Date: Mon, 5 Aug 2002 06:53:54 -0700 (PDT) From: Ross Lippert <ripper@eskimo.com> To: anderson@centtech.com Cc: blackend@FreeBSD.ORG, cjuniet@entreview.com, freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: docs/41106: FreeBSD Handbook lacks "Desktop Applications" chapter. Message-ID: <200208051353.GAA15753@eskimo.com> In-Reply-To: <3D4E7A4A.6080307@centtech.com> (message from Eric Anderson on Mon, 05 Aug 2002 08:14:50 -0500)
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I think the port descriptions are underserved by pkg-descr. I think the typical experience is to read a pkg-descr, visit the homepage and check it out (screenshots, etc) then make, and then see if the out-of-the-box install can be made to work like you want quickly, and then deinstalling or keeping it. With all of this, how is a newbie supposed to figure out that emacs is God's text editor, if he/she didn't already know it? :) A lot of us have found our own port-gems, setups which work well for us, that we unwittingly became experts at configuring. A chapter on desktop apps can cover some of this, but not all the many permutations of what's available. As opposed to Mac or Win, Unices come with a sometimes overwhelming set of options and mixing and matching with perhaps some kludges to integrate them is the norm. I might be the minority, but I think this is a good thing, and our apps documentation should reflect this. We should really do something different than the 1-solution fits all style of win and mac for desktops. A description of Gnome and KDE and getting around them is great and needed, but for the other apps: mp3 players, cd players, mpeg players, and so on I think it would be better to have something stand-alone, where a user, who has wrestled with getting such things to work and work well, can give an intro to a user. Example: I wrestled with mplayer, I fought with the docs, and I finally got it working well, and now I love it, and I'd like to tell people how to set it up with less pain than I had, if I had the forum. If we had a 'port testimonials' area, which was fairly free form and allowed each one of us to talk about how to get the most from kword, abiword, openoffice, or whatever depending on which one each of us lived in, then that would be more beneficial to the newbie. I think it would be fun for all of us to share our experiences with our fav ports. The closest thing we have right now, is the 'trawling the ports collection' series by Greg Lehey at ezine.daemonnews.org. But he's one guy, writing monthly, and he doesn't always even have the time to really trick out the programs he tries. -r To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message
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