Re: Is there a need for a hard copy OpenBSD documentation project?

[Luke Seubert <lseubert@radix.net>]

Roger Walkup on 09/04/2000 9:01 PM scribbled:

> After reading the original post and replies, here's what I think:  If you
> could
> somehow smush together the best of the O'Reilly books "Unix in a Nutshell" and
> "UNIX Powertools", "The Complete FreeBSD", "The UNIX Programming Environment",
> "The Design and Implementation of the 4.4BSD Operating System", plus the man
> pages, you'ld really have something.  While OpenBSD *is* a moving target,
> these
> books go a long way (even the oldest ones) to explaning this sytem.
>

Yeah.  That would really be something.  I have four of those books, only
partially read in some cases, but I can still say that that is a hell of a
lot content.

What you suggest would be an enormous task.  No offense, but my mind sort of
reels at the thought of attempting such a monster.  I know for a fact I am
not qualified to write or edit such a large and ambitious work.

Let me propose this instead.  Let the programmers read books like "The UNIX
Programming Environment" and "The Design and Implementation of the 4.4BSD
Operating System".  Those are good books and very relevant to programming.
Let the OpenBSD manual be more for users and sysadmins.

"Unix in a Nutshell" and "UNIX Powertools" are useful for learning about
Unix in general, more from a user's point of view.  An OpenBSD manual might
contain some of this info, but it would tend to be OpenBSD specific.

Lehey is working on a general BSD book.  Between "The Complete FreeBSD" and
that new book, I think the field would be very well covered.

Roger, while I am reluctant to embrace your proposal because of its large
scope, you have forced to think a bit more clearly about definitions.  Thank
you.

Should this project be a programmer's manual, an introductory user's manual,
a sysadmin manual, or something else?  I am leaning towards intro and
sysadmin, but others may have some additional ideas.

-- 

Luke Seubert


4 out of 5 politicians prefer unarmed peasants.
The fifth one prefers voluptuous redheads.