DSL Ideas and Suggestions :: Improving the mirror list and documentation.



Reference:heanet.ie's admin post on this forum

1) The download page is incomplete and many links are broken.
Originally, I wanted to write a Freshmeat-style php script,  one where you select the software you want to download first and then you are prompted with a selection of servers and locations.
That proved impossible. Some links are outdated, the directory structure on the mirror is not consistent (i.e.: "linux/damnsmall" or "distributions/damnsmall" or "linux/damnsmall" or "distro/DamnSmallLinux" or "packages/damnsmalllinux" or "pub/damnsmall" or "mirrors/damnsmalllinux.org", plus some other specific urls).
So I decided to put all these patterns into Google and, wow, I had 15,900 results but trimmed down that boils down to about 25 single root domains, and from there hundreds of sites that rsync regularly. It's unbelieveable how many university servers cache all DSL packages and most of them are in Europe!
So, what I'd suggest is not only to update the list (I could do that) but most important is to find a way to have a feedback from the mirrors admin and post an address to which they can inform the community of any changes on their sites.

2) The MYDSL index page is utterly broken. Some links point to ibliblio.org by default, even if the package is available on the same server.
Example: MYDSL on heanet.ie
Follow the links to, for example, Testing or UCI, and that will lead to ibiblio.org by default.
That could be easily fixed setting relative links in the html.

3) Incomplete documentation on DSL internals.
How many post do we get of people who ask the obvious? But that's because the documentation is scattered around (the forum itself, the wiki, the pdf docs). To a certain extent, that could be grouped altogether in one place,  a specific read-only directory, same as the /doc/ in debian.org, and ideally mirrored on all sites.

I think that the pdf docs are a problem when you browse from links, for example, and the wiki does not get updated too often.

Well, that's a lot of stuff for the moment. What do you think?
Wanna volunteer? Contact John.
I know I have my hands full with the code base and maintaining the four images of DSL proper, isolinux, syslinux, qemu, and vmx.
Beside my docs are too terse for most users.

But docs are like a catch-22. To write docs you need to know the system. To know the system you need docs. :D  

I don't want to critize what has been done in the past because DSL has been on such a fast track.
It has been difficult for the docs to keep up. I think the base architecture is now stablizing.
I do have plans for further refinements in the UCI specification but it will be backward compatible.

The very basics of all the installs available with DSL need documentation.

I am willing to help by editing docs for DSL's preferred intended use. In the past, some of the docs did not reflect the intended use.
I think there needs to be coordination of the one who writes the code the one who writes the docs.
Otherwise the docs may present too narrow a view. On the other hand the doc writer need to be able to present a view that new users can easily follow.

In the past, I have asked for volunteers to just grab "best of" posts in the forums using simple cut and paste. Many of these have been stamped "bookmark" but many have not. These could then be "edited" and start building the read only doc directory. I still think this would be helpful.

The web pages are currently under review.
Seems to me the place to start really working on documentation would be updating the wiki. Once the information is gelled in one place, it gets easier for new users to get adept enough to start writing howto's and faq topics.

Just a thought.
Anyway, I'm going to write an unofficial mirror page list, with as many servers I can find on Google and relative location. If anybody is already working on this, please post here.

EDIT: As per signature: A revised and experimental mirror list.
I have removed broken links and included some additional http and ftp mirrors I have found on Google and other ftp search engines.

original here.