Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2001 15:02:10 -0500 From: Simon Morton <simon.morton@verizon.net> To: Anthony Atkielski <anthony@freebie.atkielski.com> Cc: Jan Grant <Jan.Grant@bristol.ac.uk>, Ceri <ceri@techsupport.co.uk>, Joe & Fhe Barbish <barbish@a1poweruser.com>, FBSD Questions <questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: /etc/hosts file ? FBSD doc suck Message-ID: <3C190942.5040301@verizon.net> References: <Pine.GSO.4.31.0112121802380.14589-100000@mail.ilrt.bris.ac.uk> <004d01c18348$84e7eb00$0a00000a@atkielski.com>
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Anthony Atkielski wrote: > However, an approach that addresses users who are sophisticated in IT but > simply not familiar with UNIX is probably practical. There are any number of Unix books out there that already do this. Just go to O'Reilly or Fatbrain or your local geek bookstore and you will find more than you can shake a stick at. FreeBSD is just one among a plethora of Unix-like operating systems, past and present, which are generally much more alike than they are different. If you have no experience with any of them, then you need more of a grounding in Unix than the official (free) FreeBSD doc set and man pages can be expected to provide. Why should volunteers on the FreeBSD doc project waste their time parroting basic Unix stuff that is already in 100 books? It doesn't make any sense. If I buy the shop manual for my 1999 Ford Taurus, I don't expect it to tell me which end of the screwdriver to hold. Presumably I've read general books on mechanics, perhaps taken a class or worked on comparable cars, and I have enough context to make the specific manual for my make and model of car meaningful to me. If not, I am asking for trouble. Should "man 5 hosts" be a little more descriptive and maybe include an example or two? Sure, by all means. But, let's face it, the format of the hosts file is *really* basic stuff that anyone who has ever dealt with Unix-style networking *already knows*. Heck, even the Windows NT hosts file uses almost the same format. If this creates confusion, there are probably other areas of basic Unix knowledge lacking as well. *Please* read a Unix book. I don't mean to be elitist nor to discourage people from joining the *n*x community. Unix is not that hard to learn and, once you grok it, you won't want to go back. This list, to name but one resource, is full of people who are willing and able to pass their knowledge and experience along. But, when you freely download code and documentation which are supported and maintained entirely by volunteer efforts, you shouldn't expect the same level of spoon-feeding that you might get when you have paid hundreds or even thousands of dollars for a piece of software. And if you expect it, you should be willing to contribute toward making it happen. But whatever the case, please try to refrain from flaming list members and throwing around unproductive (not to mention illiterate) statements like "FBSD doc suck" because the documentation that you paid nothing for can't answer your newbie question. Simon -- http://www.SimonMorton.com smorton at acm dot org \rm -rf /bin/laden To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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