Re: Contributing to FreeBSD
On Tue, Oct 1, 2013 at 1:55 AM, Pascal Schmid pas...@lechindianer.dewrote: On 09/30/2013 04:30 PM, karan garg wrote: On Mon, Sep 30, 2013 at 6:00 PM, Jerry je...@seibercom.net wrote: On Mon, 30 Sep 2013 17:16:54 +0530 karan garg articulated: Hi all, I am an open source enthusiast and new to freeBSD community. I am an RHCE and have a reasonable knowledge of linux administration, database, Bash Scripting, and C/C++. I want to contribute to the community. I have gone through the FreeBSD handbook, and list of various projects under the community. However, I was unable to determine a suitable project for me to get started. So, I would really appreciate if you could help me find a project that would require my field of knowledge. Also, I wish to apply for GSOC-2014 and have checked the ideas page but found the similar problems as above. Also, if you could give me a link of resources and handbook for me to go through before starting to contribute. Well, if you really want a suggestion, you could try updating the linux_base-f10-10_7 port that was released by Fedora on November 25, 2008 to something newer, say the Fedora 19, released July 2, 2013. Thanks Jerry, But as this is my first experience, can you give me some links to go through before I start? According to what I found, portsnap is one of the tools that will help me for this. Also, is this the correct mailing list to keep posting on for this purpose? -- Jerry ♔ Disclaimer: off-list followups get on-list replies or get ignored. Please do not ignore the Reply-To header. __ ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org Hi Karan, you should take a look at the FreeBSD porter's handbook http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/porters-handbook/ Thanks a lot! I will go through it at once. and I think questions@ is the general purpose mailing list for all things :) If your uncertain about some options in your first port I'm sure the friendly people over at ports@ will help you! Thanks! Greetings, Pascal ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org -- Regards :) Karan ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Contributing to FreeBSD
Hi all, I am an open source enthusiast and new to freeBSD community. I am an RHCE and have a reasonable knowledge of linux administration, database, Bash Scripting, and C/C++. I want to contribute to the community. I have gone through the FreeBSD handbook, and list of various projects under the community. However, I was unable to determine a suitable project for me to get started. So, I would really appreciate if you could help me find a project that would require my field of knowledge. Also, I wish to apply for GSOC-2014 and have checked the ideas page but found the similar problems as above. Also, if you could give me a link of resources and handbook for me to go through before starting to contribute. -- Regards :) Karan ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Contributing to FreeBSD
On Mon, Sep 30, 2013 at 1:46 PM, karan garg karangar...@gmail.com wrote: Hi all, I am an open source enthusiast and new to freeBSD community. I am an RHCE and have a reasonable knowledge of linux administration, database, Bash Scripting, and C/C++. I want to contribute to the community. I have gone through the FreeBSD handbook, and list of various projects under the community. However, I was unable to determine a suitable project for me to get started. So, I would really appreciate if you could help me find a project that would require my field of knowledge. I suppose that depends on your interests and your habilities. You can check the Ideas Page: https://wiki.freebsd.org/IdeasPage Ports need work too, so you can try to port something new that people want: https://wiki.freebsd.org/WantedPorts or adopt an orphaned port: http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=36243 Contributing documentation is always welcomed AFAIK. Cheers. Also, I wish to apply for GSOC-2014 and have checked the ideas page but found the similar problems as above. Also, if you could give me a link of resources and handbook for me to go through before starting to contribute. -- Regards :) Karan ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Contributing to FreeBSD
On Mon, 30 Sep 2013 17:16:54 +0530 karan garg articulated: Hi all, I am an open source enthusiast and new to freeBSD community. I am an RHCE and have a reasonable knowledge of linux administration, database, Bash Scripting, and C/C++. I want to contribute to the community. I have gone through the FreeBSD handbook, and list of various projects under the community. However, I was unable to determine a suitable project for me to get started. So, I would really appreciate if you could help me find a project that would require my field of knowledge. Also, I wish to apply for GSOC-2014 and have checked the ideas page but found the similar problems as above. Also, if you could give me a link of resources and handbook for me to go through before starting to contribute. Well, if you really want a suggestion, you could try updating the linux_base-f10-10_7 port that was released by Fedora on November 25, 2008 to something newer, say the Fedora 19, released July 2, 2013. -- Jerry ♔ Disclaimer: off-list followups get on-list replies or get ignored. Please do not ignore the Reply-To header. __ ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Contributing to FreeBSD
On Mon, Sep 30, 2013 at 6:00 PM, Jerry je...@seibercom.net wrote: On Mon, 30 Sep 2013 17:16:54 +0530 karan garg articulated: Hi all, I am an open source enthusiast and new to freeBSD community. I am an RHCE and have a reasonable knowledge of linux administration, database, Bash Scripting, and C/C++. I want to contribute to the community. I have gone through the FreeBSD handbook, and list of various projects under the community. However, I was unable to determine a suitable project for me to get started. So, I would really appreciate if you could help me find a project that would require my field of knowledge. Also, I wish to apply for GSOC-2014 and have checked the ideas page but found the similar problems as above. Also, if you could give me a link of resources and handbook for me to go through before starting to contribute. Well, if you really want a suggestion, you could try updating the linux_base-f10-10_7 port that was released by Fedora on November 25, 2008 to something newer, say the Fedora 19, released July 2, 2013. Thanks Jerry, But as this is my first experience, can you give me some links to go through before I start? According to what I found, portsnap is one of the tools that will help me for this. Also, is this the correct mailing list to keep posting on for this purpose? -- Jerry ♔ Disclaimer: off-list followups get on-list replies or get ignored. Please do not ignore the Reply-To header. __ ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org -- Regards :) Karan ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Contributing to FreeBSD
On 09/30/2013 04:30 PM, karan garg wrote: On Mon, Sep 30, 2013 at 6:00 PM, Jerry je...@seibercom.net wrote: On Mon, 30 Sep 2013 17:16:54 +0530 karan garg articulated: Hi all, I am an open source enthusiast and new to freeBSD community. I am an RHCE and have a reasonable knowledge of linux administration, database, Bash Scripting, and C/C++. I want to contribute to the community. I have gone through the FreeBSD handbook, and list of various projects under the community. However, I was unable to determine a suitable project for me to get started. So, I would really appreciate if you could help me find a project that would require my field of knowledge. Also, I wish to apply for GSOC-2014 and have checked the ideas page but found the similar problems as above. Also, if you could give me a link of resources and handbook for me to go through before starting to contribute. Well, if you really want a suggestion, you could try updating the linux_base-f10-10_7 port that was released by Fedora on November 25, 2008 to something newer, say the Fedora 19, released July 2, 2013. Thanks Jerry, But as this is my first experience, can you give me some links to go through before I start? According to what I found, portsnap is one of the tools that will help me for this. Also, is this the correct mailing list to keep posting on for this purpose? -- Jerry ♔ Disclaimer: off-list followups get on-list replies or get ignored. Please do not ignore the Reply-To header. __ ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org Hi Karan, you should take a look at the FreeBSD porter's handbook http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/porters-handbook/ and I think questions@ is the general purpose mailing list for all things :) If your uncertain about some options in your first port I'm sure the friendly people over at ports@ will help you! Greetings, Pascal ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: newbie documentation (was: Re: Contributing to FreeBSD documentation (was: Re: no ath0 on new system with good card))
I have another section to add to my previous post: At some point in your dealings, you may introduce a typo into a critical startup file, such as rc.conf, loader.conf, fstab, or similar, and reach the following upon reboot: Press enter for /bin/sh: To recover: 0. press enter 1. cd /etc 2. cat fstab (if you don't know the partitions disks to mount already) 3. mount /dev/adXs1Y /usr (gives you the edit command) (find X and Y in your fstab file) 4. mount /dev/adXs1Z / (gives you write acess to /etc) (find X and Z in your fstab) 5. edit blah ( i.e. rc.conf) to fix the typo 6. init 6 This has helped keep me from reaching for the install disk more than once, and it took a long time to figure out intuitively - think it might give the newbie's a 'leg-up' Steve On 1/17/07, Steve Franks [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 1/16/07, Giorgos Keramidas [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 2007-01-16 15:47, Steve Franks [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So, this is what I have so for. It was a bit late at night, so I appologise if my tone is a bit silly at times...where do we go from here? Steve [snip nicely written stuff about freezes during installation and first post install steps] Fantastic! This looks like something that would fit quite nicely with the section ``Installing FreeBSD Troubleshooting'', in the Handbook. Do you mind if I integrate this with the section? Does it look like the right place for you to write this stuff? Will you be able to review it and let me know if it looks ok? Sounds good to me. You can read the current Handbook section at: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/install-trouble.html Hmmm. Yes, I don't think the current page provides much actual help for newbies. Can we make sure to put links to all the appropriate man pages ( i.e. device.hints) in my text when we insert it? I've found the man online to be way more useful than I expected for people who are willing to read. We also could use some driver gurus to make my list of things to disable, and things to *not* disable both longer and correct - I admit I wrote that on my windows box, because my laptop bios disables the system (on purpose) when you put a non-compaq bsd-friendly network card in it. Go big brother. This is why I want to get the whole world to run *nix. /soapbox Regards, Giorgos It occurs to me that a new option on the boot menu of the .iso installer that opens a version of this page in links or equiv might be most useful for newbies (I'm at work, so I can't check if it's it being a help option there already). It might be useful to point to that doc if the .iso installer is started in safemode as well. Steve -- Steve Franks, KE7BTE Staff Engineer La Palma Devices, LLC http://www.lapalmadevices.com (520) 312-0089 -- Steve Franks, KE7BTE Staff Engineer La Palma Devices, LLC http://www.lapalmadevices.com (520) 312-0089 ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: newbie documentation (was: Re: Contributing to FreeBSD documentation (was: Re: no ath0 on new system with good card))
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Steve Franks wrote: I have another section to add to my previous post: At some point in your dealings, you may introduce a typo into a critical startup file, such as rc.conf, loader.conf, fstab, or similar, and reach the following upon reboot: Press enter for /bin/sh: To recover: While it's always nice when someone takes an interest in improving our documentation, what you have below is missing some key ingredients. 0. press enter 1. cd /etc 2. cat fstab (if you don't know the partitions disks to mount already) It's very possible that cat won't be in your path when you do this, so you might have to say /bin/cat. Similarly throughout the rest of your post. More importantly, it's crucial to run at least 'fsck -p' before trying to mount anything. If the only things you'll be mounting are in fstab already, that's all you have to type. If you need to mount something that isn't in fstab, you'll have to specify it by device, such as 'fsck -p /dev/ad2s1e'. If the prune isn't enough, then you will have to do 'fsck -y /dev/blah' for anything that didn't come up clean. 3. mount /dev/adXs1Y /usr (gives you the edit command) (find X and Y in your fstab file) 4. mount /dev/adXs1Z / (gives you write acess to /etc) (find X and Z in your fstab) First, if the slices you're mounting are in your fstab, you don't have to specify the device name, just 'mount /' is enough. Second, you should always mount the / partition read/write before you try to mount anything else. Assuming that all your slices came up clean after fsck, it is probably simpler to do 'mount -a' (or 'mount -a -t nonfs' if you have NFS mounts in your fstab without the noauto flag) than to type them all out by hand. 5. edit blah ( i.e. rc.conf) to fix the typo 6. init 6 You're much better off to just type 'exit' when you're done fixing stuff. That will take you out of the subshell, and back into the normal rc startup process. Hope this helps, Doug - -- This .signature sanitized for your protection -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (MingW32) iD8DBQFFtAOeyIakK9Wy8PsRAiiyAJ92/0/nYm7d952zEglKoDF0KOvcQQCfTS51 TwAQySkJy3SPd6vIZMNSXI8= =Ye1F -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Contributing to FreeBSD documentation (was: Re: no ath0 on new system with good card)
On 1/16/07, Giorgos Keramidas [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 2007-01-16 15:47, Steve Franks [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So, this is what I have so for. It was a bit late at night, so I appologise if my tone is a bit silly at times...where do we go from here? Steve [snip nicely written stuff about freezes during installation and first post install steps] Fantastic! This looks like something that would fit quite nicely with the section ``Installing FreeBSD Troubleshooting'', in the Handbook. Do you mind if I integrate this with the section? Does it look like the right place for you to write this stuff? Will you be able to review it and let me know if it looks ok? Sounds good to me. You can read the current Handbook section at: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/install-trouble.html Hmmm. Yes, I don't think the current page provides much actual help for newbies. Can we make sure to put links to all the appropriate man pages ( i.e. device.hints) in my text when we insert it? I've found the man online to be way more useful than I expected for people who are willing to read. We also could use some driver gurus to make my list of things to disable, and things to *not* disable both longer and correct - I admit I wrote that on my windows box, because my laptop bios disables the system (on purpose) when you put a non-compaq bsd-friendly network card in it. Go big brother. This is why I want to get the whole world to run *nix. /soapbox Regards, Giorgos It occurs to me that a new option on the boot menu of the .iso installer that opens a version of this page in links or equiv might be most useful for newbies (I'm at work, so I can't check if it's it being a help option there already). It might be useful to point to that doc if the .iso installer is started in safemode as well. Steve -- Steve Franks, KE7BTE Staff Engineer La Palma Devices, LLC http://www.lapalmadevices.com (520) 312-0089 ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Contributing to FreeBSD documentation (was: Re: no ath0 on new system with good card)
On 1/7/07, Giorgos Keramidas [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 2007-01-07 08:54, Steve Franks [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Apologies on not hitting the list. Alyays forget to reply-all. No problem. I just didn't copy the list because I wasn't sure I should. So, I figured I'd try to fix the safe-mode end of things on my own, and I found a post several years old (looked like it even could have been yours) about safemode, which doesn't show up anywhere on the freebsd site. So I did what it said and grep'd boot/beastie.4th for safemode, which came up with this suprisingly total solution: add apic.0.disabled=1 to boot/device.hints. Not only does my system come up in regular boot mode, but, as you suspected, the pccard works too, so all appears well. Excellent news! Thanks for sharing the answer :) So my final question, what in all the land is an apic, Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller. This is the part of your system which assigns priorities to interrupt lines of a device. The full details are probably too technical for some percentage of our user base, but more details can be found at the following pages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Programmable_Interrupt_Controller http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmable_Interrupt_Controller http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_8259 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_APIC_Architecture and why isn't apic or safemode mentioned in the handbook, manpages, or even on the freebsd site? IIRC it is mentioned in the Developer's Handbook, but you are right that it should be in the main Handbook too. Further, I'd like to write a handbook page on freebsd and laptops, because we're on my third one here now, and I'm starting to get the drift of what could usefully be added to the handbook, namely a thourough discussion of booting and device.hints. That would be great! If you can help writing such a section for the Handbook, a lot of users will be highly indebted to you, for sure :) I presume someone 'peer-reviews' handbook submissions for correctness and format? I recall reading somewhere about contributing, but I get the impression you are involved enough to tell me whether it's a bad idea or not. Yes, you are right. We have peer reviews. A lot of the documentation changes are filtered through the freebsd-doc mailing list, where documentation people hang out. Patches are mailed back and forth; edited; fixed for technical accuracy, syntax and grammar correctness; adapted to our writing style; expanded as necessary; and eventually committed to our documentation source code. You can definitely contribute as much as you feel, whenever you feel you have the time, and in any way you consider appropriate. We have a short article which describes how you can contribute to the FreeBSD Project, in general: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/contributing/ Most of it applies directly to documentation too. Please skim through this article; it should be a good start. About your last question now... Yes, it's a good idea. Not just a good idea, though. It's an *excellent* idea. One of the chicken and egg problems documentation writing usually has to face is that: * New users don't know enough about the system, so they frequently pose good questions. These questions would result in higher quality documentation if properly channeled through experienced documentation writers, but you have to convince the new users that they can actually *help* by not knowing it all. * Once new users step over the thin line between being newcomers to the system and being experienced in some area, we have lost all the insight they can provide about how a new user thinks. As a result, it's easier to write documentation if we are targetting a very experienced, very technical audience. But, IMHO, the contributions of new users -- in the form of interesting questions -- are at least as valuable, if not more :) Regards, Giorgos So, this is what I have so for. It was a bit late at night, so I appologise if my tone is a bit silly at times...where do we go from here? Steve So, you've burned the latest FreeBSD .iso file, pop it in your drive, anticipation rising, and *freeze*!! Hopes Dreams go tricking away...what next? Well, the first thing is to realize that alot of people have worked very hard in their spare time to get things to the point where they are. Unfortunately, new hardware is always one step ahead. All FreeBSD drivers are written by the users - not the paid engineers of the hardware companies, so some delay at times is inevitable - there are many exceptions, however! Just compare the sata raid support in FreeBSD to that in Windows XP. But back to moving forward: one of those new or imcompatible pieces of hardware (in most cases) has just frozen up your fresh install - what to do? First, restart the computer, and choose 3 - safe mode from the FreeBSD logo boot-menu. If your
Re: Contributing to FreeBSD documentation (was: Re: no ath0 on newsystem with good card)
Yes, and in today's world, it is likely to be some young sub-saharan african pup who can't just go down to the local retailer and drop $400 on a new system if his won't install... Steve On 1/8/07, Ted Mittelstaedt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: - Original Message - From: Giorgos Keramidas [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Steve Franks [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Sent: Sunday, January 07, 2007 8:25 AM Subject: Contributing to FreeBSD documentation (was: Re: no ath0 on newsystem with good card) On 2007-01-07 08:54, Steve Franks [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Apologies on not hitting the list. Alyays forget to reply-all. No problem. I just didn't copy the list because I wasn't sure I should. So, I figured I'd try to fix the safe-mode end of things on my own, and I found a post several years old (looked like it even could have been yours) about safemode, which doesn't show up anywhere on the freebsd site. So I did what it said and grep'd boot/beastie.4th for safemode, which came up with this suprisingly total solution: add apic.0.disabled=1 to boot/device.hints. Not only does my system come up in regular boot mode, but, as you suspected, the pccard works too, so all appears well. Excellent news! Thanks for sharing the answer :) So my final question, what in all the land is an apic, Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller. This is the part of your system which assigns priorities to interrupt lines of a device. The full details are probably too technical for some percentage of our user base, but more details can be found at the following pages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Programmable_Interrupt_Controller http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmable_Interrupt_Controller http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_8259 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_APIC_Architecture and why isn't apic or safemode mentioned in the handbook, manpages, or even on the freebsd site? IIRC it is mentioned in the Developer's Handbook, but you are right that it should be in the main Handbook too. Further, I'd like to write a handbook page on freebsd and laptops, because we're on my third one here now, and I'm starting to get the drift of what could usefully be added to the handbook, namely a thourough discussion of booting and device.hints. That would be great! If you can help writing such a section for the Handbook, a lot of users will be highly indebted to you, for sure :) I'll throw my $0.02 in here on this. Years ago on the CD distributions there was a file in the root of the distro labeled hints or some such. It was also on the website. It contained all the little workarounds for SPECIFIC pieces of hardware. I know as I wrote several entries for it. That apic problem was listed in there as were several others, I know some for laptops specifically. Sometime during the FreeBSD 4.X series one of the developers got a bug up their ass that somehow this was the wrong place for problems to be listed. Something along the lines of these problems aren't FreeBSD problems they are sucky hardware problems and it makes FreeBSD look bad to have the workarounds even listed at all, and we have the bug database and these icky ugly things really ought to go into the bug database. So this file disappeared. As did every other easily recognizable place for submitting hints. As did the specific e-mail address for hints to go to. These installation problems IMHO PROPERLY belong in the README for the distribution. That is the FIRST place that someone BRAND NEW to FreeBSD is going to look for them. No FreeBSD newbie who has oddball hardware that has bugs in it, is going to take the time spending hours reading the Handbook or searching the questions mailing list archives for tidbits, or querying the bug database for PR's for their gear. Any newbie to FreeBSD is going to do the same thing that they do to any other OS, they are going to stick the CD in their oddball hardware and boot it, and if it doesen't come up they will look at the README file that came with the ISO image they downloaded, and if the hardware-specific workarounds for their machine aren't there, they will discard the ISO cd and move on to some other Open Source OS. For all the huffing-and-puffing on peer-review for the Handbook, well that is fine for that. But an install hints file's very usefulness is junk if a committee is reviewing it. Hardware-specific install hints are, by their very nature, NOT guarenteed to work. They may even make things worse. All they are is user-developed workarounds that may or may not be The FreeBSD Way of doing things. The only thing that can be said about them is that at one time, one year, with one particular piece of gear, someone tried some off-the-wall thing and it worked. It might not ever work again in any future version of FreeBSD. There might be manufacture-specific BIOS updates that fix things. There might be a driver update in a later
Re: Contributing to FreeBSD documentation (was: Re: no ath0 on newsystem with good card)
- Original Message - From: Giorgos Keramidas [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Steve Franks [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Sent: Sunday, January 07, 2007 8:25 AM Subject: Contributing to FreeBSD documentation (was: Re: no ath0 on newsystem with good card) On 2007-01-07 08:54, Steve Franks [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Apologies on not hitting the list. Alyays forget to reply-all. No problem. I just didn't copy the list because I wasn't sure I should. So, I figured I'd try to fix the safe-mode end of things on my own, and I found a post several years old (looked like it even could have been yours) about safemode, which doesn't show up anywhere on the freebsd site. So I did what it said and grep'd boot/beastie.4th for safemode, which came up with this suprisingly total solution: add apic.0.disabled=1 to boot/device.hints. Not only does my system come up in regular boot mode, but, as you suspected, the pccard works too, so all appears well. Excellent news! Thanks for sharing the answer :) So my final question, what in all the land is an apic, Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller. This is the part of your system which assigns priorities to interrupt lines of a device. The full details are probably too technical for some percentage of our user base, but more details can be found at the following pages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Programmable_Interrupt_Controller http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmable_Interrupt_Controller http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_8259 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_APIC_Architecture and why isn't apic or safemode mentioned in the handbook, manpages, or even on the freebsd site? IIRC it is mentioned in the Developer's Handbook, but you are right that it should be in the main Handbook too. Further, I'd like to write a handbook page on freebsd and laptops, because we're on my third one here now, and I'm starting to get the drift of what could usefully be added to the handbook, namely a thourough discussion of booting and device.hints. That would be great! If you can help writing such a section for the Handbook, a lot of users will be highly indebted to you, for sure :) I'll throw my $0.02 in here on this. Years ago on the CD distributions there was a file in the root of the distro labeled hints or some such. It was also on the website. It contained all the little workarounds for SPECIFIC pieces of hardware. I know as I wrote several entries for it. That apic problem was listed in there as were several others, I know some for laptops specifically. Sometime during the FreeBSD 4.X series one of the developers got a bug up their ass that somehow this was the wrong place for problems to be listed. Something along the lines of these problems aren't FreeBSD problems they are sucky hardware problems and it makes FreeBSD look bad to have the workarounds even listed at all, and we have the bug database and these icky ugly things really ought to go into the bug database. So this file disappeared. As did every other easily recognizable place for submitting hints. As did the specific e-mail address for hints to go to. These installation problems IMHO PROPERLY belong in the README for the distribution. That is the FIRST place that someone BRAND NEW to FreeBSD is going to look for them. No FreeBSD newbie who has oddball hardware that has bugs in it, is going to take the time spending hours reading the Handbook or searching the questions mailing list archives for tidbits, or querying the bug database for PR's for their gear. Any newbie to FreeBSD is going to do the same thing that they do to any other OS, they are going to stick the CD in their oddball hardware and boot it, and if it doesen't come up they will look at the README file that came with the ISO image they downloaded, and if the hardware-specific workarounds for their machine aren't there, they will discard the ISO cd and move on to some other Open Source OS. For all the huffing-and-puffing on peer-review for the Handbook, well that is fine for that. But an install hints file's very usefulness is junk if a committee is reviewing it. Hardware-specific install hints are, by their very nature, NOT guarenteed to work. They may even make things worse. All they are is user-developed workarounds that may or may not be The FreeBSD Way of doing things. The only thing that can be said about them is that at one time, one year, with one particular piece of gear, someone tried some off-the-wall thing and it worked. It might not ever work again in any future version of FreeBSD. There might be manufacture-specific BIOS updates that fix things. There might be a driver update in a later FreeBSD version that fixed that specific thing. But, it is a last-ditch suggestion to try when the 'normal' way of installing something doesen't work. I don't see much support for recreating the install hints file, so I really feel little
Contributing to FreeBSD documentation (was: Re: no ath0 on new system with good card)
On 2007-01-07 08:54, Steve Franks [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Apologies on not hitting the list. Alyays forget to reply-all. No problem. I just didn't copy the list because I wasn't sure I should. So, I figured I'd try to fix the safe-mode end of things on my own, and I found a post several years old (looked like it even could have been yours) about safemode, which doesn't show up anywhere on the freebsd site. So I did what it said and grep'd boot/beastie.4th for safemode, which came up with this suprisingly total solution: add apic.0.disabled=1 to boot/device.hints. Not only does my system come up in regular boot mode, but, as you suspected, the pccard works too, so all appears well. Excellent news! Thanks for sharing the answer :) So my final question, what in all the land is an apic, Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller. This is the part of your system which assigns priorities to interrupt lines of a device. The full details are probably too technical for some percentage of our user base, but more details can be found at the following pages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Programmable_Interrupt_Controller http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmable_Interrupt_Controller http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_8259 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_APIC_Architecture and why isn't apic or safemode mentioned in the handbook, manpages, or even on the freebsd site? IIRC it is mentioned in the Developer's Handbook, but you are right that it should be in the main Handbook too. Further, I'd like to write a handbook page on freebsd and laptops, because we're on my third one here now, and I'm starting to get the drift of what could usefully be added to the handbook, namely a thourough discussion of booting and device.hints. That would be great! If you can help writing such a section for the Handbook, a lot of users will be highly indebted to you, for sure :) I presume someone 'peer-reviews' handbook submissions for correctness and format? I recall reading somewhere about contributing, but I get the impression you are involved enough to tell me whether it's a bad idea or not. Yes, you are right. We have peer reviews. A lot of the documentation changes are filtered through the freebsd-doc mailing list, where documentation people hang out. Patches are mailed back and forth; edited; fixed for technical accuracy, syntax and grammar correctness; adapted to our writing style; expanded as necessary; and eventually committed to our documentation source code. You can definitely contribute as much as you feel, whenever you feel you have the time, and in any way you consider appropriate. We have a short article which describes how you can contribute to the FreeBSD Project, in general: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/contributing/ Most of it applies directly to documentation too. Please skim through this article; it should be a good start. About your last question now... Yes, it's a good idea. Not just a good idea, though. It's an *excellent* idea. One of the chicken and egg problems documentation writing usually has to face is that: * New users don't know enough about the system, so they frequently pose good questions. These questions would result in higher quality documentation if properly channeled through experienced documentation writers, but you have to convince the new users that they can actually *help* by not knowing it all. * Once new users step over the thin line between being newcomers to the system and being experienced in some area, we have lost all the insight they can provide about how a new user thinks. As a result, it's easier to write documentation if we are targetting a very experienced, very technical audience. But, IMHO, the contributions of new users -- in the form of interesting questions -- are at least as valuable, if not more :) Regards, Giorgos ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contributing to FreeBSD
hi all, I'm a developer who has atleast 3-4 hrs of spare time daily and would like to contribute it in woking on FreeBSD, the OS i love. Im really interested in working on some part of freebsd kernel. It would be great if someone comes up with a good part in kernel to start with. It will greatly help if someone guides me and act as a mentor. I think the following info will help. Im a C,C++/unix developer with 1 yr exp. I work on P4 , celeron x86 hardware (on FreeBSD 6.0 -RELEASE). regrds, ananth g. ** DISCLAIMER ** Information contained and transmitted by this E-MAIL is proprietary to Sify Limited and is intended for use only by the individual or entity to which it is addressed, and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If this is a forwarded message, the content of this E-MAIL may not have been sent with the authority of the Company. If you are not the intended recipient, an agent of the intended recipient or a person responsible for delivering the information to the named recipient, you are notified that any use, distribution, transmission, printing, copying or dissemination of this information in any way or in any manner is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please delete this mail notify us immediately at [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.sify.com - your homepage on the internet for news, sports, finance, astrology, movies, entertainment, food, languages etc ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Contributing to FreeBSD
On Wed, Feb 22, 2006 at 02:19:27PM +0530, Ananth.G wrote: hi all, I'm a developer who has atleast 3-4 hrs of spare time daily and would like to contribute it in woking on FreeBSD, the OS i love. Im really interested in working on some part of freebsd kernel. It would be great if someone comes up with a good part in kernel to start with. It will greatly help if someone guides me and act as a mentor. I think the following info will help. Im a C,C++/unix developer with 1 yr exp. I work on P4 , celeron x86 hardware (on FreeBSD 6.0 -RELEASE). Hi See http://www.freebsd.org/projects/ideas/ and http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/contributing/index.html for a lot of ideas where to start. greets, Tobias ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Contributing to FreeBSD
Ananth.G wrote: hi all, I'm a developer who has atleast 3-4 hrs of spare time daily and would like to contribute it in woking on FreeBSD, the OS i love. Im really interested in working on some part of freebsd kernel. It would be great if someone comes up with a good part in kernel to start with. It will greatly help if someone guides me and act as a mentor. I think the following info will help. Im a C,C++/unix developer with 1 yr exp. I work on P4 , celeron x86 hardware (on FreeBSD 6.0 -RELEASE). There are two places to look: 1) The idea list, small and big ideas, there is a long list of projects for the kernel. see http://www.freebsd.org/projects/ideas/ 2) Problem Reports: PR's with status s suspended are remarked as: The problem is not being worked on, due to lack of information or resources. This is a prime candidate for somebody who is looking for a project to do. If the problem cannot be solved at all, it will be closed, rather than suspended. Of course, you can always take a look at an open PR. http://www.freebsd.org/support/bugreports.html Cheers, Erik ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
