Documentation Survey.

Forum: DSL Ideas and Suggestions
Topic: Documentation Survey.
started by: andrewphoto

Posted by andrewphoto on June 16 2005,12:15

Survey.
On a scale of 1 (chaos,) to 10 (order,) how accessible is good, basic, organized, definitive howto's/documentation on these forums, to do primary tasks (e.g., USB pendrive install/boot.)

I think there are some bright brains devoting a lot of energy to these forums.

Today, I vote - 5.

What about you?

Posted by jesseakc on June 16 2005,20:56

Not bad, I would say 7 because I had a funny problem with a grub install. 狢 searched every topic I could. 狢 finnally found a simple answer in a forum that was a little off subject, just happend to show up at the bottom of my searches. 泎esides that, the docs and forums are always the first place I look. 狢nfact, I spend a lot of time reading this stuff even though I'm not having the same problems. 狢'm learning a lot about DSL that way I think.

Jesse

Posted by andrewphoto on June 17 2005,11:07

jesseakc,
I agree with you jesseakc.
If one trawls the forum, answers are to be found. There is some great help here, and my knowledge is increasing.
Ok, today I vote - 6.
Best Regards, andy.

Posted by gh78 on June 18 2005,22:19

I'd give it a '3'. the BBS forums are kind of organized,
but it is not a substitute for dedicated web pages with completed HOWTO's, and bug lists.

There should be at least one HOWTO page and
one FAQ page for each forum section.
(laptops, xwindows,wifi, etc)
FAQs and HOWTOs should be linked to the main homepage--
e.g. < http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/help/faqs >

Also this BBS has limited functionality--(how can you 'track' a thread?)
As a result-some threads are unresponded to;
certain problems (like the 486sx/386sx problem) come up again and again
but are never solved (how hard is it to put the fpu emu in the kernel?!)

these issues are an example of how improvement is needed.

Posted by andrewphoto on June 20 2005,10:58

My vote has gone down today.
Nobody has been kind enough to help me with my USB-ZIP thread in HowTo's.
For the first time in my life, I have subscribed to an ISP.
It would have been a pleasant surprise if Knoppix 3.8 had recognized my Xircom modem built in to my Satellite 2800. It didn't. I took the pcmcia Xircom modem out of my Satellite 320CDT (233mhz.) Knoppix 3.8 found that one, but DSL 1.2 didn't. I've just searched DSL documentation with the word modem, and got nothing (I'll trawl forums, modem, Xircom.)
All I want to do is create a USB-ZIP pendrive, in the hope that I can add my laptop series, to Johns list.
Worst case scenario is I'll ditch this, and just go ahead and put Suse on my box (you can download Suse iso for free (with a Japanese intro on the install,) and come back to this in a year or two (after a year or two I've just come back to this from Red Hat 6.)
That would be a pity, I'm a somewhat bright guy, and I could contribute to DSL, and it's great to be learning.

Posted by SaidinUnleashed on June 20 2005,13:53

gh78, the Documentation link on the front page isn't good enough?

gh78, andrewphoto, most of your questions have been answered in the Docs, which is why they have gone mostly ignored here.

Tracking a topic? Again, use your eyes.

Andrewphoto, while Knoppix 3.8 has the ability to use some winmodems, DSL does not, due to our 50mb size restriction. DSL only sees hardware modems.

As for the pendrive, once again, use your eyes. In the menu go Apps >> Tools >> Install to USB Pendrive >> USB-ZIP

-J.P.

Posted by andrewphoto on June 20 2005,15:13

J.P.
Thanks for the reply.
I understand the 50mb restriction.
Likely I'll have to configure my modem, that's ok.

What I am primarily trying to do is USB-ZIP.
But I get;
'Error while trying to fetch the bootusb image file.'
So thats why I'm trying to get online.

I guess I can copy the bootusb image to my home directory, but I don't know how to 'manually' USB-ZIP.

I hope you get what I mean.

Thanks again J.P., andy.