Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2015 April 15

= April 15 =

Understanding booting sequence
Is it power on > reset vector > BIOS/UEFI > POST > MBR/GPT > OS? Where does the microchip fit here? Is any step missing here?--Nowsome (talk) 00:57, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
 * What microchip? Do you mean the CPU/SOC? Nil Einne (talk) 09:02, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Exactly... for which microchip? This type of question would be best answered by consulting your CPU's programmer reference manual.  For example, consider Intel Atom (one of Intel's simplest modern x86-style processors): the Boot Requirements App Note for Atom E6xx CPUs is quite a bit longer and details many steps the OP forgot about.  If you only concern yourself with Intel systems you can get programmer reference manuals for nearly all of their product lines from http://ark.intel.com (the Intel documentation archive).  Nimur (talk) 09:21, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Tipa, Sharelatex
I'm currently writing a thesis on Sharelatex using the Harvard template, which has a harvard-thesis.cls file, a separate thesis.tex file which contains the skeleton of the thesis, and a folder that contains the chapters separately. So far, everytime I've had to include a new package for my purposes, I've always used \RequirePackage{packagename} in the harvard-thesis.cls file (I still can't figure out when to use \usepackage in the thesis.tex instead, so I just stick to \RequirePackage in the class file). I want to use the tipa package for writing IPA characters in the thesis, while using a font of my choice (Times New Roman or Georgia) for the rest fo my text. I've tried everything I could, but I can't seem to figure out the correct way to do so. I keep getting package errors, linebreak errors, and I included/deleted so many packages that now my file refuses to even compile properly. I need help. Does anyone here know how to include the tipa package alongside another font for the rest of the document? Thanks in advance. 124.123.160.189 (talk) 10:41, 15 April 2015 (UTC)


 * A few points - you might like to try Github or some other means of version control when working on something like a LaTeX thesis - even with good skill, it's just too easy to break things, and debugging your .cls files is probably not a good way to spend your time, compared to the actual content of the thesis. (Though my WP:OR is that debugging LaTeX can be a welcome diversion from other research challenges :)
 * Secondly, it may be helpful to include the error messages when asking for help.
 * More helpful would be a Minimal_Working_Example- e.g. the skeleton .tex, the thesis.cls, and an attempt to use Tipa.
 * I'm not sure how to solve your problem, but I would first try to \usepackage{tipa} in the skeleton .tex, and make no changes to the .cls. Actually, I would have done \usepackage in the .tex for everything, but that's just the way I was taught and what I understand.
 * If you don't get this resolved here in a few days, I'd recommend asking the same question (with error reports and minimal examples) on tex.stackexchange - they have far more LaTeX-expert eyes-per-day on questions than we do. Here's a list of their questions tagged with 'tipa', you might also learn some useful things by scanning that. Finally, do you really need tipa? I'm not sure, but I think there would be alternate solutions, using a Unicode font for IPA characters and XeLaTeX/LuaLaTeX. Good luck! SemanticMantis (talk) 14:52, 15 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Oh, sorry, I forgot what ShareLaTeX actually was. This will be far easier if you have your own local TeX distribution - who knows what versions of what packages they have, and what the conflicts may be? It used to be a bit challenging to get a local install working properly, but it's pretty much one-click these days. I'd recommend getting MikTeX if you're using Windows or Linux, and TeXShop for OSX - I think that will work much better for you in the long run. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:57, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

OP here. (Hadn't logged in before posting that question. Also, why's this page suddenly semi-protected?) Thank you @SemanticMantis for those tips. I had tried getting a local install running on my Windows 7, but MikTeX gave me a lot of heartache and I gave up midway once I found ShareLaTeX. Also, it's easier to do collaborative work online, which means everyone else can see the updates without me having to notify them in person. Maybe I should try getting MikTex up and running though. I hear Sublime Text has very good LaTeX syntax highlighting and compiling features. La  Al qu im  is ta  19:02, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Oh, and, I finally figured out what was wrong with my document. I'd forgotten to close off the curly braces of a figure caption and the compiler couldn't figure out the error. Silly me. =P (Not that tipa is working. But I'll figure that out another day. Probably will work with Unicode fonts instead. Right now, the only way to get tipa to work is to use Times New Roman as my main font, but I hate Times New Roman.) La   Al qu im  is ta  19:04, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
 * ChkTex does LaTex lint style checks, but I'm not sure what state the project is in, or how rigorous it is. LongHairedFop (talk) 15:08, 16 April 2015 (UTC)