Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2001 14:14:25 +0200 From: Jeroen Ruigrok/Asmodai <asmodai@wxs.nl> To: Andrew Boothman <andrew@cream.org> Cc: 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: <20010722141425.Q79615@daemon.ninth-circle.org> In-Reply-To: <3B59BBEA.3060600@cream.org> 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>
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-On [20010721 19:37], Andrew Boothman (andrew@cream.org) wrote: >Jeroen Ruigrok/Asmodai wrote: > >>That is the issue. >> >>Is that document written for the end-user or for an administrator? > >But the end-user is the administrator of their box! ;-) Yes, but see below. >In my opinion, the documentation is written for people who are trying >to get things done, reguardless of they are trying to do it in a server >or desktop environment. After all, many of the tasks they have to >perform are the same anyway. And an inexperienced server administrator >needs exactly the same level of hand-holding and explanation as an >inexperienced end-user setting up their workstation for the first time. 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. 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. Comments welcomed, -- Jeroen Ruigrok van der Werven/Asmodai asmodai@[wxs.nl|freebsd.org|xmach.org] Documentation nutter/C-rated Coder, finger asmodai@ninth-circle.dnsalias.net http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/developers-handbook/ For ever, brother, hail and farewell... To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message
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