Core book - topic listing

[curaga]

Background:

I've had this idea of writing a book on Core, fully current for one release, with chapters describing the internals, some on projects to use Core for, some focusing on boot time etc. I was thinking both the pdf and ascii sources would be freely available online, dead tree version available at some cost.

My schedule is fairly full for this year, so it'll probably get started next year.

Initial section divide:

Part I - intro, basic use
Part II - advanced use
Part III - internals
Part IV - project topics (chapters on how to do a specific setup)

To the point. What would you like to see a chapter on?

Any topic that's currently under-documented? Anything that would need some in-depth description?


Also, if you'd like to write a chapter or a few, great! I'd especially like to hear of unique setups for the projects part, but anything is welcome.

Any comments welcome, about these parts or anything related.

[coreplayer2]

"Installing"  ??   would be a huge chapter..   

It's the most miss-understood aspect of tc I think

[coreplayer2]

But what makes this book any different from the wiki..? 

[curaga]

But what makes this book any different from the wiki..?

Some people prefer hardcover over electronic documentation

Then it's a bit different approach, bringing the reader up to speed gradually, while I see the wiki as more of a set of how-to resources.

[Lee]

Part I - intro, basic use
Part II - advanced use
Part III - internals
Part IV - project topics (chapters on how to do a specific setup)

I'm envisioning Part IV as a collection of use cases, supplied by users describing their own systems in some detail?  A general purpose desktop, a samba server, a web server, a portable boot device, etc etc etc.

If its not too far out of scope, I'd be interested in a PART V describing some of the remixes that are out there... not so much for the creators of such to tout their own distribution but to describe the "why" and the "how" of remastering.  Maybe enlist Svolli, JLS, Grandma and/or some others it they are willing?  And including personal, undistributed remasters, again assuming a willing author can be found.

Chapters or sections pertaining to very new hardware (missing drivers and such) and very old hardware (can't boot from USB, low memory and such) would probably be of interest.

[curaga]

Good ideas, thanks.

I'm not sure how much one could say about new hardware. It all differs, and occasionally there isn't a solution at all. Do you have something specific in mind?

[Lee]

I don't have anything specific in mind - was thinking more on the lines of how to get (or build) and install drivers.

I'm thinking back to when I first started using Tiny Core and the onboard nic in my Dell SC440 wasn't working.  I solved the issue by stuffing an older nic into it, but that's not an option with, for instance, a laptop.  A few releases later, my nic was recognized and working so I never had to actually -learn- anything. 

[cURIOUSgEORGE]

Hmmmm, very intersting........ . . .

Don't mind me, I'm thinking, and yeah, it hurts, but feels oh-so good, atm.

[aus9]

One benefit...of your book.....newbies trust Official documents while having reservations about unofficial dox like a wiki.

Some ideas....not suggesting I know how to do em

How to change your keyboard layout

How to change keyboard shortcuts for (some) windowmanager

How to change your mouse settings

also some posts on correct way to use APPS might be useful

http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,14258.msg80389.html#msg80389

http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,13342.msg73953.html#msg73953

[curaga]

Let there be progress. In fact, the start is still entirely in schedule, fully within the given time period of 2013

The start of the book is now in our git, and a pdf render is at http://tinycorelinux.net/~curaga/corebook.pdf

It has currently the huge amount of two chapters, but restarting discussion on this wouldn't hurt. Please post any typos or bad phrases. Any contributed chapters also welcomed.

[Lee]

Oh good.  I've grabbed the pdf, though I don't have time to read all of it ATM.

I suppose the number of potential chapters has increased a bit in the past few months.

[nick65go]

Hi, I will be interested to read about some list for tricks/settings of:
1. Using [tiny]core guest under qmenu; the host machine could be any linux distribution (archlinux, mint etc) with kvm drivers etc, but the guest (maybe) needs for some remastering for fast core I/O transfer (64/32 bits?, network, video, scsi, usb) using virtio (or plan9 ?). The beforhand downloaded tcz packages (+dep files) into some local storage /mnt/sdaX could be accessed (shared between host and guest) by qmenu buildin facilities like nbd (nfs), samba, tftp, vfat or plan9.
This will offer small/secure "sand box" to run linux apps, like firefox, without tor/onion protections etc.

2. Smallest core as x86[_64] host for qmenu, to run any OS like (dying) winXP, or testing any new/candidate linux/tinycore etc, even with other CPU arhitecture like arm (android?). This could open the doors for android mobile comunications ("viber" instant messenger, etc).

I am trying (with succes) my hand at all those, but unfortunate I have no time to contribute back to your docs.
Thanks.

[genec]

AsciiDoc!  Nice!  I've been working on a reflow/rewrite in AsciiDoc for another project.  The project lead was thinking it might be nice to generate the static HTML pages from the AsciiDoc-formatted text files maintained in the project's git repo.  I set up the Makefile so HTML, XHTML, manpage and text output (the XHTML piped through a TUI HTML browser like links) are all available but never considered PDF (yet).

[curaga]

Both PDF output methods are kind of PITA currently. A full latex setup takes gigs and is hard to setup, and the alternative, FOP, requires Java and some other arcane configuration. Took me almost a full day to get proper PDF output (whereas for manpages and html output it was just the time to install asciidoc ).

[Rich]

Hi curaga
Sections 4.8 and 4.9 refer to  .xinitrc. Should that be  .xsession?
From section 4.9:

This is the final part of the boot process. Just before starting up the
window manager, the .xinitrc script sources and executes every file
found in this directory (~/.X.d).

Unless it has changed since TC4.1, files in ~/.X.d are executed after the the window manager command is issued.