2005年11月9日 星期三

FreeBSD 6.0 released, but what about the docs?

FreeBSD 6.0 was released a couple of days ago. People are asking questions regarding the new release all over, either on the mailing lists or irc channels (##freebsd@freenode.net). The problem I see, is that documentation cannot yet keep up with the release cycle. The handbook itself is somewhat up-to-date, but not all (like sysinstall is no longer in /stand) and some features that is used in a widespread fashion were not included, for example, portupgrade/portmanager suites or the portsnap/binary upgrade mechanisms.


One can of course argue that they belong to the ports and not in the base system. But just ask yourself how these suites have streamlined operations? Or how much anyone has become more and more relying on them. Suggesting that new users start using portupgrade/portmanager is a common notion on the mailing lists and irc channels, even Dru Lavigne wrote an excellent article on portupgrade which is often referenced as 'the' article regarding portupgrade suites.
Folks, let's admit it. FreeBSD, though itself a great operating system, is mainly used as a hosting environments that run various applications from the ports collection. Creating documentations that are task based is a lot more helpful than throwing a bunch of man pages at users. (Matt Dillon's excellent tuning(7) man page is quite an exception. Though it is now outdated too.).
Topics I have come up with includes:

  1. How do I search for applications inside FreeBSD Ports collection?

  2. How do I install/deinstall/manage all the applications?

  3. What if I want a webserver? What options do I have? How do I plan my document locations? Virtual Servers?

  4. I need a mail server, but I need antispam and antivirus too, how?

  5. Can I manage my server through a browser remotely? How?


These topics may have cross-cutting optional features required, such as DNS or proxy/firewall. Basically this is a much more user as server oriented kind of setup. Because most documents that can be googled are geared towards Linux, the subtle difference when applying to FreeBSD ports collection can sometimes be time consuming just to find out in the first place, like the rc.d system that started back in 5.0.
I am not sure if I can do this alone, or maybe there already is such a project going on. I prefer wiki style collaboration if possible, so that everyone can easily add stuff into the current documentation.

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