I was wondering if you know of any relatively easy methods for converting the TWiki stuff to, say, MediWiki? I realize it would probably create a mess, but it might also be better that starting from scratch… and I hope I could also get the users’ help to clean up the pages.

Thanks, and best wishes for yoru migration!

~John

As I said in my post to cooker, the look-n-feel can come later… it’s the structure and content I’m more concerned with.

Links skin MediaWiki MDV: http://thelinux.free.fr/pub/Distributions_Linux/Mandrivalinux/mdv1.0.tar.gz

At least you know now that people somewhere are reading your blog.

If you’ll note, until distrowatch made a big deal of it, the comments were largely about ATI and commercial drivers. Which is a reasonable conversation to have. In no way was I implying Mandriva “sucked” or Linux “sucked”.

People, however, make up their own minds and probably started seeing red quite early on and maybe didn’t even bother to read the whole entry before jumping all over it.

If nothing else, the response made me figure out the 3d desktop stuff… which is now noted in a new post today. So that’s good. The bad thing is how people are completely blowing this out of proportion to what it was meant for.

I mean, for crying out loud, if you can’t vent on your own blog without people tearing your throat apart, where can you vent?

And, honestly, for the most part… Linux on the desktop is fine (for me). I can’t say that my dad will be using it on the desktop anytime soon, but it works well enough for me (it has to, it’s part of the job). It serves it’s function… I don’t need the eye candy, but I want to be able to try it out just as easily as the next guy. And the less geeky than me would probably appreciate the eye candy more than me (hell, I use OS X and live in the terminal more often than not!).

But I’m concerned that your previous post (Sept 25th) has the potential of doing more damage than good. Building a better Wiki is a great objective, but it will do little to Mandriva’s “public image” if even its employees don’t value their own product. As you said yourself, it reflects poorly on us (I consider myself as one of the “us” as I support the Mandriva community and its efforts, too)… at least in the short-term.

Even though you were commenting on the Linux desktop in general, because Mandriva was the distro. in the spotlight, it seems as though the community mis-understood (as I have) that it was directed at Mandriva itself.

There are things about the Linux desktop that can certainly improve. I guess I just would have handled it differently (might not be better, just different).

Anyway, once again, my apologies for mis-understanding your intentions and sorry for “busting your chops”.

Best of luck with the new Wiki and I hope future work by the dev. team can make Linux a pleasant desktop environment for you (there’s always hope).

I was discussing the availability of good documentation and information.

I’m also not saying that a poor wiki is going to make Mandriva “close it’s doors”. I’m not sure where you got that idea from.

And, FWIW, I love Mandriva. Out of all desktop Linux distros out there, it is the best, bar none. I don’t just say that a) because I’m an employee and b) to cover my ass… =) It’s absolutely true. I’ve tried many Linux distros over the last few years, and Mandriva still comes out on top.

However, my issue is that we’re not very well organized in terms of documentation and that is something I’m trying to correct (I can’t “fix” the desktop Linux thing… I’m not a developer so I leave that to brighter people than me… and since the “desktop Linux thing” is not just Mandriva but *all* Linux distros, it’s not something that Mandriva in and of itself can simply “fix”).

Yet having one of their own employees announce to the world that he doesn’t and wouldn’t use the product he helps develop _does not_ reflect poorly on Mandriva some how? LOL!

If Mandriva ever closed its doors, I’m sure it wouldn’t be because of a poorly designed Wiki page. More likely it would be from internal sabotage.