Project:Handbook/Handbook Development
This page provides instructions to Gentoo handbook authors and editors who wish to understand the architectural design and implementation details for creating new handbooks, or extending the existing ones.
Handbook on the wiki
The Gentoo handbook has been moved to the Gentoo Wiki. This move allows:
- Developers to easily update the important parts of the Gentoo handbook (instead of relying on the documentation project developers)
- The further run-down of the GuideXML format used by Gentoo (and thus optimization of infrastructure resources)
- Consolidation of all documentation on a single platform (the Gentoo Wiki) which also ensures a common interface and writing style
- Simpler links to the handbook
The handbook is within its own namespace (namely Handbook:). Currently, only developers and trusted contributors have edit rights on this namespace.
Changelog
Although MediaWiki software records detailed change records for each page, due to the technical implementation of the handbooks, it is difficult to track changes across the handbooks as a whole (Handbook:Parts and the all the sub-arches). Due to this hassle, it has been determined that an official 'at a glance' changelog would be a positive addition for the Gentoo community to obtain better visibility to Handbook revisions.
This effort is loosely based on and inspired by Common Changelog, but has some distinctions since MediaWiki uses Wikitext for syntax as opposed to Markdown. Releases should follow the following format, as described upstream[1]. The Handbook Project will attempt to maintain a basic semantic versioning for most revisioning, however it will not be as strict as documentation managed with a version control system since revisions must be manually added by editing the changelog page.
Types of changes are to be grouped together. Groups include: Add, Refactor, Bump, Document, Fix, and Deprecate. Changes are to be prefixed with the scope for the change, which can be either "All" for all handbooks (transcluded from Handbook:Parts) or specific computer architectures (Handbook:Alpha, Handbook:AMD64, Handbook:HPPA, etc.). {{Anchor}} templates should be added to each of the grouped change type subsections for appropriate linking. This is demoed in the following example:
== Changelog ==
=== 1.0.0 - 2023-09-03 ===
==== {{Anchor|1.0.0_-_2023-09-03_Added}} Added ====
* '''All:''' Added a semantically versioned changelog loosely based on and inspired by [https://common-changelog.org/ Common Changelog]. Page is available under {{Link|Handbook:Main Page/Changelog}}.Architectural consolidation
In order to support the architectural consolidation of the handbook sections, we use the transclusion feature of MediaWiki. All resources that are common to all architectures are available as subpages of the Handbook:Parts pages. The architecture-specific handbooks include these subpages in their own location. For instance, Handbook:AMD64/Installation/About pulls in Handbook:Parts/Installation/About without any additional modifications.
When architecture-specific information is needed, it is first read in through the architecture-agnostic page. For instance, the Handbook:Parts/Installation/Media, which is included in the AMD64 handbook through Handbook:AMD64/Installation/Media, pulls in the hardware requirements block (Handbook:AMD64/Blocks/HWReqs). The following blocks need to be created for each and every architecture handbook:
- Blocks/HWReqs
- Used in the chapter on installation media and shows the hardware requirements for that platform
- Blocks/Booting
- Used in the chapter on installation media and shows the boot options as well as boot procedure of the installation media for that platform
- Blocks/Disks
- Used in the chapter on partitioning and informs the user how to partition the disks
- Blocks/ProfileChoice
- Used in the chapter on installing the base system and informs the user about the available Gentoo profiles
- Blocks/Kernel
- Used in the chapter on configuring the kernel, informing the user about how to configure the kernel for the given platform
- Blocks/Bootloader
- Used in the chapter on configuring the boot loader and informs the user about how to install and configure the boot loader for the given platform
Beyond these blocks, no architecture-specific information is (at the time of writing) necessary. This can be modified as more architecture-specific instructions and handbooks are being moved to the wiki though, so consider this a work-in-progress.
Architectural parameters
The general, architecture-agnostic pages can refer to some architecture-specific Semantic MediaWiki properties. Like was the case in the historical previous driven Handbooks, each main Handbook page (such as Handbook:AMD64) set properties that can be referenced within the Handbook.
The current set of properties are:
| Parameter | Property type | Example value(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| architecture | Text | amd64
|
The computer architecture supported by the handbook. Can be one of alpha, amd64, arm, arm64, hppa, ia64, mips, ppc, ppc64, sparc, or x86. |
| apple-partition-map | Boolean | Yes, True, No, False
|
A boolean value that defines if a Handbook supports an Apple Partition Map during the disk partitioning section. This is exclusive to the ppc and ppc64 architectures. |
| apple-partition-map-partition | Text | /dev/sda1
|
A device file automatically created by setting the Apple Partition Map as the partition table type for the architecture. This is exclusive to the ppc and ppc64 architectures. |
| apple-newworld-bootblock-partition | Text | /dev/sda2
|
A device file necessary for bootstrapping a New World type Power PC system. This is exclusive to the ppc and ppc64 architectures. |
| apple-swap-partition | Text | /dev/sda3
|
A device file used as the swap partition for the Apple PowerMac G5 system. This is exclusive to the ppc and ppc64 architectures. |
| apple-root-partition | Text | /dev/sda4
|
A device file used as the root partition (/) for the Apple PowerMac G5 system. This is exclusive to the ppc and ppc64 architectures. |
| efi-system-partition | Text | /dev/sda1
|
A device file used as the EFI System Partition (typically /efi). |
| efi-system-partition-uuid | Text | c12a7328-f81f-11d2-ba4b-00a0c93ec93b
|
The Discoverable Partition Specification used as the EFI System Partition identifier (typically /efi). |
| boot-partition | Text | /dev/sda2
|
A device file used as the boot partition (/boot/) for the architecture. |
| boot-partition-mount-point | Text | /boot
|
/boot is as the recommended mount point used for most computer architectures. |
| boot-partition-format | Text | xfs
|
The file system format used on the MBR DOS / legacy BIOS boot partition. |
| esp-mount-point | Text | /efi
|
Recommended mount point for the EFI System Partition. See UAPI Group Specification's Mount Points section of the Boot Loader Specification. |
| esp-mount-options | Text | umask=0077
|
Recommended default mount options for a more secure ESP mount point. |
| esp-format | Text | vfat
|
Required filesystem for the EFI System Partition. |
| root-partition | Text | /dev/sda4
|
A device file used as the root partition (/) for the architecture. |
| root-partition-mount-point | Text | /
|
The mount point of the root partition, as visible from the chrooted environment. |
| root-partition-live-env-mount-point | Text | /mnt/gentoo
|
The mount point of the root partition, as visible from the live environment. |
| root-partition-format | Text | xfs
|
The file system format used on the root partition. |
| root-partition-uuid | Text | 1aacdb3b-5444-4138-bd9e-e5c2239b2346
|
A Discoverable Partition Specification used as a root partition identifier (/) for an architecture; in this example HPPA. |
| root-partition-uuid-32-bit | Text | 44479540-f297-41b2-9af7-d131d5f0458a
|
A Discoverable Partition Specification used as a root partition identifier (/) for a 32-bit x86 architecture. |
| root-partition-uuid-32-bit-little-endian | Text | 37c58c8a-d913-4156-a25f-48b1b64e07f0
|
A Discoverable Partition Specification used as a root partition identifier (/) for the 32-bit MIPS LittleEndian (mipsel). |
| root-partition-uuid-64-bit | Text | 4f68bce3-e8cd-4db1-96e7-fbcaf984b709
|
A Discoverable Partition Specification used as a root partition identifier (/) for a the 64-bit AMD64 architecture. |
| root-partition-uuid-64-bit-big-endian | Text | 912ade1d-a839-4913-8964-a10eee08fbd2
|
A Discoverable Partition Specification used as a root partition identifier (/) for the 64-bit PowerPC BigEndian architecture. |
| root-partition-uuid-64-bit-little-endian | Text | c31c45e6-3f39-412e-80fb-4809c4980599
|
A Discoverable Partition Specification used as a root partition identifier (/) for the 64-bit PowerPC LittleEndian architecture. |
| swap-partition | Text | /dev/sda2
|
A device file used as the swap partition for the architecture. |
| swap-partition-uuid | Text | 0657fd6d-a4ab-43c4-84e5-0933c84b4f4f
|
The Discoverable Partition Specification used as the swap space partition identifier. |
| swap-partition-format | Text | swap | Linux swap may not ever change, but a property has been defined for it none-the-less. |
| stage3-tarball-file | Text | stage3-*.tar.xz
|
Filename of the stage3 tarball file. |
| cflags | Text | -march=native -O2 -pipe
|
Proper CFLAGS for the architecture. |
| kernel-version | Text | 6.1.38-gentoo
|
A currently stable Linux kernel version that includes the source suffix for the target architecture. |
| linux-kernel-short-version | Text | 6.1.38
|
A currently stable, shorter version number of the Linux kernel that excludes the source suffix for the target architecture. |
| kernel-sources | Text | gentoo-sources
|
The kernel sources package (without category) that is recommended for the target architecture. |
| supports-systemd | Boolean | Yes, True, No, False
|
true if the architecture supports systemd (support for OpenRC is presumed to be always true for Gentoo). |
| grub-platforms | Text | efi-64
|
See sys-boot/grub's USE_EXPAND values for a list of possible values. |
| grub-efi-file | Text | grubx64.efi
|
Possible options include: grubx64.efi.
|
| grub-install-target | Text | x86_64-efi
|
Possible options include: x86_64-efi, ...
|
| efibootmgr-efi-file | Text | bootx64.efi
|
Possible options include: bootx64.efi.
|
| default-efi-file | Text | bootx64.efi
|
Possible options include: bootx64.efi.
|
| deprecated-main-ebuild-repository-location | Text | /usr/portage
|
The directory location Portage previously used to hold the Gentoo ebuild repository. |
| main-ebuild-repository-location | Text | /var/db/repos/gentoo
|
The directory location Portage currently uses to hold the Gentoo ebuild repository. |
| portage-deprecated-distdir-location | Text | /usr/portage/distfiles
|
The directory location Portage previously used to hold downloaded distfiles. |
| portage-distdir-location | Text | /var/cache/distfiles
|
The directory location Portage currently uses to hold downloaded distfiles. |
| portage-deprecated-binpkg-location | Text | /usr/portage/packages
|
The directory location Portage previously used to hold binary packages. |
| portage-binpkg-location | Text | /usr/portage/packages
|
The directory location Portage currently uses to hold binary packages. |
| portage-deprecated-profile | Text | 13.0
|
A deprecated Portage profile version number. |
| portage-deprecated-profile | Text | 17.1
|
The currently stable Portage profile version number. |
| portage-deprecated-profile | Text | 17.1
|
The currently unstable Portage profile version number. |
The properties should be defined something like the following in the main (base) page of each architecture's handbook:
{{#set: architecture=amd64
|efi-system-partition=/dev/sda1
|boot-partition=/dev/sda2
|swap-partition=/dev/sda3
|root-partition=/dev/sda4
|cflags=-march{{=}}native -O2 -pipe
|kernel-version=3.16.5-gentoo
|kernel-sources=gentoo-sources
|supports-systemd=true
|grub-platforms=efi-64
|grub-efi-file=grubx64.efi
|grub-install-target=x86_64-efi
}}
Inside the pages themselves, the the following template can be used via the {{Handbook Variable}} template to ask Semantic MediaWiki generate the contextually appropriate variable values:
This is the {{Handbook Variable|architecture}} architecture
This support is powered by the Semantic MediaWiki extension, however this extension must now be used through a template (in this case the {{Handbook Variable}} template). Direct SMW calls are not advised as they can not render properly on the page.
Adding new properties
New parameters can be added by creating a new Property for the appropriate type of data. In most cases this will likely be a text property, but could be a boolean value, URL, etc.
Each chapter in the handbook will refer to the table of contents (Handbook:Parts/TOC) which acts as a structure for readers to easily see where in the handbook they are currently positioned.
At the end of each chapter, a navigator (Handbook:Parts/Navigator) is added which takes two options: Prev= and Next= which are the links to the previous and next chapter. Before the navigator is sourced, the page title is set:
{{#set:Has Title=This Is The Page Title}}
{{Handbook:Parts/Navigator
|Next=Handbook:{{ROOTPAGENAME}}/Installation/Disks
|Prev=Handbook:{{ROOTPAGENAME}}/Installation/About
}}
Translation teams can copy the Handbook:Parts/Navigator/de content and include that content in the page itself, making sure that the Home= parameter to set the translated value of "Home".
New architecture requirements
New handbooks should only be made available when the newly supported architecture can be structured and installed in a fashion similar to the current handbooks. This means that the architecture:
- Must support installation through Gentoo official installation media (currently ISO files either burned to CD/DVDs or USB bootable disks).
- Use the autobuilds/ location on the distfile mirrors.
- Support manual and genkernel configuration of the kernel, and/or a distribution binary kernel such as sys-kernel/gentoo-kernel-bin.
- If only a customized binary kernel (such as a kernel with device tree support (CONFIG_OF) - which is necessary to support certain devices connected to ARM64-based Raspberry Pi boards - for example) is supported, then it must be explicitly noted.
Editing
Formatting guidelines
As much as possible, handbook edits and enhancements follow the wiki project's agreed upon formatting Guidelines. Extensions to these guidelines are called out in the following subsections.
Links
Targeting the Handbook namespace
All links which point to targets inside the Handbook: namespace should use the {{HandbookLink}} template. This is so that transcluded and translated pages can be linked properly.
Targeting any other namespace
Links that point outside the Handbook space, e.g to the Project: or Main: namespaces, can be safely converted to the {{Link}} template per wiki Guidelines.
Adding new topics
Handbook authors and editors should exhibit caution and discuss with other members of the team before adding new topics or features into the handbook. Ideally, all open handbook discussions will be closed out and current formatting standards met before attempting to add new features.
Principals to consider
As stated at the beginning of the handbook: "an effort to centralize essential documentation for initial Gentoo installation and basic system administration."
The Handbook has to track project work and Gentoo features from many areas of the Gentoo ecosystem before adding new topics and/or features. Many times changes in the Handbook are reactive or are make in conjunction with development efforts from other Gentoo projects.
Areas to watch include, but not limited to:
- Project:Base team: Profile and other system-wide changes which impact every Gentoo installation.
- Project:RelEng team: Changes to live images, stage files, crypo signatures.
- Project:Infrastructure team: Downloads, mirrors, retrieval methods, etc.
- Project:Portage team: New Portage features which would benefit new installations. Eg Cryptographically signed ebuilds, binhost/binpkg support.
- Project:Wiki team: Changes to templates, formatting guidelines, etc.
- Project:Website Websites team: Changes to www.g.o download links, news items, and other misc. items.
For example, some wish list items from the Gentoo community include handbook installation and configuration paths for
- Full disk encryption - One of the more popular requests, but would require yet another install path and additional caveats through the already complex Preparing the disks section.
- Full desktop environments - Aligning with official Gentoo project support of each (Project:GNOME, Project:KDE, etc.). Would add significant overhead to a very limited number of hands increase the number of projects (see areas to watch above) to formally monitor. Great support exists elsewhere on the wiki
- Accelerated graphics - Helpful for systems, but can be configured post-install and is a topic unnecessary for basic Gentoo system administration.
- Support for even MOAR bootloaders - Architecture specific, therefore must be put into blocks sections... is more than one bootloader really needed?
- Power management - Helpful for systems, but can be configured post-install and is a topic unnecessary for basic Gentoo system administration.
- Switching C implementations - No. Just no.
- Ricing beyond belief - Also no.
- Disk formatting and filesystems
- Disk formats and filesystems should be included in within the mainline Linux kernel. ZFS has intentionally left off, since it's not (yet) included within mainline.
Other handbooks
Several other handbooks efforts exist, and should be considered before adding new topics to the main handbook.
- Complete Handbook — extends and expands the wiki's coverage of several subjects related to Linux in general and the Gentoo Linux operating system in particular.
- Embedded Handbook — a collection of community maintained documents providing a consolidation of embedded and SoC knowledge for Gentoo.
- Security Handbook — valuable guidance on Gentoo Linux security and cybersecurity in general.
When possible, these handbooks should act like 'extensions' to the main handbook for certain topics.
Discussions
Requests made within discussions may be rejected, discussed further, or implemented. It is common to have requests which fall outside the goal of the handbook's state purpose, which can massively increase the scope of covered content. Generally speaking, these requests should be politely declined.
Always consider the handbook's thesis statement when deliberating the appropriate actions to take on a discussion: an effort to centralize essential documentation for initial Gentoo installation and basic system administration.
Talk pages with open discussions can be tracked using Semantic MediaWiki queries: view handbook pages with open discussions.
Closing discussions
When closing discussions use diff links to show the changes which were implemented as a result of the discussion. Be sure to set the {{Talk}} template's anonymous parameter to closed and pass the date parameter today's date in ISO 8601 format, per the wiki Guidelines.
Translating
The Gentoo handbook is marked ready for translations. However, through the use of transclusion and Semantic MediaWiki a few guidelines are in place.
Transclusion
When encountering a request for a transclusion, first make sure that the target page is already translated.
For instance, in Handbook:AMD64/Installation/About only a transclusion of Handbook:Parts/Installation/About is shown:
{{Handbook:Parts/Installation/About}}
In this case, first translate the transcluded page. This should result in a language-specific page (such as Handbook:Parts/Installation/About/en for the (trivial) English translation).
In the architecture-specific page, the transclusion then refers to the translated page:
{{Handbook:Parts/Installation/About/en}}
Noinclude tags
During translations, sometimes a dangling noinclude tag might show up. If that is the case, then this tag may not be part of the translation. Instead, make this an empty translation block.
This is a result of the combination of translations and transclusions.
The use of
<noinclude> was due to a misunderstanding though, and can be removed in future. Instead of transcluding the (translatable) pages, the English (master) language should be included as that one does not contain any translation related information.Titles
To support setting the title for a translated page, the {{Handbook:Templates/SetTitle}} code is added to all master pages. This code includes all necessary logic to set the title of a page.
All it needs is the title inside a Has short Title and Has Title definition. These can be added right before the navigator tag, like so:
{{#set:Has short Title=Über die Installation|Has Title=Über die Gentoo Linux-Installation}}
{{Handbook:Parts/Navigator/de|Prev=Handbook:{{ROOTPAGENAME}}/de|Next=Handbook:{{ROOTPAGENAME}}/Installation/Media/de}}
There is no need to include the DISPLAYTITLE directive inside the translation tags. If a warning is displayed about multiple DISPLAYTITLE entries, add the noerror option to the DISPLAYTITLE directive like so:
{{DISPLAYTITLE:This is the pagename|noerror}}
Overview
Note that Talk: pages may associated with every page of the handbook listed in the table below. Talk pages should be cleaned up and old discussions archived. For example stale discussions from Handbook Talk:AMD64/Installation/Stage have been moved to Handbook Talk:AMD64/Installation/Stage/Archive.
The following is an overview of the structure of a handbook (and could act as a simple ordered listing for translators to focus on).
Todo: Handbook development table
- Use {{subpages}} to find possible missing pages to add to the table.
- Create a policy or at least some guidance for length of time Handbook discussions should be discussed before closing or becoming stale.
Handbook pages
See also
- Open handbook discussions — the handbook developers landing page for monitoring open discussions.