Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2001 23:01:35 -0700 From: Murray Stokely <murray@osd.bsdi.com> To: Jeroen Ruigrok/Asmodai <asmodai@wxs.nl> Cc: Andrew Boothman <andrew@cream.org>, Alexey Zelkin <phantom@FreeBSD.ORG>, Murray Stokely <murray@FreeBSD.ORG>, freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG, Nik Clayton <nik@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Moving chapters around in the Handbook Message-ID: <20010722230135.A88988@meow.osd.bsdi.com> In-Reply-To: <20010722141425.Q79615@daemon.ninth-circle.org>; from asmodai@wxs.nl on Sun, Jul 22, 2001 at 02:14:25PM %2B0200 References: <20010716185834.D77647@meow.osd.bsdi.com> <20010719134759.B79615@daemon.ninth-circle.org> <3B57A50B.9010101@cream.org> <20010720081706.H79615@daemon.ninth-circle.org> <20010720172437.A6118@ark.cris.net> <20010721145108.N79615@daemon.ninth-circle.org> <3B59BBEA.3060600@cream.org> <20010722141425.Q79615@daemon.ninth-circle.org>
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On Sun, Jul 22, 2001 at 02:14:25PM +0200, Jeroen Ruigrok/Asmodai wrote: > Configuring FreeBSD after an install will be the same (well, almost) for > everybody. However, after that, the scope changes very much depending > on what type of user you are writing for. > > I noticed that you talk about workstation. If an administrator is > setting up a workstation he is not an administrator, but an end-user of > the box. > I am talking server administation here, which has a very, very different > scope from an end-user, and a very different scope from a developer. > > You might say it is just semantics and wordplay, but in the end the > expectations of the user -the person reading the documentation- will > vary from what they need to accomplish with the operating system and > cannot and should not be mixed. > > >Returning to the question of where the X installation chapter should > >be, I believe it should be near the start as it is part of the process > >of getting the system working, IMHO. And I guess we could add a comment > >to the introduction reminding server administrators that they probably > >don't need or want X at all. > > Sorry, but my system works perfectly without X. > > Murray, please clarify the scope of what the handbook you are working on > actually is and who/which type of users it aims at. I haven't quite gotten around to writing the section of Chapter 1 that will address exactly this question. The Handbook as it stands now has a fairly broad scope and I think that is fine as long as we are careful. We want to help users get it installed, setup X, configure a home network, run Internet servers, etc. Clearly the book is getting quite large and Nik and I have talked about splitting it up very soon after publication of the 2nd Edition. I think there is a lot of value in a unified 2nd Edition so I'd like to hold off for a couple of months until that happens. > Nik, I am considering more and more to repocopy the handbook and make > what Murray is working on (in awaiting his answer) the end-user handbook > and the new copy an administrator's handbook. > I think the latter will definately benifit those on the -isp list, let > alone those who use FreeBSD for Internet backbone routing and all those > nifty things. Maybe network backups, clustering. I doubt any normal > user needs those. And I sincerely doubt that that needs to be in the > (end-user) Handbook. I completely agree that this is the way we need to go. I just want to wait a couple of months before splitting up the document. I have a few more meaty sections I want to contribute and I don't think we've quite reached a "critical mass" for splitting the Handbook yet anyway, although we are certainly getting there. If you've really got an itch, then it might be better spent on developing docs.freebsd.org or some other place where we can actually display all of this documentation. Our current setup, with a single link for the Handbook in our navigation bar and the rest of the books thrown in with tutorials is less than ideal. - Murray To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message
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