the most frustrating things about Linux distributions is conflicting documentation and obselete and current documentation mixed into the same directories. I'll look at some documentation for packet filtering, for example, and be left totally bewildered as to which methods and software are actually current and intended for use and which ones are considered outmoded (and, afterwards, I run off and just use OpenBSD).

It would be a great help if some of the distribution maintainers contributed to the wiki. They can say things like, "Debian 3.0 uses software X for doing Y, while Debian 4.0 uses Z, a replacement for X." Some one else can say, "Well, Fedora chose to use W for doing Y, so you have to do this this and this differently."

Eliminating ambiguity can be, perhaps, the benefit of a "real-time" wiki.

Re:another idea

[Welsh Dwarf]

Add a section in the wiki, anyone can do it. And you'd get loads of answers.

Lacking in execution

[pongo000]

While the goal is admirable, as many have pointed out here there is nothing to stop losers from "tainting" the wiki with malicious information. Instead of striving to become the primary source of Linux information, this project might instead aim to be a secondary source or repository, with links to the primary sources. A couple of advantages here:

• The job of ensuring validity and accuracy of the information would be distributed among the experts, said experts themselves validated by the wiki maintainers.
• Linking to the primary sources would lend some integrity to the project. For instance, I would be more likely to trust content posted on a site hosted by the software author rather than by a third-party.

I think in the end, it will boil down to trust: Do I trust this source of information? And if not, how do I verify its validity?

Then again, DMOZ has already done an admirable job in maintaining a moderated link farm...which raises the question: Do we really need another one?

There already is something like this...

[NumbThumb]

it's aptly called LinuxWiki. For now, (nearly) all articles are in german only, but they are going to change that. Maybe the people at LinuxQuestions.org would be interrested in some form of cooperation?

MOD PARENT UP, PLEASE

[Karl Cocknozzle]

What you need to know is that main returns int!!!

Quoth my freshman year C Programming professor who said "void main() makes baby Jesus cry." I almost fell out of my chair with glee.

I know how

[Anonymous Coward]

Hire all the unemployed "outsourced" whiners who post on Slashdot.

Ratings? Freshness?

[stefanlasiewski]

I like the idea behind Wikis, but have often found that Wiki content is often out of date, or is wrong. This is particularly true with many Linux-related Wikis.

I always thought it would be a good idea for Wiki's to have a rating system, as well as a 'freshness' system. If I search for a topic, I get several articles with different ratings. If I like an article, I give it a high rating. Likewise, bad articles receive low ratings.

As an article ages and becomes less relevent to current technologies, it's score will drop. That way, if I search for how to set up my Linux box to my ADSL provider, the article written 6 months ago will usuall have a rating which is higher then some HOWTO written 4 years ago.

Are there any Wiki technologies which do this?

A Creative Commons licenced Wiki ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not?
But, it could be just nice to add the RDF descriptor of the choosen licence in order to display it on my FireFox browser using mozCC extension.

"twice as good as View Source"

Aggregation needed?

[jfl2]

Perhaps a fast way to new content for sites like wiki.linuxquestions.org would be aggregation of other sources, such as the Linux Documentation Project. That way, the LDP information could be easily (and freely) updated and expanded.

Of course, the documentation project license requires that permission is sought from authors for derivative works. Hopefully there will be few obstacles to the gaining of such permission, and perhaps LDP authors should take initiative themselves to copy and paste their articles to wikis.

not many answers yet...

[planckscale]

Perhaps the broad sweeping categories like 'Networking' should be off the front page. I like the main page (www.linuxquestions.org) format better with a list of recently answered (or asked) questions. The more condensed information on the front page, the better. That way, if say, someone learns that ssh has a new vulnerabilty, someone would post the answer, and others who visit the site could see that answer at or near the top of the last recently answered questions list. Also, I would like a link to the most popular questions (by percentage viewed or modified) for each category and maybe even a scrolling list of the questions last asked. My 2 cents...

You missed the mark by a mile.

[drinkypoo]

Your program, on many compilers, will work just fine with void main(). On the other hand, printf() won't work unless you #include . Nice try at being snide though.

Re:You missed the mark by a mile.

[fishermonger]

Your program, on many compilers, will work just fine with void main(). On the other hand, printf() won't work unless you #include . Nice try at being snide though.

You did miss your's too. Only C++ compilers would requier you to prototype (or c compilers using the right -w compiler switch). Were you thinking about, heavens, Visual C++? ;-)

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Um, OpenFacts?

[Mike Hicks]

Hmm. The Germany government has been supporting OpenFacts for some time. I guess I've tried to get people interested in that site, but it hasn't gotten very far (in the English version, at least -- the Germans seem to be doing well in the Deutsch version)

The good news for the new project is that all OpenFacts material is public domain, so it's fair to cut-n-paste off that site (well, if there's anything very useful).

Um, and how is this site run by LinuxQuestions independent, exactly? I guess I don't quite understand how that can be the case. Whatever, I guess.

Distro wars

[FooAtWFU]

The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the article's talk page for more information.

Or for brevity, {{msg:NPOV}}.

Thoughts from someone who's done it

[Plug]

I don't know how LQ's wiki will end up, but if the answers from questions posted to the forums make their way into Wiki entries and are regularly maintained, then it has potential.

Almost two years ago, a resourceful hacker at our Waikato Linux Users Group set up a Wiki, and it has been a phenomenal success. We'll be surprised how often we google looking for something, and find the Wiki as the first hit!

What did we do differently? For starters, Perry imported the man pages and howtos, meaning people could link to a man page in the Wiki just by naming it (ie fstab(5)). This encourages both reading man pages and editing them, marking them up to be more useful to everyone. Another point is that now you can see which pages (and other man pages) refer to a given page, an invaluable tool that man itself can't provide!

We're thinking of dropping the HOWTOS because it's amost impossible to get changes sent up stream, and our own locally developed content tends to be better and more up to date.

Good luck to the LQ people, but there exist a number of Wikis that have the knowledge growing nicely outside of this. If you're looking for something, come check us out.

FYI

[Raul654]

IMHO (as a Wikipedia admin) what keeps that place running smoothly is a group of roughly 200 dedicated contributors, most of whom are admins.

To be multilingual

[Anonymous Coward]

wait a while for babelcode (www.babelcode.org).

Wikipedia Creator

[Landaras]

Speaking of the Wikipedia...

I found out yesterday that my philosophy professor at Ohio State (Dr. Larry Sanger) actually created the Wikipedia. He referenced the page in a topic we were doing, and mentioned in passing that he had started the Wikipedia a few years back (although he is no longer involved with it, as of March 2002).

If anyone has any questions for him, I can personally pass them along to Dr. Sanger (assumign he has time to answer of course). He and I are on fairly good terms (I sit in the front and am the most active discussion participant in our class.)

His information is here.

My email is...neil at wehneman.com

- Neil Wehneman

Re:Wikipedia Creator

[Insipid Trunculance]

He and I are on fairly good terms (I sit in the front and am the most active discussion participant in our class

Why do the words 'teacher' and 'pet' swirl around my mind.

Seriously, come and get your hands dirty

[Anonymous Coward]

There is so much that you can come and help us with.

Come and fill out a stub for an application you use.

Add structure to a section to facilitate, inspire, and direct future contributions.

Edit existing information into seperate sections to promote greater development in each.

Add stubs for topics that you would like to see written on.

Add stubs for questions you think others would like to know the answers to.

This is just getting started, and you can become a major contributor if you choose; it's all up to you.

Oh, great idea!

[multipartmixed]

> I always thought it would be a good idea for Wiki's to have a rating
> system [...] If I like an article, I give it a high rating.
> Likewise, bad articles receive low ratings.

Ohh, yeah! You could have end-user anonymous moderation, giving the posts scores with comments like "Informative" and "Funny"... frequent posters could rack up "Karma" which let them post with a score bonus.

I think that's a sure way to get a high-quality source of information.

Except, of course, people on that type of forum never read the articles!

WLUG wiki

[zcat_NZ]

One of the better resources for linux and open-source information is the WLUG wiki at http://wlug.org.nz

slashdot question: what are best techie web-sites?

[walterbyrd]

I think we have gotten to the point were knowing where to find technical information is a skill in itself.

Recently, a pc-tech friend of mine, jokingly suggested that instead of asking questions about which cpu goes with which socket, the a+ cert exam should ask: which web-site do you go to in order to find out which cpu goes with which socket? Or, where do you go to get a hardware driver?

Actually, I think that sort thing makes sense. I have long sense given up on trying to memorize all those details. Instead, I try to know which web-sites to go to. Nobody can memorize all the details anymore, somebody who knows where to go to quickly find information, can get a lot more done, a lot faster.

Oh, crap

[An Onerous Coward]

Hear that? ahdeoz is being alienated by your wacky Wiki ways. Stop the presses, unplug the servers, and start working on a nice, detailed PDF.

slash + the howtos

[gregm]

I've often thought about installing/hacking together something like slash and posting each of the howtos as "articles" or maybe each section of each howto as a sub-article. Then the howto could be discussed and kept live and up to date. After some period of time take the highest moderated posts and rewrite the howto and start over.

Slashdot's moderation system seems to mostly work and that would be the key to success for something like this. I could never think of a good name for it and wasn't good enough to pull it off so I never got around to it. Now I could probably pull it off but don't have the time and still don't have a good name.

G

wiki for source code

[axxackall]

I have a better idea about wiki: use it instead of CVS or on a top of CVS making possible for everyone to submit changes or to roll back the bad code. Mo more waiting when the maintainer has time to check it in - just do it yourself. If it works for open-sourced documents, why can't it work for open-sourced software?

Re:Um...

[Zakabog]

I'm sorry I didn't post a lengthy comment explaining how excited I am about this news but I figured "Um... yay!" would cover it, unfortunatly it didn't so here goes.

Wow this is so f-ing awesome, I really like the idea it sounds really cool and I hope to contribute (and learn) a lot!

Sorry you couldn't get all that from "Yay!" I would of posted more but I couldn't think of anything at the time and I was running late for work.

Dear OCG:

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you.

Love,
Slashdot

MOD PARENT DOWN

[Anonymous Coward]

OCG is a known troll and this is a troll post. You'd think it was obvious by the way he plants some his own AC posts. Moderators: Congratulations! You fell for it hook, line, and sinker!

Dear OCG:

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you.

Love,
Slashdot