New Freebsd Install Guide Available

[Texas Consultant]

Many people who are involved in FreeBSD are not programmers. The Project 
includes documentation writers, Web designers, and support people. All that 
these people need to contribute is an investment of time and a willingness 
to learn.

1.  Read through the FAQ and Handbook periodically. If anything is badly 
explained, out of date or even just completely wrong, let us know. Even 
better, send us a fix (SGML is not difficult to learn, but there is no 
objection to ASCII submissions).

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/contributing/index.html

-- I think this is great, but there should be a project leader to regulate 
overall structure of the Handbook and other documents as that is perhaps 
where the greatest amount of work is needed. Could we at least have a 
mailing list for writers?

>Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2005 01:03:24 -0400
>From: <bob at a1poweruser.com>
>Subject: RE: New Freebsd Install Guide Available
>To: "Chris Hill" <chris at monochrome.org>
>Cc: Randy Pratt <rpratt1950 at earthlink.net>
>Message-ID: <MIEPLLIBMLEEABPDBIEGMEGGHDAA.bob at a1poweruser.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"
>
>As stated in the content displayed by those URL's  the Install guide
>is free to anyone to download and very plainly states the content is
>contributed to public domain.
>So  why are so many people asking the same question when the answer
>is so self evident?
>
>And this writer takes offence to anybody calling the promoting of
>this Install guide as verbally trashing the handbook.
>I don't need to do that.  Many others have done that over the years.
>Any regular reader of the list will know that the handbook content
>has had many people voicing concern over its  less than basic
>ability to convey meaningful instructions.  No need to open that
>flame war again.
>
>The bottom line is the firewall section of this Install guide has
>been  lifted and used to replace the FreeBSD official  handbook's
>complete firewall section all ready. Any body can lift any part of
>the install guide and put forth their own effort to use it as source
>to replace other sections of the official handbook. There is nothing
>stopping you so go for it.
>
>This Install guide has a much more meaningful index which is right
>there all the time helping the reader to navigate the guides
>different subjects.  The presentation method of the index and
>content on split screen is more in line with modern web content that
>every ones sees these days. Plus the install Guide progresses in an
>step by step manner from installing the base default system all the
>way up to configurating a private LAN which can masquerade as a
>commercial user.  This address the desired server configuration most
>often wanted by the majority the first time posters to this
>questions list.
>
>Another important niche this FreeBSD Install Guide covers is that it
>is downloadable direct to ms/window boxes and can be viewed using
>the ms/explorer browser.  You UNIX purists have to accept the fact
>that there are many ms/win users who want to be FreeBSD users and
>dual win/FreeBSD users out there and this Install guide opens up a
>bridge to the FreeBSD operating system to service this untapped
>potential user group.  Just watch the posts on the list for the
>magnitude of ms/office top posters to bear out that truth.   The
>official handbook in its current format does not address this. Since
>its 3/1//05 public domain release this install guide has been
>visited 1500 times and downloaded 216 times.  This was mostly from
>people who responded from the UNIX news groups  postings.
>
>The best thing for the FreeBSD doc group to do is request to be an
>official mirror of the Install guide. Hay the Doc group will have
>the best win win situation here. They get an alternate view of the
>install process that is maintained outside of the FreeBSD project.
>Much like the pf  firewall has its own self maintained user guide.
>Now this is something to think about.