I think what is needed is a comparison guide between the major desktop environments.
New people keep instaling ubuntu gnome simply because Logan is using ubuntu with gnome.
Gnome is a fine desktop, and there is nothing wrong with it.....however new users should also be at least aware of KDE, mate, XFCE, openbox, unity, pantheon, cinnamon, and so on.
I was thinking of providing a structure and a backbone like this, let's start by the index and go from there:
What is Linux:
What linux can do and is doing
UNIX philosophy, a bit of history, not too much
A bird eye's view ofLinux
Explaination of key userland applications (package manager, make)
All the capital parts of the OS, using a chart like this () with a brief explaination of every level and what they do, briefly.
Where to get Linux and what is a distro ? Links to different distro's, pro's and con's, making it clear that differences between distro's are philosophy and package manager
Typical software combo's, link to the archwiki's gigantic list
The importance of the Linux command line:
Importance of it
directory hierarchy
explaination of (basic file operation commands, ls, cd, cp, mv, dd,...)
bashscripts howto + practical examples, also links to multiple extern sources
A guide to self sufficiency, where to find the manual
man pages
how to effectively search on google for your linux related issues
links to major documentation hubs
driver issues, how to solve them ?
Linux under the hood, the good, the confusing and the enlighnment
Partition effecively, the infamous tricks (seperate /home, /usr, /var,... and circomstance of such mesures)
Filesystems, explaination + pro's and con's
Different shells, what they do/work, incompatibilities and improvements
Root? Where we are going, we don't need no root (user "management")
What does the kernel do, patches? compiling it ? (abstract + links to a lot of different sources)
Security and linux ?
encryption (block)
more encryption (filesystem)
there could be a lot more to that, but that would turn into a how can I stay anonymous thing, maybe suggested to read: How Do I Escape The Matrix essay
There is a lot missing, Linux is a deep topic, feel free and do contribute to the index (I'm forcing you :D)
Maybe we could just use github as a wik, works fantastically well. What do you think ?
We may need a bit of some mod/ @wendell @Logan input on the topic before we make big decisions, but it would be nice to have your opinions on that. To github or not ?
i would say maybe looking into an actual wiki source to work with that is accessible to registered community members.
something like Wikia.com instead of a github. either would work i guess though.
Ideally i would like to see it contained within the site though, so that we can keep supporting the site with the banner ads on the top of the screen, or through teksupport.
i agree on the mod input. I was hoping that this would garner enough interest to get their attention, and look into what we can do for/as the community.
@Kehlyos That's a nice little structure there, I think that pretty much covers many things a new user would have to know.
@Bentoo I think one thing we should bear in mind is who are we catering these resources to? While I understand that the Linux community in Tek is kinda young, as the majority of users mature within the Linux world, so will our resources (knowledge base) adapt. If we do end up trending towards a TekWiki of sorts, will we start telling new users to RTFM? Coming from an Arch-based system myself, I'm mostly familiar with the RTFM approach, it's not exactly 'user-friendly' or as welcoming as say UbuntuForums' approach.
in my mind, i am thinking of a more "Help me read the manual" type of group, where we can leverage the information on the distro wiki pages, and help the people that are new or having trouble understand what the "manual" is telling them.
I'm thinking less documentation of software, and more a documentation of user problems so that solutions to specific issues can be found in an easily readable, and accessible format.
I am in the editing phase of a video on how to virtualize linux I was going to post up here as well as an intro for the end user. Do you guys think that would help out here? I don't want to talk down to the syndicate since this is the first forum I have ever really loved more than reddit.
I will be keeping an eye on this thread for great tuts to add to the Linux Challenge thread.
i'd say post it up!
community space is for the community.
Start a post and let people see what you made!
would you mind linking it as a related topic to the main post?
they might be a good pair
There are wiki post we could get a mod to give us one
That is definitely an approach that I didn't consider. In that case, we'd be saving a lot of manhours. I've always loved and found the ArchWiki and Gentoo Wiki to be invaluable resources for any distribution.
My only concern is redoing stuff that may already be available in some form.
That's called linking to it I think, the power of the internet is really neat :D
That is exactly my concern as well! One of the major problems within the Linux world is duplication of effort. I think we'll do fine linking to the ArchWiki's, but we will definitely have to keep all queries within in Tek's subforums. It wouldn't be nice or fair to the Arch guys if we direct queries to their forums.
My main intention was not to create a new bastion for information, but rather a place to organize questions and answers in the community, specifically for Tek followers.
We have the information:
most, if not all of the information that we need is already sourced by developers in their manpages, and githubs. the issue with that is that it is far from noob friendly. i want to try and make understanding these terms and concepts easier for beginners, as well as give them a dedicated spot to look for help rather than spamming up the main linux thread.
Noobs need some help understanding new topics:
my idea is that we need a place to see what people are asking, and give them some help finding and understanding the content. A wiki was a good idea, because it would allow us to sort the questions by those that have not been answered so we can help those that still have questions, and also give newbies a place to search to see if their question has an answer or solution that they don't have to wait on a response for.
Don't Reinvent the wheel:
i didn't mean for it to sound like a re-create the archwiki project. instead i was trying to set up a dedicated place that people can go when they are sick of getting told to RTFM. a place where people are willing to help someone understand why or how something works, because that kind of support is not provided in the wiki for most distributions. of course a majority of the content will be linked to wiki pages or software recommendations, but that is usually not a great way for the average user to understand the more important part: "WHY do we do it like that"
i think this community would be knowledgeable and supportive enough to help some newbies understand the process rather than just say RTFM and post a "Paste this into the terminal" solution. that kind of answer won't help anybody learn.
what i am looking for is a way to sort the question section in a way that is easy to see what has been answered, who's still awaiting an answer, and how can we keep these help requests separate from the main discussion forum.
Agreed,
The project is more an introduction point than anything else, really. It's about abstracting a bit what's Linux and how it works instead of using the step by step writing style that all the community seems to adore, it's just a work of summarizing what can be found, explaining it a bit, comparing it in simple terms when needed, and of course, linking to the big source of knowledge, that is, the various wiki's and manuals of this Linux world.
It's more like indexing subject related to common question and pointing in the right direction, kind of a gentle way to be told RTFM, but still giving an explanation and not being one of those "I just learned how to use the terminal" Archlinux asshats users screaming at any person asking a question that can be found on the, poorly organized, archwiki. (sorry, I had to :D)
This direction of answering questions sounds a lot like a Q&A system similar to stack overflow...
If Q&A works and helps people on the forum acquiring (not sure how to write that), skills they need, why not ? And if we are starting to make comparisons to other things, we ain't going nowhere, isn't teksyndicate, "just another hardware channel with another show where they talk about weekly news in the tekverse" ?
Besides, there would also be an introduction page, where many questions would be answered within it, refer to the post with the big outline to get an idea of what I'm talking about as I don't think my communication is clear enough :D.
This is also kind of a way to contribute to the community, Linux is like a hobby, and like every other freakin' hobby and activity, they should be a nice introduction to introduce beginners to, I'm of course not referring to things "everyone knows" like football or basketball or whatnot but to more niche things like, diy-biology, hackerspaces, the demoscene, even hackers have one thanks to ESR! This initiative might make other people want to do their own better thing and then we get into a nice virtuous cycle or snowball effect that might give birth to the next "hot thang"...or not and that's only the beginning of where the fun resides ;)
i know i'd be more interested in answering the questions than anything, but i need a good place to find them.
Everybody learns a bit, and it helps build up the community (maybe even into that next hawt thang!)
So you would just want a linux questions subcategory in the forum?
Or you would want that and the wiki?