Arch Linux

ectospasm

Member

Registered: 2015-08-28

Posts: 273

Wiki article idea: Installation Recipes

I've had a couple of ideas of articles for the Wiki, but wanted to discuss them first before I make page stubs and start documenting.  This is the second one.

Installation Recipes

Thanks to the rolling release of Arch Linux, I've only actually installed Arch a handful of times.  And the Wiki is wonderful in documenting the process.  The first time I ever installed Arch, I didn't have another computer to access the wiki, and didn't think to use my phone.  I just used separate virtual consoles on the desktop system I was using, and had the wiki loaded in a text mode browser (elinks or lynx, I don't remember which).  I may have even enabled GPM so I could copy and paste with my mouse in the Linux console (this part I don't rightly remember).

However, each time I've installed Arch I've always wanted something specific, which generally meant searching, following, and backtracking through several Wiki articles to achieve my end.  Now that I have a new laptop, and I'm planning on installing Arch on it very soon, I've drafted a "recipe" for myself to follow.  I've been told that publishing such a "recipe" is against the spirit of the Wiki, but I'm finding it's a slog to go through all the articles to piece together how I want to do it, especially without planning ahead.  I think many Archers might find such "recipes" useful, if only to get ideas for their own systems.

Right now I'm not suggesting a format for such things, or exactly what's included in them, so the non-wiki article I linked to in the above post doesn't need to be followed.  I'm thinking a list of hardware prerequisites for each "recipe" could be listed (e.g. a multi-disk RAID setup might not be the most appropriate for single-disk laptops, or encryption keys depending on the presence of a TPM cryptoprocessor, etc.).  Also, a list of the design decisions and why certain choices were made (e.g., partition layout, filesystems installed, bootloader, etc.). 

What would be the proper way to address this kind of documentation, and keep to the spirit of the wiki?  Or is this really a bad idea?  If it is a bad idea, why would it be so?  I mean, such a section in the Wiki could have a disclaimer stating that it is a requirement for readers to understand the installation process, and not blindly follow what's listed.  Of course, links back to the Wiki articles describing how to perform each task should be all over these "recipes," I don't think these are a substitute for understanding the installation guide.

lahwaacz

Wiki Admin

From: Czech Republic

Registered: 2012-05-29

Posts: 749

Re: Wiki article idea: Installation Recipes

I have no idea what you're trying to propose, because you're "not suggesting a format for such things" so it could really be anything at this point. You need to be specific and discuss on the wiki itself, e.g. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/ArchWiki_talk:Requests, if you want to apply your idea there.

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: London

Registered: 2014-02-20

Posts: 7,769

Website

Re: Wiki article idea: Installation Recipes

Write the articles on your user page first so they'll still be available even if the wiki folks don't want them on the main site.

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ectospasm

Member

Registered: 2015-08-28

Posts: 273

Re: Wiki article idea: Installation Recipes

I have no idea what you're trying to propose, because you're "not suggesting a format for such things" so it could really be anything at this point. You need to be specific and discuss on the wiki itself, e.g. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/ArchWiki_talk:Requests, if you want to apply your idea there.

Yep, TIL there's a section for this on the wiki itself.  I can flesh out some ideas in my post.

Write the articles on your user page first so they'll still be available even if the wiki folks don't want them on the main site.

This is not a bad idea, either.