On 08/01/13 23:35, Lukasz Dobrogowski wrote:
> Hello,
>
> 2 days ago on #tails we had a fellow who was quite confused in regard to
> available boot options in Tails. Especially considering the contrast in
> documentation between the screenshot showing multiple options (see
> https://tails.boum.org/doc/first_steps/startup_options/index.en.html )
> and only one being described - "bridge".
I agree that this phrasing was weird since the `bridge` option was the
only option in the "list". So I added another one, the `truecrypt`
option which was already listed in the TrueCrypt page but not in that
list. I hope that'll make that list look less funky. See 6080819..c4321af.
Another common boot option is `toram`. But I didn't put it in the list
because once I've been told it was not officially supported, for example
it's not testing during the release process. Maybe that could change.
> So, I thought that it could be useful to add a reference to the source,
> i.e. Debian live documentation, as in
> https://github.com/zaroth/tails-server/commit/4f5d463fee6c411edbcdcf6f03c4cb4ba7548bc6
>
> However, intrigeri pointed out that " most of these other options are
> *not* supported by us, but still, sometimes we e.g. refer to x-driver or
> x-resolution or similar", so it's probably worth mentioning, too.
>
> It would be great if somebody taking care of Tails documentation took a
> look at this change and commented on it.
Well, some of those options come from Debian live, that's right. But I'm
pretty sure that playing with some of them might not be a good idea in
the context of Tails or would just not work. That might be right for
most of them actually. And regarding other options that are mentioned
sometimes like `x-driver` or `x-resolution` they are not Debian live
options but Linux kernel options. And they are tons of them.
All-in-all I think that linking to external lists of boot options might
only be helpful for very few people: people who would be able to
identify which option is good for them amongst huge lists and have some
idea about their implication in the context of Tails. I bet that those
people can also find which option to use by themselves. Furthermore, we
shouldn't add to the documentation links that would not be useful for
most of the people who are reading it.
A better solution for me would be to come up with a small list of common
options that make sense and are quite common in the context of Tails.
Those would be worth being added and documented.
I also think that options that are usually used to solve a problem, like
hardware compatibility issues, should be explain in a dedicated
explanation to solve this problem (like the "Known issues" page or a
bug), and that this list should only include options that are not used
to solve such problems.
So, what's left? Shall we add `toram` or anything else?
