From owner-freebsd-doc Sun Apr 7 12:10:22 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Received: from mailsrv.otenet.gr (mailsrv.otenet.gr [195.170.0.5]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2384F37B417 for ; Sun, 7 Apr 2002 12:10:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hades.hell.gr (patr530-b192.otenet.gr [212.205.244.200]) by mailsrv.otenet.gr (8.12.2/8.12.2) with ESMTP id g37JA32a014960; Sun, 7 Apr 2002 22:10:04 +0300 (EEST) Received: from hades.hell.gr (hades [127.0.0.1]) by hades.hell.gr (8.12.2/8.12.2) with ESMTP id g37JARGI009806; Sun, 7 Apr 2002 22:10:27 +0300 (EEST) (envelope-from keramida@ceid.upatras.gr) Received: (from charon@localhost) by hades.hell.gr (8.12.2/8.12.2/Submit) id g37J8bJF009786; Sun, 7 Apr 2002 22:08:37 +0300 (EEST) (envelope-from keramida@ceid.upatras.gr) Date: Sun, 7 Apr 2002 22:08:37 +0300 From: Giorgos Keramidas To: Szilveszter Adam Cc: freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Splitting the Handbook? (was: [a couple of new doc PRs]) Message-ID: <20020407190837.GA9589@hades.hell.gr> References: <20020404062954.6607E2E827@mail.freebsdmall.com> <20020406221709.GA1181@hades.hell.gr> <20020407093538.GB539@fonix.adamsfamily.xx> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20020407093538.GB539@fonix.adamsfamily.xx> User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.28i Sender: owner-freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On 2002-04-07 11:35, Szilveszter Adam wrote: > I think that splitting up the Handbook would be a good idea. It is > getting too large in every respect. (To read, to process, to search, > to...:-) Also, a division into a "user's" and "admin's" part seems like > a good idea. (On the assumption that the Developers Handbook continues > to evolve so as to offer information to those who wish to use FreeBSD as > a development platform.) You have put this in words better than I did. This was my assumption, that I did not write. That the Handbooks will be separated based on who the target of each part will be. There is another thing I was contemplating today. There are roughly two types of system administrators. The first is a newbie in Unix administration and needs a "tutorial" more than a "reference". The second one can be provided for the experienced system administrator by the system manpages, and other online documentation. It is the former that we should target. > [snip, good points made about defining content of parts before splitting] A quick browsing of the contents of both the Handbook and the Developer Handbook contents suggests that there are parts that can split off to one of the three major categories of users: - System Administrators advanced-networking, backups, basics, bibliography, boot, config, contrib, cutting edge, disks, install, introduction, kernelconfig, kernelopts, l10n, linuxemu, mail, mirrors, pgpkeys, ports, ppp-and-slip, preface, printing, security, serialcomms, sound, users, x11. - FreeBSD users basics, bibliography, contrib, disks, eresources, introduction, ports, preface, printing, security, sound, x11. - FreeBSD developers (developer-handbook) developing software on FreeBSD, developing software *for* FreeBSD (including handbook/policies). I've deliberately copied names sections of the Handbooks to more than one section, to show that parts of that section are more interesting to administrators, while other parts are needed by users that configure their ${HOME} stuff. This separation makes obvious yet another fact. Our existing documentation has many parts that are helpful to administrators, but less parts that a user of FreeBSD (who simply uses FreeBSD to get work done). We'll probably need to expand on the user part of the documentation a bit. - Giorgos To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message