Possible merging of OsFaqWiki and OSDevWiki

AndrewAPrice · Post by **AndrewAPrice** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 6:38 am

Is it possible for the http://www.osdev.org/osfaq2/ wiki to merge into the http://www.osdev.org/wiki/ wiki?

I know there probably isn't a simple way to do such a job, as there is likely to be duplicate articles in each, but I would like to see a central wiki that will grow into the Wikipedia of OSDeving

smiddy · Post by **smiddy** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 6:39 am

I was just checking all the links and yep, you've nailed something that I think needs some work, combine them or trash one of them in favor of the other, or something...

AndrewAPrice · Post by **AndrewAPrice** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 6:45 am

I wouldn't say trash one completly. I was thinking of copying OsFaqWiki's articles into OSDevWiki, but with a lot more structured layout, combining the two.

I would be happy to volunteer to help if it was needed

chase · Post by **chase** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 9:41 am

About the re-org:
I had the same thought but would like more peoples opinions. I think the FAQ has outgrown the FAQ layout that it's still in. I'd still like a FAQ page but with just frequently asked questions that had short answers with links to more complete stand-alone articles in categories.

About the choice of wiki software:
The FAQ runs phpwiki and the wiki at http://www.osdev.org/wiki/ runs mediawiki. I think mediawiki is more popular which means it will be more comfortable to most(new) people and I think it's better documented and supported. One of the things I really like about my mediawiki is that I've integrated the user accounts, if you belong to the wiki group on the forums you can edit any wiki page. There is no anonymous posting and I've never had a spam problem on the osdev wiki. If the general consensus is to merge the OS FAQ with the OSDev Wiki I've got an online syntax convertor at http://www.osdev.org/phpwiki2mediawiki.php

AndrewAPrice · Post by **AndrewAPrice** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 7:10 pm

I agree with you in using mediawiki. It will feel familiar for new users who are accustomed to Wikipedia.

Instead of copying the articles over in their entirety, I would suggest you restructure the Wiki layout, as I agree with you that the FAQ has outgrown its current layout.

bubach · Post by **bubach** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 2:09 am

I just wanted to say that I agree, but I think that some of the mods
from mega-tokyo feel diffrent?

chase · Post by **chase** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 10:02 am

bubach wrote:I just wanted to say that I agree, but I think that some of the mods
from mega-tokyo feel diffrent?

Which is why I'm waiting to really do anything, I want everyones feedback. I think Solar was the main wiki guy at the end there and he hasn't signed up here yet. A lot of people don't check their forums everyday so there will probably be several people having a WTF moment for the next week or so.

bubach · Post by **bubach** » Fri Oct 20, 2006 8:46 am

hehe, "WTF moment"...

Brendan · Post by **Brendan** » Sat Oct 21, 2006 11:50 pm

Hi,

I was looking at these. The wiki at http://www.osdev.org/wiki/ contains very little (if you assume the reader is someone who has enough basic knowledge to be able to write an OS in the first place, then the only really useful pages are the one on MBRs. the resources/links page and the OS projects page). The wiki at http://www.osdev.org/osfaq2/ has the opposite problem - so much information it's become a little hard to navigate.

I'd suggest starting a new wiki with a better structure, and then converting all of the old information (from both of the current wikis) to the new one.

I'd split everything 3 sections - "general theory", "80x86 hardware" (and possibly other architectures later), and "Other".

The general theory section would read like a text book, and contain subjects like:

Kernel Models (monolithic, micro-kernel, exo-kernel, etc)
Booting
Physical Memory Management
Virtual Memory Management
Scheduling
Inter-Process Communication
File Systems
Networking
GUIs
Font Engines
Unicode
Languages
Testing and Debugging
etc

The 80x86 hardware section would possibly begin with a block diagram of "generic" hardware showing the CPU/s, bus, RAM, PCI host controller, LPC bridge, etc. Then it'd have a page describing each major component and what it connects to or pages relating to it, possibly in the form of nested lists like:

CPU/s
- Real Mode
  Protected Mode
  Long Mode
  Sgmentation
  Paging
  Exceptions
  FPU/3dNow/MMX/SSE
  Local APIC
  CPU Identification
  SMP
  Multi-core
  Hyper-threading
System Bus
- Shared Bus
  NUMA
Memory
- Detection
  Caching
"North bridge"
- Memory Controller
  AGP/PCI Host Controller
  - Device Detection
    Video Cards
    Network Cards
    IDE/ATAPI Controllers
    SCSI Controllers
    USB Controllers
    Sound Cards
    Bus Mastering
    Messaging Signalled Iinterrupts
LPC Bridge
- ISA Device Detection
  PS/2 Keyboard & Mouse
  Floppy Controller
  Serial Ports
  Parallel Ports
  PIC Chips
  I/O APICs
  ISA DMA Controllers
  PIT Timer Chip
  RTC/CMOS
BIOS
- ACPI
  EFI

The "Other" section would contain anything that doesn't fit anywhere above. For example, a page on how to build a cross-compiler for GCC, a page on GRUB, some information about emulators, a comparison of assemblers, advice for beginners, etc.

Information should go in the appropriate place, and you shouldn't have a page that combines general theory and architecture specific information. For example, for "booting" you might have some generic information in the "general theory" section which applies to every possible architecture, while the "80x86 hardware" section might have another page for "booting" that deals with how the BIOS starts the OS on 80x86 computers (or maybe 2 pages - one for "legacy" and one for "EFI"). The page in the general theory section could have links to relevant pages in the 80x86 hardware section.

For schedulers, the general theory page would contain a general discussion of how it's done, a comparison of scheduler types, algorithms, etc. This page would mention you need some sort of timer interrupt if you want pre-emption (but wouldn't give any details about the timer hardware) and might mention that some architectures have hardware support for task switching (but wouldn't give details for that either). In the 80x86 hardware section you'd have pages about the local APIC timer, PIT and RTC/CMOS pages, and a "hardware task switching mechanism for 80x86 CPUs" page.

The idea is that you'd be able to add other architectures, so that all of the information in the general theory section still applies, and you'd just create new links in the general theory section to the new hardware specific pages. For example, if someone creates a "Sparc" section with a "How Sparc machines boot" page, then you'd add links to it from the "booting" page in the general theory section. This also reduces the amount of duplicated work - for example, the "80x86 booting" page and the "Sparc booting" page don't need to contain any of the general theory.

Cheers,

Brendan

Crazed123 · Post by **Crazed123** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 8:33 pm

Since I was using the MegaTokyo wiki here before it went down, when will we regain access?

Cheery · Post by **Cheery** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 11:09 pm

I'd prefer to add some tagging features to the osdev.org/wiki/ Keep the main page clean and add pages so that they archive properly for people to find what they want.

Ie. Each page having tagging like: (article,tutorial,booting) which you can search.

I've seen such things on trac before.

chase · Post by **chase** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 11:47 pm

Crazed123 wrote:Since I was using the MegaTokyo wiki here before it went down, when will we regain access?

It viewable again. I was upgrading the php version on the server and even though I had everything set the way the phpwiki docs (what little I could find) said to set everything I had to make changes that no other php app I run requires. Heck, I have to custom compile php just to get phpwiki to run. The more I use phpwiki the less I like it.

So based on my opinion and everyones feed back we'll migrate over to mediawiki. In order to keep the OS FAQ phpwiki from changing during the migration or being spammed I've locked the pages. I won't have any serious time to work on the migration for at least a week so you have a little bit more time to make suggestions.

chase · Post by **chase** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 11:45 pm

Cheery wrote:I'd prefer to add some tagging features to the osdev.org/wiki/ Keep the main page clean and add pages so that they archive properly for people to find what they want. Ie. Each page having tagging like: (article,tutorial,booting) which you can search.

I've seen such things on trac before.

I've spend the last hour learning all I can about how mediawiki handles namespaces and categories and all that fun stuff. I'm really liking mediawiki the more I learn it. Sometime towards the end of next week I'll start making an organizational stub based on the feedback here and the content of the OSFAQ. I'll also try to make sure a decent set of wiki help pages get created so others don't have to go looking for instructions on how mediawiki works.

Mr.Confuzed · Post by **Mr.Confuzed** » Fri Nov 24, 2006 11:17 pm

I agree with the merger, though I just signed up. I was browsing through osdev.org/wiki and was sort of surprised to find it so empty. That is why I ended up registering here, actually. I just glanced at the faq wiki and it seems to have some good content, but the mediawiki seems to be a better system. It looks better to me, anyway.

chase · Post by **chase** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 12:33 am

Almost none of the links work because I haven't actually started moving content, I want to plan it out and get the wiki pretty well considering the amount of information that needs to be sorted.

http://www.osdev.org/wiki/index.php/User:Chase/temp

Too high level? Not high enough? Too much stuff of a front page? The layout should be.... It's just right?

OSDev.org

Possible merging of OsFaqWiki and OSDevWiki

Possible merging of OsFaqWiki and OSDevWiki

Opinions of this layout for the new front page?