Impossible to create wiki account without Arch?

jprestwo · 2022-02-09 22:21:49

I am trying to create a wiki account and running into issues with the captcha. I don't use Arch so I don't have pacman. My distro does happen to package it so I tried that, got my base32 string, but the creation pages still didn't like it. Following the help section I got on #archlinux-wiki and asked for help. I was pointed to pacman-static which was advertised as a pre-compiled pacman binary. This was not the case, and it appeared to be a just a build script for pacman which did not run.

I'm about at my limit on the time I'll spend creating a user account, but I figured I would come here and outline these problems. I don't see any other people experiencing this, so perhaps I'm unlucky or everyone uses Arch.

About the only suggestion I have is to use a linux command which is not specific to Arch. Something like:

echo "I am human" |base32

Or a date command, really anything that allow a linux user to create an account. I really see zero benefit to using pacman, but maybe I'm wrong and there is some added level of security (highly doubt it).

loqs · 2022-02-09 22:30:32

https://al.seblu.net/seblu/x86_64/pacman-static-6.0.1-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz

unpack the tar archive, pacman-static will be in usr/bin and hopefully produces the expected output.

Last edited by loqs (2022-02-09 22:31:30)

WorMzy · 2022-02-09 22:39:46

Why do you want to create an Arch Wiki account if you don't use Arch?

jprestwo · 2022-02-09 22:45:50

WorMzy wrote:

Why do you want to create an Arch Wiki account if you don't use Arch?

The Arch wiki is quite good, and for a lot of stuff its completely agnostic to the distro. I could be wrong but I'm guessing other non-Arch users also refer to it. And until now I've had no need to edit it.

In this specific case I need to add to a section of the IWD wiki. There have been at least 3-4 people posting here with issues related to IWD and it all comes down to how it was installed. wpa_supplicant not removed (or disabled), NetworkManager backend not set, systemd-networkd running in addition to IWD's internal network configuration, etc... None of this stuff is in the wiki.

jprestwo · 2022-02-09 22:47:33

loqs wrote:

https://al.seblu.net/seblu/x86_64/pacman-static-6.0.1-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
unpack the tar archive, pacman-static will be in usr/bin and hopefully produces the expected output.

Thank you. In the mean time co-worker suggested docker, which also got the right output.

Slithery · 2022-02-09 22:55:23

Why do you need to contribute to the wiki if you aren't using Arch?
It would be impossible for you to properly test any edits without an Arch install?

mpan · 2022-02-09 22:58:01

jprestwo:
Help is always valued and much of the information on Arch Wiki indeed works on other distributions. But even if people using other distros read it, its target audience is the Arch Linux community. So any information introduced in the wiki must work on Arch. So while I doubt anyone would oppose you editing articles merely on the basis of using another distro as your daily driver, be sure to always check if what you write is actually applicable to Arch. For example by using a virtual machine. Using one will also solve the trouble with captcha.

Last edited by mpan (2022-02-09 22:58:54)

jprestwo · 2022-02-09 23:17:48

mpan wrote:

jprestwo:
Help is always valued and much of the information on Arch Wiki indeed works on other distributions. But even if people using other distros read it, its target audience is the Arch Linux community. So any information introduced in the wiki must work on Arch. So while I doubt anyone would oppose you editing articles merely on the basis of using another distro as your daily driver, be sure to always check if what you write is actually applicable to Arch. For example by using a virtual machine. Using one will also solve the trouble with captcha.

Yes of course, something Arch specific would certainly need to be tested on Arch. For this specific edit I was going to write a short section about using incompatible software with IWD. This is not specific to any distro.

And I ended up getting the captcha with docker. With this post I really was questioning why the Arch specific captcha was used, which you've explained to me: Because you need to be on arch to edit the wiki. This is fine, I've accepted it

Slithery · 2022-02-09 23:27:03

Something worth noting is that before Arch switched to 'difficult' Captcha's for the forum and wiki it used to take hundreds of volunteer hours to deal with all of the spam.
Trading the occasional user that has difficulty signing up actually means hours of extra productive time for the people that help run Arch.
It's a no-brainer...

jprestwo · 2022-02-09 23:34:12

Slithery wrote:

Something worth noting is that before Arch switched to 'difficult' Captcha's for the forum and wiki it used to take hundreds of volunteer hours to deal with all of the spam.
Trading the occasional user that has difficulty signing up actually means hours of extra productive time for the people that help run Arch.
It's a no-brainer...

I agree, and if this works that is a great and simple solution. Why some other linux command wouldn't work though is not clear to me, but I really don't need an explanation. It has been made abundantly clear both here and on IRC that the wiki is meant to be edited by Arch users.

pietropecco · 2024-10-31 04:38:28

What is the output of: LC_ALL=C pacman -V|sed -r "s#[0-9]+#$(date -u +%m)#g"|base32|head -1

I've got the pacman game, so which is the answer?

seth · 2024-10-31 07:05:01

Probably "LFXXKJ3SMUQGCIDUOJXWY3AK"

kermit63 · 2024-10-31 07:30:16

I know this is an old thread, but since it's already been necro-bumped, I'm just curious if OP would've been able to register by booting into an arch-based ISO.

seth · 2024-10-31 07:36:52

" an arch-based ISO"
Depends on how much the arch-based pacman deviates from the original

jl2 · 2024-10-31 08:03:42

tip: It ends with a W, but only today.

https://g.co/kgs/bLfcxm3

Last edited by jl2 (2024-10-31 08:05:38)

kermit63 · 2024-10-31 08:23:32

It's been a while since I tried one (arch-based distro), but from what I can tell, they pretty much leave pacman untouched. Most of them (except for Manjaro) even uses arch's repo and only add a custom repo for some specialized software they created unique to their distro.

If I'm in OPs situation, I'll probably try EndeavourOS first. Might be easier than trying to build pacman in a non-arch distro. Even more convenient if OP uses GRUB, so can boot directly into the ISO without creating a USB installer.

@jl2 Today is relative, my day is about to end in a few hours.

seth · 2024-10-31 08:32:00

"As long as it's spooktober at Newton's house"

One can also easily find the relevant input on the internet (incuding this board) and if one cannot forge the answer out of that, one might maybe rather not edit the wiki.

kermit63 · 2024-10-31 09:11:34

Hmmm, wonder if crapChatGPT can give the correct answer.

EDIT: Nope.

Last edited by kermit63 (2024-10-31 09:12:08)

jl2 · 2024-10-31 09:40:33

duckduckgo's ai also can't do it, I wonder how it got the idea that it could be 64g65y for 5.2.2

Last edited by jl2 (2024-10-31 09:40:47)

kermit63 · 2024-10-31 10:03:26

In fairness to ChatGPT, it recognizes the command as something to do with pacman and broke down each component of the expression correctly.

It just refused to run the command claiming it is unable to do so. Probably something to do with security since hackers can probably exploit the feature if it's allowed to do so.

Awebb · 2024-10-31 10:29:43

It works from WSL on Windows, so I assume it'll work from Docker and from the Arch installer ISO in a VM. You could also hang out on /r/archlinux on reddit and ask people in help threads for the output of pacman -V. You know, so you can help them?

jl2 · 2024-10-31 10:46:23

You could also hang out on /r/archlinux on reddit and ask people in help threads for the output of pacman -V. You know, so you can help them?

That's better, but you could also do it on these forums ... nope I said nothing

Last edited by jl2 (2024-10-31 10:47:05)

Arch Linux

#1 2022-02-09 22:21:49

Impossible to create wiki account without Arch?

#2 2022-02-09 22:30:32

Re: Impossible to create wiki account without Arch?

#3 2022-02-09 22:39:46

Re: Impossible to create wiki account without Arch?

#4 2022-02-09 22:45:50

Re: Impossible to create wiki account without Arch?

#5 2022-02-09 22:47:33

Re: Impossible to create wiki account without Arch?

#6 2022-02-09 22:55:23

Re: Impossible to create wiki account without Arch?

#7 2022-02-09 22:58:01

Re: Impossible to create wiki account without Arch?

#8 2022-02-09 23:17:48

Re: Impossible to create wiki account without Arch?

#9 2022-02-09 23:27:03

Re: Impossible to create wiki account without Arch?

#10 2022-02-09 23:34:12

Re: Impossible to create wiki account without Arch?

#11 2024-10-31 04:38:28

Re: Impossible to create wiki account without Arch?

#12 2024-10-31 07:05:01

Re: Impossible to create wiki account without Arch?

#13 2024-10-31 07:30:16

Re: Impossible to create wiki account without Arch?

#14 2024-10-31 07:36:52

Re: Impossible to create wiki account without Arch?

#15 2024-10-31 08:03:42

Re: Impossible to create wiki account without Arch?

#16 2024-10-31 08:23:32

Re: Impossible to create wiki account without Arch?

#17 2024-10-31 08:32:00

Re: Impossible to create wiki account without Arch?

#18 2024-10-31 09:11:34

Re: Impossible to create wiki account without Arch?

#19 2024-10-31 09:40:33

Re: Impossible to create wiki account without Arch?

#20 2024-10-31 10:03:26

Re: Impossible to create wiki account without Arch?

#21 2024-10-31 10:29:43

Re: Impossible to create wiki account without Arch?

#22 2024-10-31 10:46:23

Re: Impossible to create wiki account without Arch?

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