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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."
What about The Linux Documentation Project? Provides plenty of knowledge to me about pretty much anything Linux related...
Hate me!
Crap I meant http://www.google.com/linux.
Keep your eyes to the sky.
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.)
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.
"You never know when some crazed rodent with cold feet might be running loose in your pants."
-Calvin
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
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
Sorry I botched the link to The Linux Documentation Project in my previous post.
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
Even a stopped clock gives the right time twice a day.
Damn the trailing slash ruined it - the url is http://google.com/linux...
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
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.
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.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
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.
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.
Perhaps you should be looking at some official sites? You might find info a lot faster that way.
SCO.com uses Linux
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.
You forgot: /usr/share/doc/*|grep 'foo' /usr/local/share/doc/*|grep 'foo' /usr/local/share/man/*|grep 'foo' /usr/share/info/*|grep 'foo' /usr/local/share/info/*|grep 'foo' /*
apropos 'foo'
ls
ls
ls
info 'foo'
ls
ls
grep 'foo'
All that, and I still couldn't find any information about foo!
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
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).
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.
Time makes more converts than reason
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.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
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."
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.
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 make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
One of the better resources for linux and open-source information is the WLUG wiki at http://wlug.org.nz
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