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On Sun, 14 Dec 2014 10:02:36 -0500 Jeff Horelick wrote: |
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> > > In such cases I would recommend a Live USB (or CD/DVD) that has a |
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> > > graphical environment, so that the user can keep a modern web browser |
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> > > next to a terminal window, to ease installation. In that case the wiki |
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> > > is perfectly usable. |
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> > |
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> > No, this is not a solution, because on particular hardware live |
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> > media (live usb/cd/dvd/whatever) may fail with video or gui support. |
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> > |
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> > I had such problem this year, when I had to install Gentoo from |
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> > LiveCD without ability to use any other host for support (reading |
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> > howtos, googling and so on). I used SystemRescueCD because of ample |
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> > set of debug, admin and analysis tools I needed to configure |
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> > system properly, but GUI was just a failure due to lack of nvidia |
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> > drivers out of the box. Of course, I can easily fix such issues |
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> > when fresh system is installed, but while it was being installed I |
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> > had to use what is available from the live media. And elinks was a |
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> > great help back there. |
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> > |
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> > So it will be really nice to keep handbook copies outside of wiki |
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> > interface. Probably a reasonable compromise will be to keep |
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> > handbooks at the wiki, but to use some script to generate simpler |
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> > htmls for out of the wiki usage scope. |
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> > |
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> > Best regards, |
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> > Andrew Savchenko |
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> > |
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> |
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> |
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> I feel like we do not need to optimize for this case really. I feel that |
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> the odds of installing Gentoo where you have no GUI (via either the LiveDVD |
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> or SystemRescueCD), no smartphone to use to look at the wiki, no tablet to |
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> use to look at the wiki (I'm not sure about elsewhere, but here in the US, |
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> you can get a brand-new Android tablet for $40 USD at a physical store |
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> (less online) and in the UK you can find them under 50GBP), no spare |
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> computers to use to look at the wiki are extremely unlikely. |
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|
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This case was really simple: use of any electronic devices aside |
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from PC in question was prohibited due to company's security |
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policies. In fact this is quite common case when we're talking |
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about business setups and not private workstations. |
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|
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Also I'd like to note that smartphone is not solution for people |
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without perfect eyesight (e.g. me): reading too much text from small |
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screen is either painful (with small fonts) or inconvenient (with |
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large ones). |
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|
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Please note I'm not saying "do not put handbooks in wiki" — this |
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is really a good idea to have all docs in one place; I'm talking |
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about some backup solution for such cases, like simple generated |
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htmls. |
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|
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Best regards, |
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Andrew Savchenko |