On 2006.10.12 19:34, Maurice van der Pot wrote:
Hi,
I've noticed in the past that a lot of people come to irc with
problems
in some area (say networking) that are easy to solve just by first
asking a number of questions to identify the problem and then
providing
the solution.
I've always liked the way Microsoft put these troubleshooters in their
help files. While the content of Microsoft's troubleshooters probably
never really helped anyone, the format of a troubleshooter is in my
opinion one of the best ways to help people solve their own problems.
Now I've hacked up a program that can create a troubleshooter from
specifications of questions and problems and their dependencies, but
I'd
need to have some decent content to really make it useful for other
people.
I think having a couple of Gentoo-specific troubleshooters would be a
great resource for new users (not just new to Gentoo, but new to
Linux).
I have a couple of questions:
1) Does this sound like a good idea?
2) Does anyone feel like pouring his/her troubleshooting skills into
content for my program?
The program is still very immature (I skipped a lot of things that
weren't absolutely necessary for the program to show what it can do),
but that'll be fixed.
When given proper input, it generates HTML files that you can click
through and that will hopefully lead you to (a solution to) your
problem.
It has some sample content to show the format.
Maurice.
http://griffon26.kfk4ever.com/~griffon26/troubleshooter-0.0.2.tar.bz2
43f0042c802ad5ddcdf2a4db671c41c8 *troubleshooter-0.0.2.tar.bz2
--
Maurice van der Pot
Gentoo Linux Developer [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.gentoo.org
Creator of BiteMe! [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.kfk4ever.com
Maurice,
Yes and yes, in response to your first two questions. I would like to
discuss format and if a program is really required. As a frequent
poster on the forums, I've noticed the same things come up time and
time again. To make it easy for me to respond, I've posted some
NeddySeagoons Rough Guides there, which I refer to. See the links at
the bottom of this post.
Its always better to catch the problems before they arise, so I propose
the addition of some checking steps to the handbook to allow users to
confirm everything is OK before they proceed. Experts and overconfident
users can skip them of course.
I'll give some examples - its not an exhaustive list.
1. Run the mount (no parameters) command prior to fetching a stage
tarball. Its surprising how many users fetch a tarball and untar it
RAM, having not mounted anything.
2. ls /mnt/gentoo/etc/resolv.conf Users use the wrong file name or
don't copy it at all.
3. Check the tarball against /PRC/couping. Many IA32 users on <i686
fetch an i686 tarball and get illegal instruction errors.
4. grub.Cong - compare file names in /boot with those in grub.Cong
Prevents Error 15
Of course - checks during install are only precautions. Whenever man
makes a better mousetrap, mice get smarter. Errors will still occur
that need to be fixed after the event.
Regards,
Roy Bamford
(NeddySeagoon)
Resuming an Install
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-3049166.html#3049166
Chrooting
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-3385239.html#3385239
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-3516331.html#3516331
Hmm - I wrote it twice and didn't spot it.
Fix Networking
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-2990710.html#2990710
Xorg Modelines
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-3276263.html#3276263
Sneakernet
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-3276263.html#3276263
IDE Kernel Config
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-3492195.html#3492195
(Written for Intel Chipset < ICH6 but easy to expand)
I was thinking of trying to learn guide xml to offer some of the above
as handbook updates.
--
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