Hi everyone, I'm new here having just bought an Efika MX Smartbook this past weekend. Coming from Arch Linux, I've grown used to having their incredible wiki. Whenever I have a question or a problem, I'm almost guaranteed to find the solution there. In researching the Efika before buying it and now since having it, I'm often finding it difficult to find the info I need. If it exists online, it's either buried somewhere in this forum (possibly in multiple threads, each of which may have multiple pages), or it's on someone's blog.

Is there any centralized, non-discussion-oriented resource for info on the Efika, like a community wiki? If not, and if Genesi/Power Developer don't have the time to maintain such a thing, I would be willing to host it myself (of course, I'd need help filling it in)

The kinds of things I'm thinking about are:
- current status of all the different distro ports (last update, kernel version used, status of graphics acceleration, etc)
- step-by-step guides (installing a different distro, updating uboot, etc)
- specific hardware topics (graphics, touchpad, etc)
- recommended software
- development (best compilation flags, etc)
- the kernel
- power management

Etc, etc, etc. I know that the information is out there but it's kind of spread out.

Oh, btw, I love the device so far :)

Hi Jakob, thank you for your interest and participation. Let us chat with the team and figure out the best way to get you involved.

Best regards,
R&B :)

Sounds good 8)

Of course, it's only worthwhile if others are interested. I realize it was a bit of a presumptuous first post! But I think it could be a useful resource for the community.

Hi,

From the perspective of a user with a background in other RTOS and environments, such a resource would be great even if my contributions would be limited.

I will follow this with interest...

Cheers, Matthew

I would be glad to help get this project started. I'm not exactly sure when a wiki will be put up but I do know that it will happen.

I should be able to fill in a fair amount of information once it comes up. feel free to email me (william.schaub at genesi-usa.com) with a list of things you found hard to find on the forums. that would give me a good starting point to work with.

I will fill in as much as I can the topics listed on the first post in this thread once I have a wiki I can work with.

We have our own internal wiki for development that I can tap into as well.

edit: removed ;)

As I said before, what I had in mind was something like the Arch Linux wiki, which is pretty comprehensive (check out the Table of Contents). Effectively, in the course of working with an Efika MX, pretty much *anything* you run into would be appropriate for such a wiki. So, a user could use it as a "one-stop-shop" for info to address any possible problem before asking about it on the forum.

Here's an example, just based on my own experiences in the first week I've owned a smartbook. I have zero prior experience with ARM devices.

When I received the device from TuxBrain, he couldn't remember if they updated it. How do I determine which Maverick image I have installed? Ok, so Maverick + Gnome is running pretty slowly and I want to look into other distros. From bits and pieces of info, I gather that some kernels will have graphics acceleration, some won't. Presumably, the official Maverick one has it. Bohdi sounds nice, but which version of the kernel does the latest image use? Does it have acceleration? What about Gentoo? I read a bit about hardfp and the performance gains it gives. I see that it's being worked on for Debian. How easily can the other distros take advantage of that work? Ok, so I decide on Debian, now, having never installed Linux on Arm from a disk image, how do I go about doing that? Do I have to worry about Uboot when I do this? Gnome was too slow, but what other desktop environments (or just window managers) have people had better success with? Etc etc.

Now, I know that all of this information is online in various places. I'm not claiming that I can't find it. And I'm fairly autodidactic and confident that I can go through this process on my own. But, having a centralized resource of this kind of information would make the whole thing a lot more streamlined for newcomers and experienced users alike (say you want to experiment with something new that others have documented in the wiki...). The forum contains a lot of information but it's embedded in discussion, and sometimes old threads will (dangerously) contain out-of-date info. Nevertheless it would remain an invaluable resource (the Arch forums are still very busy despite the great wiki).

Anyway, I can fill in some basic info for now and create some stub articles. But really, this would have to be a sustained community effort to work (I'll be contributing more myself as I continue to work with my device). So, happy...uh...Wiki-ing!

I think we will want to host our own wiki. but I can take a look at what you have and see if I can add to it. would be nice to move stuff to the genesi wiki when it comes up though.

Ah sorry I misunderstood you!!
Well, there's not much there yet so I can easily take it down now to just wait for yours. No problem at all (took 3 minutes to set up...will take less to take it down)!

I'd be happy to maintain the openSUSE page. Right now openSUSE ARM (and also x86) is undergoing big changes (glibc/loader/gcc just to name a few...), but end of next week hopefully it will be in better shape again.

I just asked and I got permission to set up a dokuwiki on my own server. I will post the URL here once it is up and running. I don't have access to our DNS so it will be under my own personal domain until either an official genesi DNS record points to it or it is moved to another server.

If you want to help me create the content on this new wiki that would be great. If you haven't destroyed what you have already it would make a good starting point.

Ok sounds good! Mine is still up, but the links have been removed from here. I made some stubs for the distros and a couple other pages just to figure out what would work. I'll be happy to move them over once yours is up.

Sorry for jumping the gun on this one :P
(apologies to non-native english speakers for that phrase, if you don't understand it)

I just got another email. I will be working with another genesi employee to set up the wiki.

So I will wait until I get a chance to talk to him before posting any URLs to anything.

Still the plan is to work with you or anyone else that is interested to help create useful wiki content.


Nothing to be sorry for BTW. nothing wrong with wanting to help the community. Having a wiki is a great idea.

I like to contribute to the wiki!

fine

As soon as I have something up it will be open for anyone to register. The ultimate goal would be to have something that integrates with your powerdeveloper account though. I'm looking into what software might best meet those goals.

Hi Jakob,

What you have ask to do is exactly why powerdeveloper is so successful. You have volunteered with a good idea and you are willing to participate in making it happen.

You are a PowerDeveloper!

We appreciate your interest and enthusiasm very much. Let's make this wiki happen!

And, thank you Roberto for also being ready to assist.

Best regards,
R&B :)