Documentation

Forum: DSL Ideas and Suggestions
Topic: Documentation
started by: sankarv

Posted by sankarv on June 16 2006,08:46

I suggest forming a documentation for DSL, as that exists for various other distros. This helps anyone easily work with DSL. This is possible if all members can help for this.
Can anyone help in this issue....

Posted by ZoOp on June 16 2006,15:11

Hi,

there is a wiki which let you understand the basics and gives you an introduction to DSL desktop. And there is also a book on DSL, which seems to be useful (I don't read it, but know it out of this post: < http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin....=13243) >

yours
z

Posted by jonam on June 18 2006,12:11

Might be a good idea. My experience is that you need to do a lot of googling and have plenty of patience to get DSL going. The Wiki's and forums contain snippets of information but there needs to be some structure to put it all together.

Regards,

Jonam

Posted by sankarv on June 19 2006,10:57

thx jonam,
thats way i exactly want to say.
we need to have a well structured complete docs for DSL.
friends help to get this out. will be great to have this....

Posted by green on June 20 2006,01:24

There are a handful of people in the forums who have contributed to the DSL Wiki. I have been swamped with work from my real job, so I have not been able to contribute the way I would like to.

However, if any of you have something prepared to add to the Wiki, such as Howto's, answers to frequently asked questions, etc., feel free to send me a Private Message and I will make efforts to get the material on the Wiki.

To send a Private Message, press the button labeled "PM" at the bottom of my post.

Posted by jonam on June 22 2006,03:38

Green,

My view on documentation is that there is a lot of useful information in the forums/ Wikis on DSL, but it requires persistent searching to "connect the dots" and solve a particular problem. I have seen many posts where people either encounter similar problems to others or post on an issue that might have been discussed a year ago but is now lost somewhere at the end of one of the topics.

As an example, it took me four weeks of endless searching to get my combination of wireless card and laptop working when the solution was as simple as using DSL 2.1b which contains a more recent cardmgr version that works with older laptops. This sort of information should be easily available.

A structured document (maybe an extension of the current Wiki) that extracts this information and places it centrally would make things much easier. I have attached a document outline below. Like you, I have a day job and could not possibly take on this task alone but if there is some effort made to get everyone to contribute (in a structured fashion), either via a submissions page or giving access to editing Wikis, then it would be achievable.

Regards,

Jonam
==========
1. Introduction to DSL
1.1. Purpose of DSL (primarily to support older hardware?)
1.2. DSL Roadmap (so everyone knows where development is heading and where DSL has been)
1.3. DSL Flavours (embedded, LiveCD etc.)

2. Supported hardware (what has been tested on DSL based on forum/ web/ blog information)
2.1. Desktops
2.1.1. Motherboards
2.1.2. Video cards
2.1.3. USB support
2.1.4. Sound cards
2.1.5. and so on....

2.2. Laptops
2.2.1. .....Similar to Desktop but covering additional topics such as PCMCIA cards and power management.

2.3. Other platforms

2.4. Known issues (well known problems that cannot be solved or are slated for future fixes)

3. Getting started
3.1. Installation (all the different ways to get DSL loaded and working as per the Wikis)
3.2. Basic DSL use (navigating the screen, myDSL extensions and so on)
3.3. Connecting to the internet (basic guide with references to the various Linux networking Howto's)

4. Advanced DSL use (using shell commands, customising boot-up, setting wireless parameters)
4.1. Configuring DSL (what configuration files are there and what they can be used to do - reference to off-site information if necessary)
4.1.1. Boot-up
4.1.2. Screen setup (XVesa/ Xfree86)
4.1.3. Sound
4.1.4. Wireless (WEP, WPA)
......

5. Inside DSL
5.1. Applications
5.2. Linux commands included (no man pages but a one line description of each command and what it does). DSL varies from other distributions so this sort of information would be useful. Links to a man-page website included.
5.3......
==========