How can one contribute to docs.slackware.com ?
 

First off, the login page is not using HTTPS?

Anyway, how can one start making a page on the docs? I am not very familiar with the settings/UI and do not want to spend a lot of time figuring it out. I have read this https://docs.slackware.com/slackdocs:contributing but can't seem to find how I actually contribute something.

I see there is a lettering format under the HOWTOs, I want to basically title it "Encrypting root partition with LUKS" so that should go under E ?

Member response
 

Hi,

Welcome to LQ & Slackware.

Register as a new user

You did read; authoring tutorial
& Slackdocs Style guide.

Hope this helps.
Have fun & enjoy!
:hattip:

Really. Can't you just read the front page of the Wiki first? This thread is a waste. Taking it off the zero-reply list. Then read the introduction texts.
I will accept an article that's factually correct. Good luck.
So far you've only shown that perhaps you should first read and learn some more about Slackware and its inner workings as your priority?

This is the front page, https://docs.slackware.com/start and your link https://docs.slackware.com/slackdocs:styleguide is on the side of the guide. Not to mention I found the contributing guide through a google search and it did not mention those. It is not really easy to find. You have to understand not everyone has your level of expertise, I understand Slackware is a bit of a niche distro but I don't see how you can expect someone to devote every minute of their free time looking extensively at everything. Getting to understand and "play around" with Slackware already takes out hours of someone's time, then speculating every single aspect of the docs wiki is another. I don't know anyone personally who would be anywhere near close to what I am doing, the people who use Linux are already a small bunch, the people who use Slackware are even smaller, cut me some slack. I like the distro and want to contribute in some way, I may just post a guide here on LQ but I wanted to put it on the docs to ensure it maintains longevity and it makes the OS feel a bit more polished.

The guide that I want to make is basically a snippet/adaptation of the README_Crypt that points out some of its outdatedness (some of the stuff the README says no longer works anymore). I have figured out what you have to do and it works well enough to be replicated and I think is useful to other people. I know if someone else already made a guide like that I would have had LUKS encryption set up very quickly. Again...you can't expect me to learn the 100% inner workings of the system just to post a guide on doing a particular part. Linux is really useful and to get people to use it requires to make some tutorials/howtos. I set up my own VPN on linux because of a tutorial that was available, I understand the basics and as time goes I understand a bit more, if it were not for that tutorial I would have settled for some crappy proprietary VPN software server/client combo with GUIs on Windows and would understand even less about what I was doing.

Such as... ?

You must be a millennial. My youngest brother is one as well. 40 years of age and he thinks his generation is the smartest ever to walk the earth. I've given up telling him otherwise.

There are a few modifications that have to be made, a simple one is under "Encrypted root filesystem" where it says to make mkinitrd with the -smp kernel without accounting for whether or not the system is 32/64 bit (64bit systems dont require the -smp).

Another is also under "Encrypted root filesystem" where in the same mkinitrd it fails to mention the fact that you may have to add extra kernel modules in order the keyboard to work upon boot, that information (since I first used/tried Slack I found it on the docs) is found in beginner's guide on the docs where it says to run "/usr/share/mkinitrd/mkinitrd_command_generator.sh" to get the output of a mkinitrd comamnd with modules.

Another, in the same mkinitrd command, the -L argument has to be added or else you get a boot error about not being able to find "cryptroot" and the system hangs.

Another issue i also under "Encrypted root filesystem" where it says to set a root= entry in LILO, I believe doing that leads to either a dm_crypt error on boot or a "Can not mount /dev/mapper/cryptroot" type of error on boot, I can't remember which, but the solution I found from searching/reading other threads on here is to leave 'root=' empty.

Another is where it says to rename boot=/dev/mapper/cryptroot in LILO to the partition corressponding to /boot but I believe (I actually can't remember as I did not leave notes on paper or on LQ) that I just set boot=/dev/sda and that got it to work. I believe those are the only little issues.

Now from my understanding, the README_CRYPT is not supposed to be a comprehensive howto, it's just supposed to be a decent piece/chunk of some good info/insight and requires background knowledge. That is why I wanted to turn that into a step by step slackware doc howto and also because I want to add a section that goes step by step how to set up early-shh/dropbear so that the drive can be decrypted on boot without a keyboard.

The simple point is I want to give back, thought a guide/doc would be good. I know for sure I would never have gotten into linux if there weren't forums/ask this ask that websites or tutorials that simply let you copy/paste how to set something up. Initially I had no clue what I was doing but overtime I started to understand better, if that tutorial wasn't there in the first place I would never walked through the doorway though. I am sure when someone is looking for a good server OS Slackware gets mentioned, and if theyre looking to do disk encryption I know I can make a really simple guide, simpler than the ones I see for Debian and hopefully that gets some more people trying out the OS.

Okay so the account I made on the docs.slackware.com wiki got deleted, have a good day.

Member response
 

Hi,

In my first post to your thread I pointed to the necessary things. And you should read through the initial Start page.
Try not to be too defensive.
We are trying to help you.

By making statements of this sort you will not make many friends here on the forum. I for one am proud to be a Gnu/Slackware user and I do not like to hold a new users hand. The information is out there and you need to jump in and exhaustive research when doing anything right.

You have supporting data to show us? Open your eyes, we have literally a world community using Slackware. So your broad statement is just that you are painting with a broad brush and not really seeing the big picture therefore not providing any real information other than your opinion.

The place to post such is; Still the information should be through and valid. Again you must do your research because any information to be posted within that forum will be check thoroughly.

As PV posted in #5 give us some examples. I'm sure PV would accept any useful information.
Then how do you expect to contribute to the Slackware documentation project? Your interpretation of a document/README transferred to a presentable doc?
You had to do some reading to understand that tutorial. So why not spend some time reading the initial Slackware Documentation page? If you do a scan through most doc sites you will find side bars to aid you with getting information. Our doc site is simple and easy to read and walk through. Yes, your submissions will be vetted before posting. So I would be certain to thoroughly research data available to you so the doc to be submitted is valid.
Boasting here on the forum about your achievement will get you nothing and proves that you have the sense to at least research some but not thoroughly.

Please be aware that you have already made statements to two of the most important Slackware contributors, PV (volkerdi) Slackware maintainer and Eric (Alien Bob) a major Slackware contributor.

Gnu/Slackware is the best UNIX like OS available to us lowly proud users.

Stepping on toes will get you nothing!
Hope this helps.
Have fun & enjoy!
:hattip:

I am not being defensive, I thought of what to write to you to explain what I am trying to mean, the best way I can put it is the computer culture from the 90s is long gone. I am 23 years old and even in a technical college/uni there are far and few that I have met who are willing to dedicate their time tinkering with systems, even more so Linux. Outside of the techies the other people I meet don't know anything about computers and don't want to know. The ideology doesn't exist anymore and really there are going to be fewer and fewer, it is important to adapt and that you can not have the barrier of hours upon hours of time being spent as people (at least my age and younger) are not willing to do that anymore. Its a big shift and a good way to help adapt to the change is to make howtos, get people to use Slackware instead of ubuntu/debian and then as they eventually start to tinker with it they will see the benefits.
All is already known here it seems anyway, no resolution.

*giggles*

Man, it has always been like that.

How can one contribute to docs.slackware.com ?
 

I was a Debian user for some 10 years and switched to Slackware by simply reading the documentation and man pages. You should only really need to read the getting started page on the Slackware documentation project to get up and running. The disk encryption doc by Mr. Pat V. I used with Slackware 14.1 has largely gone unchanged (if at all) for 14.2 and I distinctly remember making it a one and done installation of 14.1 without much reading or difficulty at all.

I take offense to the whole speech about young people not wanting to learn or read because I like to think of myself as the exception to the stereotype of the typical millenial. laxware, you make millenials look bad and have no business working in information technology if you plan to keep that outlook.

I'll give @laxware credit for wanting to make other people's lives easier by documenting what he found.

He may decide that it's too big of a PITA for him to do so, but he at least tried.

I agree, but in order to write you must first learn to read.

So far, you have created THREE accounts on the Wiki. I enabled the first:

I deleted the second (it had a slightly different email address, lots of digits in there):
And then you created a third:
This third account is still there, but I have not enabled it (you already have one) and because first I want to learn from this thread what you are trying to accomplish here. The Wiki is a serious documentation project and not a blog. I don't accept articles from someone who thinks spending a few hours in Slackware is sufficient to be able to tell other people how things should be done.

Because it is a TXT document and not a MS Word file or PDF, you think that this README would or should not cover all expects of encrypting your computer? You're wrong there. I wrote that README_CRYPT, long ago, as the source of information for setting up your encrypted Slackware, along with the README-LVM. There should not be a need for more documentation since the user may have nothing at hand except the Slackware DVD he just received from the Slackware Store.

If you think you require background knowledge that is not in the README, and it is not basic Linux or Slackware knowledge you have not yet mastered... show us what's missing and it can be added to the README. That's still the primary place for accurate information.

If you have suggestions to fix the README text, show us textual diffs and don't end up in vague descriptions please. A write-up on early-ssh is not in the scope of that README and would be good material for a Wiki article.

Your writing is not up to scratch for Slackware docs.

Not sure why you are judging my character from posts I am making about an OS question. The truth is difficult to come to terms, still isn't going to stop from enjoying working with linux/operating systems. Millenials make other millenials look bad.

I have posted some examples earlier and am now playing around with using UUIDs in /etc/crypttab instead of /dev/sda (idk if it will work seems like it does on Ubuntu in the least) to solve the issue that encrypting swap partition has in that it formats itself every boot and shutdown (as it says on the readme). Using the UUIDs would be useful so the wrong partition wont get formatted if someone has a hotswap machine set up and removes a drive or something.

If I dedicate every free amount of time I have no doubt, but I did not want to spend a lot of time figuring out how to navigate the UI of the docs wiki simply because of time constraints. If I google search "Arch wiki contributing" I get this first link https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php...i:Contributing and off the bat I am informed of the etiquette, just like slackdocs. However, if I keep scrolling I am actually told how to start a new page under "Creating". That info is not existent on the slackdocs contributing page, moreso that it gives info about editing existing docs and not making your own, so I went on here to ask for some additional info and I get treated with a "Really. Can't you just read the front page of the Wiki first? This thread is a waste." because I did not spend 2-3 hours looking over the entire page. I respond and the blame is still on me, I am from the "outside" so to speak coming into your "bubble" so I know how it goes. We can all just try and be a bit realistic though.

I don't know what happened with the first account, I think I used an email I no longer had access to so I made a new one with a similar looking email I have, and then I could not log in in there anymore so I made another, I believe.

I have been using Slackware since 2014 (or earlier?)....this is a new LQ account I made, my old one had a bunch of posts asking how to set up web/mail/vsftpd servers under CentOS and when I switched to Slackware I did not even need any assistance except for a few things because the CentOS config files are very close to vanilla like Slackware (unlike Debian/Ubuntu). I forgot the password to that account though so I made a new one. This is also my first time ever setting up disk encryption and I was using the README_CRYPT file but I ran into a lot of errors where the solutions were fragmented on LQ and not in one central place.

That is basically what I want to do with the slackware doc I wish to make, as well as add a portion for being able to decrypt the drive on a headless machine. I have already successfully done it on my machine so it works. Another user helped me/did all of the work for that but it still fragmented in yet another LQ thread.

You can't base my writing skills off of a thread post, I write these quickly and then sometime make some edits to them. Why are you guys so rude here? This has turned into a whole thing just because I had a question because I could not figure out how to navigate the UI of the docs wiki. I guess now one of you will quote that portion and say if I can't figure it out myself I shouldn't be writing it. Come on.

I've reset the password for your first account and changed the email address it uses to the one you entered for the second and third account. You should soon have an email with the password.

Okay thank you, do you think for the time being I should post the doc to https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...ss-stories-23/ (as a member mentioned) see how the feedback goes and then think about writing it on a doc at a later time?

I think you should post a diff to the original Slackware README and the README you modified according to your adventures. That is what I would consider the most relevant information.
Then you can post a personal story on LQ if you want, and polish that so that its quality is worthy of the Wiki.

Member response
 

Hi,

I see no rudeness but direct statements. No personal attacks either. You seem to have thin skin. You might need to thicken up a bit. If you do write something related to the topic. Expect feedback! No hand holding, just direct comments. As to your navigation skills then you should learn to use doc page search.

Maybe you should look at https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...#faq_lqwelcome so you can compose a proper post/query.

You were rude to me when you quote my post to you but strike through your reply. That type of habit/etiquette will not make you many friends here.

Your reading or viewing doc page is on you. If you had read the page you would/should have found the proper methods. https://docs.slackware.com/start is an easy format and layout. You could have done a search on that page to get to something you may have over looked. You do know how to search? Search is just under the navigation set on the left bar.
Hope this helps.
Have fun & enjoy!
:hattip:

I just wanted to give some words of encouragement. Do not be discouraged. Your attempt / desire to contribute is a good one. Consider the feed back, and slight friction you are experiencing, encouraging.

Technical writing should be tightly focused. Your writing is rambling. I'm not being rude by telling you that. Before you were born I had been an English tutor at a west of Ireland university for years. Students expected me to critique their writing, not to give them a shoulder to cry on. Besides, you were exceptionally rude in your OP, by insulting those far older and more experienced than you. I really dislike that attitude among your age group.

When I write on here it is rambling but if I write a doc I will for sure change the writing style. Its the equivalent of having a casual conversation vs writing a company email. Thanks

Go ahead and do it then. Good luck.

All that information including the 'contributing' link you mention in your first post is available on the front page of the Wiki. You just need to look.

Yeah, weird. I scroll down the very first page (https://docs.slackware.com/start) and see (links removed via cut-and-paste)...
Odd, isn't it? A project that isn't Arch does things differently than Arch. I may read a lot faster than you do (if English isn't your native tongue, it could take you a lot longer to scan the page than it took me), but we're talking seconds to find that text.

Like I wrote, you may decide that it is a bigger PITA to contribute than you wish to experience. That's fine.

What to do is documented, even if you don't want to do what it tells you to do. I cannot tell you the best way to use your spare time; you're only going to live so long and every second you spend doing something you don't really want to do is a second that you're never going to get back.

general consensus and unification of site a place to go for docs?
 

moved to to a more relevant thread