We need an FAQ page
submitted by lammi87, 15:42, 18 Ιούλιος 2012
ΘΕΜΑ: other
ΚΑΤΑΣΤΑΣΗ: closed
ΠΡΟΤΕΡΑΙΟΤΗΤΑ: high
Περιγραφή:

I think we need an FAQ page. Currently it is not as easy as it should be for new users to get started with h-node. I thought a nice FAQ would improve the situation.

But what about our Help page? As it is, it doesn't help new users too much, I think. We should move all entries from our Help page to wiki and replace the Help page with an FAQ. By the way, I noticed that we have very similar entries both in the wiki and in the Help page: "Discover your hardware". The Help page's entry should be merged to the wiki anyway even without making an FAQ (why do we even have two of them? -> messy).

The new FAQ page would look something like this (PART 1):

(underlined text represents a link to other pages in or outside of h-node)

_______________________
home >> FAQ
_______________________

This is h-node's FAQ. Please, read this page first before making your first contribution. 
You can also find more specific information from our wiki.

Table of contents
* What is h-node all about? * How can I help h-node to become a better site? * How can I find out if I have hardware which needs to be inserted to h-node? * How can I add new hardware to h-node? * What should I include in the devise's description? * How can I edit the device's description? * Why I can't use just any GNU/Linux distribution to test my hardware for h-node? * I have a piece of hardware that cannot be easily included into any category. What should I do? * How can I suggest new features to be implemented? * I think I have found a bug. What now? * Is there a mailing list I can join?
What is h-node all about?
The h-node project aims to create and maintain a comprehencive hardware database in order to identify what devices work with fully free operating systems and which do not. This way, it is more easier to find compatible hardware for the free software community. The h-node.org website is structured like a wiki so that all users can modify it and insert new content. The h-node project is developed in collaboration and as an activity of the Free Software Foundation.
How can I help h-node to become a better site?
You can contribute in many ways. The best way is to check what kind of hardware you have, wether they can be found in the database or not and insert new hardware to the database and update existing entries. You can also suggest new features to be added to h-node and report bugs and other issues in our Issues page. You can participate in discussion on various subject in our Issues page and in our mailing list. New contributions of any kind are most appreciated.
How can I find out if I have hardware which needs to be inserted to h-node?
Go to our Search page and follow the provided instuctions. You will get a list of your hardware where you can easily see what hardware needs to be added to the database. Please remember that even if all of your hardware is already in the database you should still check if the existing information is up to date or if you can provide any additional details. Others can report only that hardware they have, so your entries are precious.
How can I add new hardware to h-node?
If the hardware list you got from our Search page shows that you have some hardware that needs to be added to the database, you can easily add them one at a time by clicking the insert link next to the device's name in the list. This will take you to a page where you can easily add that particular piece of hardware to the database. You can find links to instructions on that page about how to provide answers to each field given.
What should I include in the devise's description?
You should include as much information as possible. A good habit is always to include relevant output from lspci -vmmnn and lspci -nnk commands, or if your device is a USB device, output from lsusb -v. You should also describe how easy it was to set up the device and does it work out of the box or does it require additional fiddling to work. Good examples can be found here and here. (http://www.h-node.org/printers/view/en/665/Deskjet-1050-J410-series/1/1/undef/undef/undef/undef/undef/undef) (http://www.h-node.org/scanners/view/en/229/CanoScan-LiDE-110)
Μηνύματα:
lammi87:

PART 2

How can I edit the device's description?
The device's description sections supports many tags which help you to format the description to a clear and easy to read form. Complete tag list can be found here. A good habit is to use paragraph tags for paragraphs and code tags for sections of code or output from lspci or lsusb commands.
Why I can't use just any GNU/Linux distribution to test my hardware for h-node?
H-node's aim is to collect information about what hardware works with free software, so hardware must be tested with free software only. We ask you to test your hardware with a fully free GNU/Linux distrubution to make sure the data we get is accurate. You can find a list of fully free GNU/Linux distributions here. The list consists of distributions which are accepted as fully free (as in freedom) by the Free software Foundation. The easiest method to test one's hardware is to burn a live cd/dvd of a fully free GNU/Linux distribution and use that as an operating system in live mode when testing. This way you don't have to install a fully free distribution to see if your hardware is compatible or not.
I have a piece of hardware that cannot be easily included into any category. What should I do?
We try to get any kinf of hardware into the database which could be usefull to the free software community. We are still developing h-node and some categories are still missing. There are two things you can do to help. First you should report your hardware in this page where we gather all hardware which doesn't have a suitable category yet. Then you should ask us to make a new category for your device in our Issues page.
How can I suggest new features to be implemented?
H-node is constantly developing. If you feel there is some feature we should add or some thing we should do differently, just make a new issue in our Issues page.
I think I have found a bug. What now?
Every bug report is highly appreciated. Go to our Issues page and make a new issue. Describe the bug carefully so that we can reproduce it and fix it. You can also suggest a suitable fix for the bug yourself.
Is there a mailing list I can join?
We have a private mailing list here where everyone is welcome to join.

We could also improve our home page's Contribute section like this: (it mentions the new FAQ and has some other minor changes)

Contribute:
You can contribute by creating an account at h-node.org and editing its user-generated content. 
All your modifications will be saved in the history page of the device you are editing/adding. 
Each revision (the current one or the old ones) will be marked by the name of the user who created
it. You can also contribute by adding new hardware (link to Search page) to the 
database or suggesting new features that should be implemented and 
reporting bugs and other issues. Please, read our FAQ page first 
before contributing for the first time.

So, what do you think? I have most likely missed some usefull questions in the FAQ but it's quite good for a first version I think.

submitted by lammi87, 15:43, 18 Ιούλιος 2012
tonicucoz:

We are trying to move all the hel page inside the wiki (see http://www.h-node.org/wiki/page/en/Help), but the help inside the wiki is not complete. Would you like to finish it by creating the missing wiki pages (fro each language) copying the text from the help pages. It would be very useful and so we could change the help link at the top of the page (with the right link of the wiki help page).

If you could copy the faq to a wiki page then I could add a link to that wiki page somewhere (perhaps inside the right column or inside the home page). I would keep the wiki link inside the top menu

submitted by tonicucoz, 11:37, 20 Ιούλιος 2012
lammi87:

I created the FAQ here. Would it be best to include the FAQ link to the menu bar at the top next to Help?

I also started to tweak the help page in the wiki. All of the wiki syntax tags are in the wiki now except the following tags:

  • [notebook]
  • [wifi]
  • [videocard]

Are those usefull? When do we use them?

submitted by lammi87, 01:34, 23 Ιούλιος 2012
lammi87:
I checked the wiki's Help page. I think it is now almost complete. The only thing missing are those three tags abowe.
submitted by lammi87, 02:20, 23 Ιούλιος 2012
tonicucoz:

Ok thanks! Good work. I think we could delete those tags, they are not to much useful.

Ok, the faq link could be added inside the top menu

submitted by tonicucoz, 15:28, 23 Ιούλιος 2012
lammi87:
Ok, glad I can help.
submitted by lammi87, 13:02, 24 Ιούλιος 2012

Write below your motivation

h-node.org is a hardware database project. It runs the h-source PHP software, commit cdeda15, available under the GNU General Public (GPLv3) License.
JavaScript license information