PCLinuxOS Wiki Knowledgebase Resurrected!

Thanks to the hard work of some incredible folks, the PCLinuxOS Wiki Knowledgebase has been resurrected!

Due to an unfortunate ransomware attack in mid-June, 2023, the “old” knowledgebase went down for the count. At the same time, the magazine's website, PCLOS-Talk, the PCLinuxOS graphics site, and a few other sites PCLinuxOS users rely on also went down in the attack. You can read about it here.

In the months after the ransomware attack, The CrankyZombie (upon whose servers those sites were running) tried several times to resurrect the knowledgebase, albeit unsuccessfully … and through no fault of his. Many of the programs required to run some of the services had been updated since they were originally set up, and no longer ran on the server as they should.

The CrankyZombie, Meemaw and I worked tirelessly to restore the magazine's website over the course of about three or four days. We were aided by an assortment of PCLinuxOS forum members, who helped supply missing files for the restoration that none of us had retained. Even today, 15 months later, I'm still finding random files that are missing (and I “fix” the problems as I find them). In the end, the biggest thing that is irretrievably missing are some counter log files that log download numbers for the various versions of the magazine, as well as some page hits. If that's all we lost, then I definitely consider the restoration efforts to have been a success.

Until the successful restoration of the wiki, the only access PCLinuxOS users had to the information contained in it was accessible via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. They had a copy of the wiki that dated back to 2022, so most of the site was intact. Only the changes/updates/new stuff since then were missing. It was the most complete copy of the “old” wiki available.

On October 4, 2024, I was contacted via PM by PCLinuxOS forum member CoreLite. He asked me whether I thought that there was enough interest in seeing the wiki resurrected. Of course, my answer was “DEFINITELY!” I added that while my plate was full, rendering me unable to assist much in the effort, I encouraged him to proceed with his attempt.

CoreLite managed to grab copies of as many of the “old” wiki pages from the Wayback Machine as he could (before they were hacked), and then proceeded to re-code all the links on the multitude of pages, removing the Wayback Machine's redirection code.

To say that the new wiki has been warmly received would be a gross understatement. Finally, PCLinuxOS users once again have a central location/site to share information covering hundreds of topics.

The Wiki Could Use Your Help

CoreLite was able to recover what's estimated to be 90% of the old wiki.

With that in mind, there are “holes” in the knowledgebase to be filled. But that's the nature of a wiki. Things change and evolve continuously.

If you have an area of expertise, no matter how small you think it is, please register and contribute articles to the new wiki. Posting how-to's can help all PCLinuxOS users, old and new.

Wikis don't typically use standard HTML for its articles. If you're inclined to submit an article (or, even better, multiple articles) for the new wiki, you will want to take a look at the syntax of the wiki markup language. It's a simplified way of formatting text and other content. There is a guide to that wiki markup language on the PCLinuxOS Wiki, here. If you want to take a deeper dive into using the wiki markup language, there's a more comprehensive guide here.

The most important thing to remember is that this is YOUR wiki. It doesn't create itself. To be truly helpful and useful, PCLinuxOS users from all walks and expertise levels need to be involved in creating and editing the articles it contains. The more people who participate, the better and more complete the information is … and the more likely users will be able to find the information they are looking for.

PCLinuxOS users, unlike other Linux distros, frown on using the “RTFM” term that permeates other Linux distros. Having a good wiki provides the help users need to become productive, useful, helpful and satisfied users who will stay with PCLinuxOS for years to come.