Re: Getting involved
erinn~
i'm glad you brought up this documentation subject. i was
poking around the top pages when suggesting debian installs to others
and found the lack of mention for AMD glaring. i mean, you and i
already know that i386 *implies* AMD compatability, but the download
page for testing releases is so scary and accronym-ridden:
http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/
to make matters worse it doesn't really describe clearly what "code
name" version (woody? sarge? testing etch?) is located in the files you
are downloading.
to continue on to the wiki: the installation wiki is buried (i actually
stumbled on these pages:
http://wiki.debian.net/?DebianDisc
http://wiki.debian.net/?DebianInstall
before hitting the wiki that actually covers installing debian):
http://wiki.debian.net/?InstallationHelp
which points the user in the direction of the install manuals (after
some pretty lame two line "preparation hints":
http://wiki.debian.net/?GeneralInstallHints
http://wiki.debian.net/?InstallPreparation
actually located in that wiki's section):
http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/installmanual
Now, once on this page, once again, how is the "average" user supposed
to know that AMD is an i386 architecture (without consulting wikipedia
or google or something). Next the user chooses i386 in their language,
and poof! page not found. The only links that work are the ones at the
top of the page in english.
Maybe I should cut the website maintainers some slack, they are, after
all, dealing with updating everything for Sarge 3.1 stable after two
years. The placeholder i386 text document is actually marked Debian 3.1
inside:
http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/install
Inside this document there is finally mention that AMD and VIA are types
of i386 (this sidenote is however located _below_ the main chart of
architectures and is burried in other irrelevant smutz):
quote:
2.1.2.1. CPU
Nearly all x86-based processors are supported; this includes AMD and VIA
(former Cyrix) processors as well. Also the new processors like Athlon XP and
Intel P4 Xeon are supported. However, Linux will not run on 286 or earlier
processors.
endquote.
So it took me (and maybe a first time user) FIVE webhops (minimum) to
find that AMD is in fact one of the architectures supported by Debian
and incidentally only ONE to see that sparc and arm are supported.
Maybe I'm the only one to find this a little weird? And maybe this
whole _rant_ should be posted elsewhere, but it only scratches the
surface of what could be a very large debian frontpage and debian wiki
collaborative effort. In closing, yes I agree wholeheartedly with
Erinn, the debian wiki and the debian.org webpages in general are in
need of some serious love.
cheers,
fabienne
Erinn Clark wrote:
So, I was talking to Dafydd Harries earlier after taking a gander at
http://wiki.kernelnewbies.org/ and also http://live.gnome.org and we got
to thinking -- there aren't really any task lists that I'm aware of for
Debian and our wiki (http://wiki.debian.net), while not in a state of
disrepair, is probably in need of some love.
There's some assorted information on http://debian.org/devel/ but
nothing terribly obvious that would be of any help to new people. Often
when people join Debian, they have no idea what to do, so what I'm
thinking is...
Why don't we make it our mission to revamp wiki.debian.net and add some
tasks? Actually, why isn't it just wiki.debian.org? I'm not really sure
how helpful these things are to new (or old people who are looking for
other interesting projects to get involved with) so if anyone has any
comments about their usefulness, please do so. :)
It seems that with the size and distributed nature of these projects,
wikis are nearly the only way to update stuff quickly. Anyway, have a
look through the kernel newbies and GNOME ones to see what I'm talking
about. The sheer dearth of information is amazing and strikes me as
being very helpful. Debian needs something similar.
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