Re: New Freebsd Install Guide Available
Ted Mittelstaedt writes: -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jerry McAllister Well, both types of documentation are needed. The official formal documentation, which, of necessity , needs to be written in a rather formal language style and other explanitory docs for newbies and those of us who need a more conversational and step by step style at least to get started at things. There are several good books out with more conversational style and some reasonable web sites with tutorials. The only problem with many of the web sites and even the books is that they tend to take a personal preference prejucidial attitude toward things rather than encouraging readers to try out various things and giving them instruction toward those other choices. Some examples are installing and using Gnome. To read some guides, one would think it is impossible to run FreeBSD without Gnome. Some seem to imply it is absolutely necessary to install a third party MBR/boot manager such as Grub to boot FreeBSD, just because they like it. Some tend to think the only possible shell to use is bash or sh and anyone using something else can't possibly get their work done. The list could go on. That sort of thing may be present in some books but it wasn't in mine. I will say one thing though, that a 3rd party book must specialize on some aspect of FreeBSD if people are going to buy it. People that buy documentation usually have a more specific need than that they just want to boot FreeBSD on whatever spare PC they have lying around. So, for example in my book all examples were Bourne shell, because the focus of the book wasn't on running shells under UNIX. However I never wrote in the book that that readers should only use Bourne. In fact, on the section on system administration I specifically said Bourne and csh wern't optimal for new users, and tcsh and bash were more popular, followed by an overview of the major shells. Please be careful where your swinging that tarpot and brush in the future. Sure, I know that.I probably should have continued the qualifier I used for the web site and said something like 'some of the books' since it would be what I meant. And the prejudices are different from one source to the next - it isn't the same everywhere. It is just something to be aware of. Even the official Handbook has a few personal prejudices that aren't really as absolute as the text may imply, though I haven't looked for any lately and it continues to be updated. jerry Ted Mittelstaedt Author, The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide. http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com/ ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: New Freebsd Install Guide Available
On Mon, 4 Apr 2005 01:03:24 -0400 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip top-posted tirade -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Chris Hill Sent: Sunday, April 03, 2005 10:47 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Randy Pratt; Giorgos Keramidas; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: New Freebsd Install Guide Available On Sun, 3 Apr 2005 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: YES there is something major wrong with the official handbook. [snip] The FreeBSD Install Guide is mirrored at the following sites. http://freebsd.easyasthat.co.uk/ http://www.unixguide.net/freebsd/fbsd_installguide/index.php http://freebsd.packards-home.net/index.php www.a1poweruser.com http://freebsdinfo.org/ http://freebsd.a1poweruser.com:6088/ http://freebsd.95mb.com/ Since all of these URLs (those which respond, at least) go to essentially the same content, I have a few questions: 1) Who wrote this? 1a) Could it be Joseph Barbish? 2) Regardless, could the author be persuaded to contribute his/her wisdom to the official documentation, rather than verbally trash the latter? Persipiring minds want to know. Oops.. You're absolutely right Chris, it is the same: http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20040308154441.GA73721 I didn't recognize the poster as the one who created that document and tried to peddle it for money last year. It was another of those never-ending threads so rather than pollute the list lets just drop this. Its just not worth the time or bandwidth. My apologies to the list. I will be more careful in the future. Best regards, Randy -- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: New Freebsd Install Guide Available
As stated in the content displayed by those URL's the Install guide is free to anyone to download and very plainly states the content is contributed to public domain. So why are so many people asking the same question when the answer is so self evident? And this writer takes offence to anybody calling the promoting of this Install guide as verbally trashing the handbook. I don't need to do that. Many others have done that over the years. Any regular reader of the list will know that the handbook content has had many people voicing concern over its less than basic ability to convey meaningful instructions. No need to open that flame war again. Well, both types of documentation are needed. The official formal documentation, which, of necessity , needs to be written in a rather formal language style and other explanitory docs for newbies and those of us who need a more conversational and step by step style at least to get started at things. There are several good books out with more conversational style and some reasonable web sites with tutorials. The only problem with many of the web sites and even the books is that they tend to take a personal preference prejucidial attitude toward things rather than encouraging readers to try out various things and giving them instruction toward those other choices. Some examples are installing and using Gnome. To read some guides, one would think it is impossible to run FreeBSD without Gnome. Some seem to imply it is absolutely necessary to install a third party MBR/boot manager such as Grub to boot FreeBSD, just because they like it. Some tend to think the only possible shell to use is bash or sh and anyone using something else can't possibly get their work done. The list could go on. But, in spite of that, the third party guides are useful and helpful. Just realize that, even more than the official handbook, they represent personally unique situations, opinions and preferences as well as useful information. ... much excised. Another important niche this FreeBSD Install Guide covers is that it is downloadable direct to ms/window boxes and can be viewed using the ms/explorer browser. You UNIX purists have to accept the fact that there are many ms/win users who want to be FreeBSD users and dual win/FreeBSD users out there and this Install guide opens up a bridge to the FreeBSD operating system to service this untapped potential user group. Just watch the posts on the list for the magnitude of ms/office top posters to bear out that truth. The official handbook in its current format does not address this. Since its 3/1//05 public domain release this install guide has been visited 1500 times and downloaded 216 times. This was mostly from people who responded from the UNIX news groups postings. I don't understand - the handbook is available online to any web browser, including ms exploder. Anyway, anything that helps people use FreeBSD is good. jerry ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: New Freebsd Install Guide Available
Many people who are involved in FreeBSD are not programmers. The Project includes documentation writers, Web designers, and support people. All that these people need to contribute is an investment of time and a willingness to learn. 1. Read through the FAQ and Handbook periodically. If anything is badly explained, out of date or even just completely wrong, let us know. Even better, send us a fix (SGML is not difficult to learn, but there is no objection to ASCII submissions). http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/contributing/index.html -- I think this is great, but there should be a project leader to regulate overall structure of the Handbook and other documents as that is perhaps where the greatest amount of work is needed. Could we at least have a mailing list for writers? Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2005 01:03:24 -0400 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: New Freebsd Install Guide Available To: Chris Hill [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Randy Pratt [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii As stated in the content displayed by those URL's the Install guide is free to anyone to download and very plainly states the content is contributed to public domain. So why are so many people asking the same question when the answer is so self evident? And this writer takes offence to anybody calling the promoting of this Install guide as verbally trashing the handbook. I don't need to do that. Many others have done that over the years. Any regular reader of the list will know that the handbook content has had many people voicing concern over its less than basic ability to convey meaningful instructions. No need to open that flame war again. The bottom line is the firewall section of this Install guide has been lifted and used to replace the FreeBSD official handbook's complete firewall section all ready. Any body can lift any part of the install guide and put forth their own effort to use it as source to replace other sections of the official handbook. There is nothing stopping you so go for it. This Install guide has a much more meaningful index which is right there all the time helping the reader to navigate the guides different subjects. The presentation method of the index and content on split screen is more in line with modern web content that every ones sees these days. Plus the install Guide progresses in an step by step manner from installing the base default system all the way up to configurating a private LAN which can masquerade as a commercial user. This address the desired server configuration most often wanted by the majority the first time posters to this questions list. Another important niche this FreeBSD Install Guide covers is that it is downloadable direct to ms/window boxes and can be viewed using the ms/explorer browser. You UNIX purists have to accept the fact that there are many ms/win users who want to be FreeBSD users and dual win/FreeBSD users out there and this Install guide opens up a bridge to the FreeBSD operating system to service this untapped potential user group. Just watch the posts on the list for the magnitude of ms/office top posters to bear out that truth. The official handbook in its current format does not address this. Since its 3/1//05 public domain release this install guide has been visited 1500 times and downloaded 216 times. This was mostly from people who responded from the UNIX news groups postings. The best thing for the FreeBSD doc group to do is request to be an official mirror of the Install guide. Hay the Doc group will have the best win win situation here. They get an alternate view of the install process that is maintained outside of the FreeBSD project. Much like the pf firewall has its own self maintained user guide. Now this is something to think about. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: New Freebsd Install Guide Available
it was said: I think this is great, but there should be a project leader to regulate overall structure of the Handbook and other documents as that is perhaps where the greatest amount of work is needed. Could we at least have a mailing list for writers? Ask and you shall receive: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.freebsd.org/docproj/index.html Regards, stheg __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Personals - Better first dates. More second dates. http://personals.yahoo.com ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: New Freebsd Install Guide Available
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jerry McAllister Well, both types of documentation are needed. The official formal documentation, which, of necessity , needs to be written in a rather formal language style and other explanitory docs for newbies and those of us who need a more conversational and step by step style at least to get started at things. There are several good books out with more conversational style and some reasonable web sites with tutorials. The only problem with many of the web sites and even the books is that they tend to take a personal preference prejucidial attitude toward things rather than encouraging readers to try out various things and giving them instruction toward those other choices. Some examples are installing and using Gnome. To read some guides, one would think it is impossible to run FreeBSD without Gnome. Some seem to imply it is absolutely necessary to install a third party MBR/boot manager such as Grub to boot FreeBSD, just because they like it. Some tend to think the only possible shell to use is bash or sh and anyone using something else can't possibly get their work done. The list could go on. That sort of thing may be present in some books but it wasn't in mine. I will say one thing though, that a 3rd party book must specialize on some aspect of FreeBSD if people are going to buy it. People that buy documentation usually have a more specific need than that they just want to boot FreeBSD on whatever spare PC they have lying around. So, for example in my book all examples were Bourne shell, because the focus of the book wasn't on running shells under UNIX. However I never wrote in the book that that readers should only use Bourne. In fact, on the section on system administration I specifically said Bourne and csh wern't optimal for new users, and tcsh and bash were more popular, followed by an overview of the major shells. Please be careful where your swinging that tarpot and brush in the future. Ted Mittelstaedt Author, The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide. http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com/ ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: New Freebsd Install Guide Available
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 2005-04-03, [EMAIL PROTECTED] scribbled these curious markings: YES there is something major wrong with the official handbook. The majority of the content is written like the reader already has good understanding of how FreeBSD works. It is not detailed enough for someone who has no previous experience with Unix like operating systems. As others have pointed out to you, why not contribute to the official documentation, rather than making FreeBSD more like Linux with dozens of different (conflicting, and most often *all* wrong) sources of documentation? Best Regards, Christopher Nehren -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQFCUD+ck/lo7zvzJioRAotJAJ4jHOTgdMgCXjeLUJADRnfiC2Nu2ACgpTm+ YF548plsIx4TjkmJg75Rtz0= =Ztuv -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- I abhor a system designed for the user, if that word is a coded pejorative meaning stupid and unsophisticated. -- Ken Thompson If you ask the wrong questions, you get answers like 42 and God. Unix is user friendly. However, it isn't idiot friendly. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: New Freebsd Install Guide Available
What you didn't read the complete content of the message. You just wanted to see this, your meaningless out of context mesg on the list. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Christopher Nehren Sent: Sunday, April 03, 2005 3:09 PM To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: New Freebsd Install Guide Available -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 2005-04-03, [EMAIL PROTECTED] scribbled these curious markings: YES there is something major wrong with the official handbook. The majority of the content is written like the reader already has good understanding of how FreeBSD works. It is not detailed enough for someone who has no previous experience with Unix like operating systems. As others have pointed out to you, why not contribute to the official documentation, rather than making FreeBSD more like Linux with dozens of different (conflicting, and most often *all* wrong) sources of documentation? Best Regards, Christopher Nehren -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQFCUD+ck/lo7zvzJioRAotJAJ4jHOTgdMgCXjeLUJADRnfiC2Nu2ACgpTm+ YF548plsIx4TjkmJg75Rtz0= =Ztuv -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- I abhor a system designed for the user, if that word is a coded pejorative meaning stupid and unsophisticated. -- Ken Thompson If you ask the wrong questions, you get answers like 42 and God. Unix is user friendly. However, it isn't idiot friendly. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: New Freebsd Install Guide Available
On Sun, 3 Apr 2005 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: YES there is something major wrong with the official handbook. [snip] The FreeBSD Install Guide is mirrored at the following sites. http://freebsd.easyasthat.co.uk/ http://www.unixguide.net/freebsd/fbsd_installguide/index.php http://freebsd.packards-home.net/index.php www.a1poweruser.com http://freebsdinfo.org/ http://freebsd.a1poweruser.com:6088/ http://freebsd.95mb.com/ Since all of these URLs (those which respond, at least) go to essentially the same content, I have a few questions: 1) Who wrote this? 1a) Could it be Joseph Barbish? 2) Regardless, could the author be persuaded to contribute his/her wisdom to the official documentation, rather than verbally trash the latter? Persipiring minds want to know. -- Chris Hill [EMAIL PROTECTED] ** [ Busy Expunging | ] ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: New Freebsd Install Guide Available
As stated in the content displayed by those URL's the Install guide is free to anyone to download and very plainly states the content is contributed to public domain. So why are so many people asking the same question when the answer is so self evident? And this writer takes offence to anybody calling the promoting of this Install guide as verbally trashing the handbook. I don't need to do that. Many others have done that over the years. Any regular reader of the list will know that the handbook content has had many people voicing concern over its less than basic ability to convey meaningful instructions. No need to open that flame war again. The bottom line is the firewall section of this Install guide has been lifted and used to replace the FreeBSD official handbook's complete firewall section all ready. Any body can lift any part of the install guide and put forth their own effort to use it as source to replace other sections of the official handbook. There is nothing stopping you so go for it. This Install guide has a much more meaningful index which is right there all the time helping the reader to navigate the guides different subjects. The presentation method of the index and content on split screen is more in line with modern web content that every ones sees these days. Plus the install Guide progresses in an step by step manner from installing the base default system all the way up to configurating a private LAN which can masquerade as a commercial user. This address the desired server configuration most often wanted by the majority the first time posters to this questions list. Another important niche this FreeBSD Install Guide covers is that it is downloadable direct to ms/window boxes and can be viewed using the ms/explorer browser. You UNIX purists have to accept the fact that there are many ms/win users who want to be FreeBSD users and dual win/FreeBSD users out there and this Install guide opens up a bridge to the FreeBSD operating system to service this untapped potential user group. Just watch the posts on the list for the magnitude of ms/office top posters to bear out that truth. The official handbook in its current format does not address this. Since its 3/1//05 public domain release this install guide has been visited 1500 times and downloaded 216 times. This was mostly from people who responded from the UNIX news groups postings. The best thing for the FreeBSD doc group to do is request to be an official mirror of the Install guide. Hay the Doc group will have the best win win situation here. They get an alternate view of the install process that is maintained outside of the FreeBSD project. Much like the pf firewall has its own self maintained user guide. Now this is something to think about. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Chris Hill Sent: Sunday, April 03, 2005 10:47 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Randy Pratt; Giorgos Keramidas; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: New Freebsd Install Guide Available On Sun, 3 Apr 2005 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: YES there is something major wrong with the official handbook. [snip] The FreeBSD Install Guide is mirrored at the following sites. http://freebsd.easyasthat.co.uk/ http://www.unixguide.net/freebsd/fbsd_installguide/index.php http://freebsd.packards-home.net/index.php www.a1poweruser.com http://freebsdinfo.org/ http://freebsd.a1poweruser.com:6088/ http://freebsd.95mb.com/ Since all of these URLs (those which respond, at least) go to essentially the same content, I have a few questions: 1) Who wrote this? 1a) Could it be Joseph Barbish? 2) Regardless, could the author be persuaded to contribute his/her wisdom to the official documentation, rather than verbally trash the latter? Persipiring minds want to know. -- Chris Hill [EMAIL PROTECTED] ** [ Busy Expunging | ] ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
