/help-house

Houses helpful concise information primarily about GNU/Linux, POSIX, and related topics.

Primary LanguageShellBSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" LicenseBSD-3-Clause

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Concise GNU/Linux/BSD markdown helpfiles.

General

Houses helpful concise information primarily about GNU/Linux, POSIX, and related topics arranged in a flat layout. The intent is for a set of concise and practical help files as a supplement to primary resources (ie man pages).

This shellscript in my scripts repo, is a basic example of how this repo could be used to augment a terminal based workflow.

I started this a while ago. It is fairly incomplete but we'll see if it grows, not making promises yet.

Guidelines and Structure

Topics

Each directory is about a particular topic. Each topic may or may not have an associated general category. The naming convention is: '<General Category>_<Specific Topic>' or simply '<Specific Topic>' if there is no associated category. Dashes ('-') are used instead of spaces. If a Specific Topic has an underscore in its name, it is replaced by a dash ('wpa_supplicant' -> 'wpa-supplicant').

As of now topics can be broad (such as 'networking') or narrow (such as 'wpa-supplicant'). It is generally encouraged to break large broad topics into smaller narrower topics where possible, but the ultimate goal is the best arrangement for practical use, and there may not be one-size fits all rules for this.

Content

Within each topic there are what HOW, WHAT, and WHERE Markdown files, in addition to any additional optional files or scripts.

The HOW (how.md)

  • The HOW lists commands or templates of how to use the tool(s)
  • This should be the most useful, detailed, and repeatedly used help file of the three
  • Think of it like a very practical manpage of examples for something you mostly know how to use
  • There is a special focus on obscure but highly useful commands
  • Generally the only plaintext is titles and subtitles that correspond to usage categories and units
  • Contains as much of the most useful functionality as possible
  • Eventually this should be made to be easily greppable

The WHAT (what.md)

  • The WHAT gives a concise rundown of what it's all about
  • Starts with a One Sentence overview of what it is
  • Gives a brief bit of Background
  • Anything else important about what it is
  • Should be mostly plain text with any commands/code bolded
  • Think executive summary

The WHERE (where.md)

  • The WHERE tells you where to get it and where to configure it
  • Contains Install and Configure sections if relevant that describe how best to do these
  • Should be mostly plain text with any commands/code bolded
  • Resources for further information can be linked here in a Sources section

Other Content

  • Each topic can have other files besides the required ones, such as images, scripts, and cheatsheets
  • Other content should be removed and subsumed by the required files as much as possible
  • Shell scripts, including example installation/configuration files may be included - use these at your own risk
  • Shell scripts try to be POSIX-compliant unless there is a reason for them not to be