discuss: Thread: Enyclopedic Organization of Linix Knowledge

We have HOWTO's, we have Guides, and we have in-depth documentation
about a broad range of Linux topics. Nevertheless it's time to
organize the present GNU/Linux knowledge in an encyclopedic manner and
in high detail.

Why should we need yet another kind of documentation? Imagine a user
wants to perform a task which is both, not very common (so no HOWTO
exists, or present HOWTO's don't cover important aspects of the
problem,) and of such a nature, that crucial information is scattered
around many docs. Further imagine the user is by all means capable to
think logically and grasp technical conception.  There are two options
for him. Ask somebody else -- which can take days, and yet wont ensure
for success. Or read documentation from scratch -- which likewise is
not that of a fast solution for he may be forced to take notice of
things along the way, which are not necessarily relevant, or, yet
worse, distract him from his actual goal.

The point is: Linux documentation always steers the user in some way
towards a specific goal -- which may be good for novices -- rather
than (as a whole) being him a means to reach his own goal on the
shortest way. But it could be!

Fine grained, article based representation of knowledge would be just
that. If every (sufficient relevant) piece of software, every concept,
every aspect in the world of Linux had its own place -- its article --
which gathers and references related knowledge, how fast could problem
solving be! 

Sure there is Wikipedia. But wikipedia is not the propper place to
host an article dedicated to e.g. "XKB Option", and fine-graininess is
crucial to the proposed approach. No doubt: the encyclopedia-in-mind
would be huge. Not needful to say, that only by means of a wiki, we
could achieve this.

Sure there are some similar attempts, but they are all (and probably
ever will be) by far not that comprehensive as it should be. Mostly
because they aren't driven by a central institution. If you recognize
the LDP as an institution, it's the one that should build the Linux
Encyclopedia!

Werner Rudolph

Werner Rudolph a écrit :

> > the LDP as an institution, it's the one that should build the Linux
> > Encyclopedia!

why not? We have the wiki, we are well known... lack just authors

If you want to begin a frameork on the wiki, go on. We still don't use
categories, and this could be a good beginning.

of course these docs must not have the "HOWTO" in the title, may be no
special title, only the "Linuxpedia" category?

linuxpedia is already taken (in french)
http://www.linuxpedia.fr/doku.php/wiki

and they seem to have hosting problems, so we could help them? but
only if free (as free software)

http://linuxfr.org/2009/04/09/25285.html

If you can't write french, I can help

jdd

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