New Puppy Wiki Project

Helping keep Puppy well documented
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Iguleder
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New Puppy Wiki Project

#1 Post by Iguleder »

Xrter (on IRC, on the forums he's Saturn) had a brilliant initiative to write a new Puppy wiki, and I'm trying to arrange things for this.

We need some place to arrange this project and decide who writes what and how. We must agree on some style common to all articles and the articles list itself.

My forums username is Iguleder (as you probably know), my Puppy IRC nick is Iguleder, and my email is dima_k@ymail.com. My MSN is dima_k@ymail.com too.

Please, if you wish to participate in this documentation project, reply with the articles you wish to write, sort them by difficulty level (beginner, intermediate, expert) and add some contact information (instant messaging, email, forums/IRC nicknames).

The topics I write about are:

- Beginner - Rox: working with files, Rox options, the pinboard.
- Beginner - SFS extensions 1: what are they, how to use with different kinds of installations.
- Beginner - PETs: how to use PPM, how to get PETs from the forum.
- Intermediate - the console: common console commands, working with files with the console, system variables, Bash scripts.
- Intermediate - compiling: how to install the devx module, how to install kernel sources, how to compile sources, how to customize makefiles, basic hacking, basic sources editing, how to install to a specific directory (for creation of SFS/PET).
- Intermediate - SFS extensions 2: how to make, how to convert.
- Intermediate - PETs: how to make pets.
- Intermediate - nVidia drivers: how to install, how to update.
- Expert - Woof: basic tutorial on how to make Wooflets.

All my articles will be written in simple English, with small, JPG screenshots for almost each 1-2 paragraphs. My list of articles is not final, I may add or remove articles from it.

Some notes:
- We need an article about getting certain printers to work with CUPS.
- We need articles about exotic sound cards, modems and wireless.

I think we should write articles in Abiword or OpenOffice and save them as ODT, so everyone can view and edit them, is that alright? When you're done writing an article, post it here, we'll polish it together. When Xrter is done setting up the wiki we'll move it there.

Good luck with this thing :wink:

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Artie
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#2 Post by Artie »

I'm not much of a writer but I can try to help out in a small way when this gets going. Right now I just would suggest that you use Google Documents to write and share and collaborate and polish articles.

Artie

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Iguleder
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#3 Post by Iguleder »

I think we should share documents here, for 2 reasons:
- Any cloud-based document editing software requires a fast internet connection, some users don't have it (or simply use laptops, so they have no internet access at all sometimes).
- This topic allows us to discuss the writing and the overall progress.

Well, that's just my opinion. I'm sure we can find some way to lock wiki pages so they're editable only by certain users, when all articles are ready. This way, we can go over all the articles and polish them before we lock them completely.

shariebeth
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#4 Post by shariebeth »

It would be nice if the guides were written not only for puppy newbies but linux newbies as well. I am new to both and I have had many instructions given to me that would have been simple to follow but weren't because I had no idea what they were talking about or how to do it. (and consequently spent more time researching that problem than the original problem).

Note as well there are already some very well done guides and sets of instructions in the forums. It doesn't make sense to have people reinvent the wheel or waste their time re-doing what has been done already. Maybe a good idea would be to sort through forums first and then post what might be missing and ask for help then.
(Also there are many threads that are good but are messy and not easy to find the updated info.)

Also some of what you classify as intermediate I would classify as beginner as well, since I had need of some of that since day 1 (console use would be one major example).

That said, I would like to offer help with the items I have had experience with so far, even though I am new. (Some of these already have good instructions here in forums, some have messy threads, some are unique issues based on specific hardware).

Puppy 4.3.1 full install, wireless network with windows xp
1. java installation
2. file sharing on network
3. wireless printing with a HP Officejet 6310 All-in-one
4. alsamixer
5. skype
6. Probably other things I can't think of offhand that I forgot I installed or tinkered with and will remember when I see somebody else's post.

I am also willing to play guinea pig as a newbie to follow anyone else's guide to see if it is dummy proof or not :D

tlchost
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#5 Post by tlchost »

shariebeth wrote: Note as well there are already some very well done guides and sets of instructions in the forums. It doesn't make sense to have people reinvent the wheel or waste their time re-doing what has been done already. Maybe a good idea would be to sort through forums first and then post what might be missing and ask for help then.
One would hope there is downloadable version. Wiki-based projects have advantages...but can't be used when there is no Internet access.

Thom

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Iguleder
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#6 Post by Iguleder »

shariebeth wrote:It would be nice if the guides were written not only for puppy newbies but linux newbies as well.
My articles are generic, except things like PETs, SFSs ... all the Puppy-specific stuff.
shariebeth wrote: Note as well there are already some very well done guides and sets of instructions in the forums.
I agree with you on that. First of all, we'll write what we can, then merge other good material we find.
shariebeth wrote: Also some of what you classify as intermediate I would classify as beginner as well, since I had need of some of that since day 1 (console use would be one major example).
Yes, sir! :wink:
shariebeth wrote: That said, I would like to offer help with the items I have had experience with so far, even though I am new.
It doesn't matter. We just need people with motivation and will to contribute. Your help is highly appreciated.
shariebeth wrote: ...

2. file sharing on network
3. wireless printing with a HP Officejet 6310 All-in-one

...
These are 2 critical areas. Thanks for offering your help here.
shariebeth wrote: I am also willing to play guinea pig as a newbie to follow anyone else's guide to see if it is dummy proof or not :D
Thank you! That's awesome!
tlchost wrote: One would hope there is downloadable version.
I'm creating PDFs of all my guides, it's alright. Gotta make sure all writes do so. :!:

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darrelljon
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#7 Post by darrelljon »


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spongedaddy
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#8 Post by spongedaddy »

Hello all,

Is this project intended to compliment or supersede the current wiki?

I've done a wee bit of editing on those pages (I'm not a whizbang Puppy wizard, but I do like to help out where I can), and I'd hate to see this basically reinvent the wheel. That said, if this wiki is to be a little more clear, detailed and organized, count me in. I'd love to help.

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Iguleder
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#9 Post by Iguleder »

It's intended to be a complete Puppy wiki, similar to the Arch wiki. The short-term goal is to have a full Puppy usage guide.

The long-term goal is to cover everything that's related to Puppy, how to configure things, how to work with hardware, etc'. It should provide lists of applications, tutorials for each, things like ALSA and CUPS, internet setup and more.

See my sig, it looks great already. Detailed to a certain degree, some juicy details that average users don't give a damn about are removed (for example, an explanation what source code is or what binary language is). It's very organized, if you read all articles from the top all the way to the bottom you deserve some "Puppy Certified" diploma :wink:

Later, I'm gonna add a theoretical section, somewhere in the "beginner" chapter. It should explain what "mounting" is, what "image files" (SFS, ISO ... ) are, what files are, a brief index of file types, some technical stuff (parallel ports, serial ports, different cables, different ports, many pictures) and an explanation about things like users and permissions. That should make many things easier to understand.
[url=http://dimakrasner.com/]My homepage[/url]
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WhoDo
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#10 Post by WhoDo »

Iguleder wrote:It's intended to be a complete Puppy wiki, similar to the Arch wiki. The short-term goal is to have a full Puppy usage guide.
So why not put all of this effort into the official wiki site? It could use the passion, time and organisational ability being displayed and I'm sure Lobster and raffy would welcome the assistance.

If that's too onerous, then why not follow darrelljon's pointer and merge your material into the existing wikiworld wiki?

I guess what I'm asking is WHY we need a third or fourth wiki when what I think we really need is your passion and time to redevelop one that already exists along the lines you propose? At least if you merge into the "official" wiki your work will benefit from a direct link through puppylinux.org where newbies would naturally look. Just my 2c.
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Iguleder
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#11 Post by Iguleder »

WhoDo wrote:At least if you merge into the "official" wiki your work will benefit from a direct link through puppylinux.org where newbies would naturally look.
That's exactly what I don't want, at least for now. The official wiki simply looks awful. I don't see any way to "fix" it.
[url=http://dimakrasner.com/]My homepage[/url]
[url=https://github.com/dimkr]My GitHub profile[/url]

oui

#12 Post by oui »

I did beginn 'my own pseudo wiki' in this forum, he is announced here in the last message in the first French sticky as we have no reaction any more for the French part of the forum (it seems that we have no moderator any more for this part of the forum, but it is ok so, the forum seems to be clean so long...)

I did contribute to the old wiki of puppy vers. 1 and following, a wikkawiki wiki. But this wiki did change and the access is now restrictive.

The biggest difficulty is to find a system being able to separate the contributions depending of the divers branches of the Puppy world. The knowledge about Puppy is a thing with short live time! And the Puppy world is somewhat as the universe: a chaos :wink:

The second difficulty is the among of languages. In the old puppy, I did try to offer my pages in 3 languages English although my English is really poor and often wrong (I did never learn it!), German, my adoptive tongue, and French, my mother tongue. All that using intensively the function «include» of the wikkawiki. Three great defaults: the English version is in my case very poor, a great among of work, and difficulty to translate it in more languages...
The best way would be that good bilingual authors would write pages on English AND TEST them herself how far they are translatable by Google in her mother tongue! If Google give an comprehensible translation in one language, the chance that the translation in other languages by Google into the different Google languages is of course really better (1 : this is the case if the author avoid to use slang and difficult sentences! See also this separate discussion.

The third difficulty is to actualize the texts following the new concepts of Puppy and to make this changing in knowledge accessible in other language if yet available.

This can not be managed properly manually any more: you need a wiki with included maintenance performances for a multi language environment

and a good system of categories immediately at the begin of that new job!

(1 depending of the special processing mode of the Google translation: Google does not really translate but only search equivalents in million of sentences available in two languages and only Google as such a quantity of texts at his disposition! and in computer technical are a lot of man pages etc. really available in a great quantity of languages so that the Google translation can better reach a good result in computer sciences as in other fields like medicine, arts etc...

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