Make a wiki with Markdown syntax and GIT backend.
These are a dime a dozen. Jet non of them has any significant share in the pure wiki space
Arch shares its wiki strategy with Debian
81–90 of 131 posts
Re: Arch shares its wiki strategy with Debian
#82The Arch wiki is one of the best things the Linux community has produced. It's like a modern, improved and more complete version of TLDP. I haven't even used Arch on any of my machines but can't count how many times I've found their wiki useful for my workstations, servers and even custom Yocto-built systems. Arch supports many ways of doing a thing, so whatever tool I'm dealing with, Arch probably supports that and…
This sounds exactly like what we used to say about Gentoo back in its early days.
Yeah, the Arch wiki is the Gentoo wiki we lost. I was around for it and the Gentoo wiki was amazing, it was one of the best Linux resources all-around, it was tremendously useful even if you didn't use Gentoo.
Re: Arch shares its wiki strategy with Debian
#83Instead of creating multiple wikis with probably 80% of duplicate information between them, it would be great to have a cross distribution wiki with separate sections for distribution-specific instructions where it makes sense. Gentoo had a fantastic wiki before they lost it to disk array failure (IIRC) around ten years ago, now pretty much everyone is going to the Arch wiki, why not try to turn it into a shared proj…
What matters in the long run for making a good wiki are the people and policies. Young and niche wikis are happy to take any contributions they can get. The quality and timeliness of any given bit of text soon ends up wildly different from page to page or even section to section. Some people may decide to take their time not just contributing new content but also editing existing content. However, it becomes difficul…
Wikipedia is definitely the exception. It works because almost everyone on the Internet uses it.
Re: Arch shares its wiki strategy with Debian
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
After using FreeBSD and OpenBSD, it is frankly shocking how bad Linux documentation is in comparison. On the BSDs every command, every program, every system call, and every configuration file are thoroughly documented in man pages and other guides. The FreeBSD Handbook in particular is a treasure. It more than makes up for some of the more difficult aspects of the OS by providing thorough and approachable documentati…
I learned how to do NetBSD kernel hacking from just the man pages. They're still my first-line documentation on the NetBSD file system work I'm doing. The state of Linux documentation is appalling by contrast.
Came in here to say the same thing. NetBSD should get more love.
Practically speaking ArchWiki has everything I'm likely to need as a poweruser, but it's not really all that comprehensive.
Re: Arch shares its wiki strategy with Debian
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
What matters in the long run for making a good wiki are the people and policies. Young and niche wikis are happy to take any contributions they can get. The quality and timeliness of any given bit of text soon ends up wildly different from page to page or even section to section. Some people may decide to take their time not just contributing new content but also editing existing content. However, it becomes difficul…
Wikipedia is definitely the exception. It works because almost everyone on the Internet uses it.
And it's not without problems, not the least of with is that being the default Wiki attracts the kind of people would would love to control the definite source of information.
Re: Arch shares its wiki strategy with Debian
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
You realize people do this for fun right? It’s fun to create your own distro (you should try it some time) and it’s fun to play with different ones as well. Nobody wants Linux to be more like windows, and otherwise they’d just use windows.
> You realize people do this for fun right? It’s fun to create your own distro (you should try it some time) and it’s fun to play with different ones as well. I do, and this is why FOSS cannot reach its political goals - it won't ensure user's freedom, for almost everyone involved today would rather chase their own satisfaction.
The "political goals" are pretty fringe, to most people that enjoy FOSS, the goal is to get something that works for themselves and if other people don't like it, that's fine. Most people aren't RMS style revolutionaries trying to convert the global population to FOSS users. I admire that man, but his goals aren't my goals.
For that matter, if political victory were to be achieved in the way you've suggested, it would be utterly Pyrrhic. The only way to achieve a unified singular FOSS operating system that nobody forks or otherwise competes with would be to strip users of their freedoms to do so. So that's not a victory at all for the political side of FOSS.
You might conclude then that FOSS victory is impossible. I think so too, and that's fine. It doesn't stop FOSS from being useful to me and many other people. Some people will never use it, and that's fine.
Re: Arch shares its wiki strategy with Debian
#87Instead of creating multiple wikis with probably 80% of duplicate information between them, it would be great to have a cross distribution wiki with separate sections for distribution-specific instructions where it makes sense. Gentoo had a fantastic wiki before they lost it to disk array failure (IIRC) around ten years ago, now pretty much everyone is going to the Arch wiki, why not try to turn it into a shared proj…
>Instead of creating multiple wikis with probably 80% of duplicate information between them >why not try to turn it into a shared project? This is basically both the highlight and the bane of the Linux world. Why have another DE when there are already multiple ones? [0] Why have another package manager when there are already multiple ones? [1] Why have another distro when there are already multiple ones? [2] So havin…
Bane? It's what makes the Linux desktop great. I get to choose a system that works like I want.
Imagine if there was only Gnome or whatever unholy monstrosity is the most popular DE these days.
Re: Arch shares its wiki strategy with Debian
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
After using FreeBSD and OpenBSD, it is frankly shocking how bad Linux documentation is in comparison. On the BSDs every command, every program, every system call, and every configuration file are thoroughly documented in man pages and other guides. The FreeBSD Handbook in particular is a treasure. It more than makes up for some of the more difficult aspects of the OS by providing thorough and approachable documentati…
It's a different model of development, leading to different expectations. BSD ties the kernel and the software on top of it together pretty heavily, creating the expectation that the documentation should cover all of it. Linux is meanwhile kernel and software kept separated, meaning that the documentation usually winds up assembled from separate tools, each with their own standards.
Yep. There is no "Linux Operating System." There's the Linux Kernel, and that kernel is used in tons of different OSes. It's sounds like a small nitpick but its a huge deal and a common misconception for those outside of the Linux world anytime a topic of unifying something in the Linux world comes up.
A shared or central wiki sounds nice, but could quickly end up too messy. Arch having its own makes sense, as in the case of Linux - the distro is the operating system. Arch is a different OS from Fedora, which is a different OS from Ubuntu, etc. Sure, there's a lot of overlap but they are each their own unique OS.
Re: Arch shares its wiki strategy with Debian
#89Instead of creating multiple wikis with probably 80% of duplicate information between them, it would be great to have a cross distribution wiki with separate sections for distribution-specific instructions where it makes sense. Gentoo had a fantastic wiki before they lost it to disk array failure (IIRC) around ten years ago, now pretty much everyone is going to the Arch wiki, why not try to turn it into a shared proj…
What would be even better - just a single, unified distro. Imagine if all those man-hours where actually focused on delivering a single working and polished FOSS OS. I know, FOSS is all about choice, yada yada.
That would be horrible.
Re: Arch shares its wiki strategy with Debian
#90The Arch wiki is one of the best things the Linux community has produced. It's like a modern, improved and more complete version of TLDP. I haven't even used Arch on any of my machines but can't count how many times I've found their wiki useful for my workstations, servers and even custom Yocto-built systems. Arch supports many ways of doing a thing, so whatever tool I'm dealing with, Arch probably supports that and…
I remember long before I started using Arch I would google something nuanced for Ubuntu and there it was on the Arch Linux wiki with a “for Ubuntu users do this” section to fix whatever my issue was, this happened multiple times.
The special instructions for other distros could be at risk for being deleted, as "something that will not work on Arch as-is is not something we will be hosting on our site".