Some lovin' for the main page

[Solar]

Please excuse the flurry of minor updates and renames in the Wiki. I felt like giving the start page some lovin'.

If you feel like doing the same, my main goal was to reduce the number of pages that are not linked under their original title - either by removing unnecessary "link texts" (a link to Resources being named "Links", for example); or by renaming the page to something more appropriate. (There is some tendency towards pages being capitalized, e.g. Bare Bones, and I moved Diskless Booting and Boot Sequence to follow that tendency.)

Second thing was a general reorg. The "bare bones", for example, were split across two different sections ("Introduction" and "Resources").

I'd love to continue down that road, but running out of time (again)...

Edit: Finished the removing of "link texts" where unnecessary, at least. I hope you like it.

[Jezze]

I'd love to help with this too because I love organizing things. I'm just afraid someone will object. After all this is a forum with many strong oppinions.

[xenos]

Nice! It looks a lot more structured now.

Just one point: Is there any reason why "Main Page" links to "Expanded Main Page", which contains the actual main page content? Wouldn't it be more logical to just move this page to "Main Page"?

[Solar]

@ Jezze:

Wiki work is always welcome. If someone objects, he can revert and leave a comment on the discussion page. Moreover, the Wiki is about facts, not opinions - thus, it's less "hostile" than some of the forum discussions.

@ XenOS:

Mostly an artifact of the twin entry pages ("Expanded Main Page" and "Categorized Main Page"), and the fact that the main pages are specially protected against vandalism.

[Combuster]

The main page construction stems from the fact that there are several views of them, which can be chosen at the top. Some people still prefer the categorised "short" version as it has a much cleaner index of material and inherently lacks the need for updates whenever a new page is added. It's just not the default since people have a habit of being unable to search or read.

That said, both pages are in fact editable as the included templates are not edit-protected. They just happen to be that way after a bunch of incidents where people did not understand what those templates were meant to do. If you need an edit just ask and I'll lift the protection, but apart from cosmetic taste (sorry, too lazy to unlock specifically for an edit war) I haven't seen any real arguments for that.



@Solar: looking good.

[Solar]

Dragging this into this thread, as I am afraid the discussion page entry will get lost in the logs:

There's a page Fasm-TCC BareBones, which I feel is superfluous.

• The FASM source would be better placed alongside the NASM and GAS source in Bare Bones, if there is any demand for FASM source. Best way to prove demand is by taking the source, adapting it to ELF (instead of using the a.out kludge as it currently does), and tweaking it to resemble the NASM / GAS examples as closely as possible (to make comparison and syncing potential changes easier).
• The TinyC information would best be placed on a seperate page about that compiler. (There's nothing the C part of that "TCC bare bones" adds in information.) However, it looks like TinyC development has more or less stopped? The last release was 2009, right after they released the first version that supports x86_64... I would really like to have a lightweight yet fully functional C compiler, since GCC has gotten "heavier" with each release (GMP, MPFR, MPC, taking ages to compile...). But does TinyC actually fit the bill, or is it dead?

[cxzuk]

i get the digests of tcc and is still active. slow development though. more bug fixes than anything.

i believe it is hosted elsewhere and not at tinycc.org

is there a wiki page writing guideline?

while were on the subject of the wiki. i think people take the forum as first port of call.. is there something that can be changed to make the wiki more attractive or bring the forum and wiki closer together?

[Solar]

The Wiki is actually what you get if you type http://www.osdev.org, i.e. the entry point for everything OSDev. For quite some time, not the forum, but the "Recent Changes" page of the Wiki was my starting page. It's a pity that MediaWiki doesn't flaunt it as prominently as the previously-used PhpWiki did.

I might be biased, but to me it feels as if the introduction of the MediaWiki interface was the turning point, when activity on the Wiki took a sharp decline. (Then again, it was the time when I took a break from working on it, so there.)

That's not too bad, however, because I think the Wiki could do with some makeover before more content is added. The introductionary material is "fuzzy" (same things said different ways across several pages). Other parts of the Wiki suffer from the same effect. Adding more could just make it all break apart. But that's just me.

Some stuff is simply outdated beyond usability. Detecting Colour and Monochrome Monitors? Seriously?

No, there isn't a guideline (AFAIK). Wiki means, just pick something and do it. Do it well, so others may benefit.

[Combuster]

is there a wiki page writing guideline?

There's the manual of style for the technical conventions. Other than that, add whatever you feel is missing.

I think people take the forum as first port of call.

I think it's less of a problem as the people who do are usually also the ones that are better off not writing an OS in the first place. Call it a symptom of a larger problem.

I might be biased, but to me it feels as if the introduction of the MediaWiki interface was the turning point, when activity on the Wiki took a sharp decline. (Then again, it was the time when I took a break from working on it, so there.)

From what I gathered, there was a big bunch of work based off the conversion mess, and shortly after there was a short booming of articles, USB, VGA Hardware, and ATA PIO Mode being the better examples. For now, I feel that most of the things have been said and there is little reason to append information to the wiki because there appears to be very little overlap in question subjects.

Some stuff is simply outdated beyond usability. Detecting Colour and Monochrome Monitors? Seriously?

Be careful, guyfawkes and rdos might still need it

[cxzuk]

relying via phone so can't quote easily..

what are the questions in peoples heads when they visit osdev? and is the path to that answer and the answer itself clear enough?

if passers by simply do not have the skills to build an os id prefer they could figure that out themselves by hitting a wall in the wiki?

i was going to suggest barebones or babysteps have a bigger role. As i personally feel it is the answer to what people first want.

step one should be beginners mistakes and requirements etc.. and i think all barebones code could be put together (select your language). but how far do you take this? one tutorial would describe one design, are there really that many variations?

this raises the question, what is the wiki for? copy and paste your own kernel?

[cxzuk]

that last sentence was a bit wrong.. it should say what should the wiki be teaching people? should it hold there hand so much they could copy and paste a kernel?

is it possible to link discussion on each page into the forum as a thread?

[Solar]

The discussion about extending the Bare Bones has been around before. At the far end, the boundaries between an "extended Bare Bones" and a "community OS project" begin to blur. Sometimes we even argue about whether to use GRUB to boot your kernel or to roll your own bootloader; now imagine what would happen if our Wiki material would "take visitors by the hand" even further, making decisions on text mode vs. graphics mode, BIOS vs. protected mode drivers, paging vs. no paging, 4kb vs. 4mb pages, et cetera et cetera ad infinitum...

Would you really want to cover that, in all combinations possible? I wouldn't.

I think the general structure of the Wiki is quite OK as it is: An introductionary section, addressing all the points that a beginner should consider before starting on this endeavour (but usually doesn't ). Some generic reference sections, about compilers, assemblers, linkers, formats etc.; and a section giving the kind of hands-on overview on some details, like MSRs, Virtual 8086, PS2 keyboard input etc.

It's all in there. I just feel it could need some polishing; and some more use as a link-and-forget solution for FAQ postings (instead of the hundredth iteration of "can I use Java instead of C" or something like that).

[CrypticalCode0]

I use the wiki as reference material, What i feel what is missing is a peek poke listing, and luckly the x86 design has killed the full potential of it.

But still there is some basic addresses a OS should peek in to 'detect' what is the underlaying hardware.
CPUID, PCI, BIOS, VGA.
I miss a list of peek safe addresses with information, and this doesn't even bother me, or halt me or my project since i currently am limited to custom hardware anyhow.

[cxzuk]

Id really like to understand the purpose of each article, and for them to flow together nicer.

e.g.
What is the role of the barebones tutorials.. what lessons are learnt? From what i can tell they show you implementation examples, i guess to make sure the theory is concrete in the users mind, but i cant find any meaningful link from theory/information to the barebones?

Is it possible to see any site stats for the wiki as it would be interesting to see where people visit and use the most?

[ACcurrent]

Maybe we should just have a page for beginners (not beginners' mistake) but one which introduces them to the x86 architecture very simply.