svn commit: r42922 - head/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/introduction
Gavin Atkinson
gavin at FreeBSD.org
Wed Oct 9 22:53:23 UTC 2013
Author: gavin
Date: Wed Oct 9 22:53:22 2013
New Revision: 42922
URL: http://svnweb.freebsd.org/changeset/doc/42922
Log:
Try to bring the handbook introduction a little more up to date.
I think the majority of this chapter likely needs to be completely
rewritten, and hope to see it done soon. However, in the mean time,
at least try to make the handbook introduction a little more
current.
Checked over by: bjk, Allan Jude
Modified:
head/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/introduction/chapter.xml
Modified: head/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/introduction/chapter.xml
==============================================================================
--- head/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/introduction/chapter.xml Wed Oct 9 21:52:04 2013 (r42921)
+++ head/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/introduction/chapter.xml Wed Oct 9 22:53:22 2013 (r42922)
@@ -125,9 +125,8 @@
<para>The industry standard <emphasis>X Window
System</emphasis><indexterm>
<primary>X Window System</primary>
- </indexterm> (X11R7) provides a graphical user interface
- (GUI) for the cost of a common VGA card and monitor and
- comes with full sources.</para>
+ </indexterm> (X11R7) can provide a graphical user interface
+ (GUI) on any machine and comes with full sources.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
@@ -238,10 +237,9 @@
development. In addition to the fine work provided by CSRG,
the &os; Project has put in many thousands of hours in
fine tuning the system for maximum performance and reliability
- in real-life load situations. As many of the commercial
- giants struggle to field PC operating systems with such
- features, performance and reliability, &os; can offer them
- <emphasis>now</emphasis>!</para>
+ in real-life load situations. &os; offers performance and
+ reliability on par with commercial offerings, combined with
+ many cutting-edge features not available anywhere else.</para>
<para>The applications to which &os; can be put are truly
limited only by your own imagination. From software
@@ -272,12 +270,6 @@
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
- <para>FTP servers<indexterm>
- <primary>FTP servers</primary>
- </indexterm></para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
<para>World Wide Web servers<indexterm>
<primary>web servers</primary>
</indexterm>
@@ -299,6 +291,12 @@
</listitem>
<listitem>
+ <para>FTP servers<indexterm>
+ <primary>FTP servers</primary>
+ </indexterm></para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
<para>
<indexterm>
<primary>electronic mail</primary>
@@ -311,21 +309,9 @@
</listitem>
<listitem>
- <para>USENET<indexterm>
- <primary>USENET</primary>
- </indexterm>
- News or Bulletin Board Systems</para>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
<para>And more...</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
-
- <para>With &os;, you can easily start out small with an
- inexpensive 386 class PC and upgrade all the way up to a
- quad-processor Xeon with RAID storage as your enterprise
- grows.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
@@ -358,43 +344,63 @@
</indexterm> A name server (DNS)?<indexterm>
<primary>DNS Server</primary>
</indexterm> A firewall to keep people out of your
- internal network? &os; can easily turn that unused 386 or
- 486 PC sitting in the corner into an advanced router with
+ internal network? &os; can easily turn that unused
+ PC sitting in the corner into an advanced router with
sophisticated packet-filtering capabilities.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
+ <para><emphasis>Embedded:</emphasis> &os; makes an
+ excellent platform to build embedded systems upon.
+ <indexterm>
+ <primary>embedded</primary>
+ </indexterm>
+ With support for the &arm;, &mips; and &powerpc;
+ platforms, coupled with a robust network stack,
+ cutting edge features and the permissive <ulink
+ url="&url.books.faq;/introduction.html#bsd-license-restrictions">BSD license</ulink>
+ &os; makes an excellent foundation for building
+ embedded routers, firewalls, and other devices.</para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
<para>
<indexterm>
<primary>X Window System</primary>
</indexterm>
<indexterm>
- <primary>X Window System</primary>
- <secondary>Accelerated-X</secondary>
+ <primary>GNOME</primary>
</indexterm>
- <emphasis>X Window workstation:</emphasis> &os; is a
- fine choice for an inexpensive X terminal solution,
+ <indexterm>
+ <primary>GNOME</primary>
+ </indexterm>
+ <emphasis>Desktop:</emphasis> &os; makes a
+ fine choice for an inexpensive desktop solution
using the freely available X11 server.
- Unlike an X terminal, &os; allows many applications to
- be run locally if desired, thus relieving the burden on a
- central server. &os; can even boot
- <quote>diskless</quote>, making individual workstations
+ &os; offers a choice from many open-source desktop
+ environments, including the standard
+ <application>GNOME</application> and
+ <application>KDE</application> graphical user interfaces.
+ &os; can even boot <quote>diskless</quote> from
+ a central server, making individual workstations
even cheaper and easier to administer.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><emphasis>Software Development:</emphasis> The basic
&os; system comes with a full complement of development
- tools including the renowned GNU
+ tools including a full
C/C++<indexterm>
- <primary>GNU Compiler Collection</primary>
+ <primary>Compiler</primary>
</indexterm>
- compiler and debugger.</para>
+ compiler and debugger suite.
+ Support for many other languages are also available
+ through the ports and packages collection.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
- <para>&os; is available in both source and binary form on
- CD-ROM, DVD, and via anonymous FTP. Please see <xref
+ <para>&os; is available to download free of charge, or can be
+ obtained on either CD-ROM or DVD. Please see <xref
linkend="mirrors"/> for more information about obtaining
&os;.</para>
</sect2>
@@ -885,8 +891,8 @@
constructing a bootable running system (due to various legal
requirements) and the fact that the Intel port of 4.4 was
highly incomplete. It took the project until November of 1994
- to make this transition, at which point it released
- &os; 2.0 to the net and on CD-ROM (in late December).
+ to make this transition, and in December it released
+ &os; 2.0 to the world.
Despite being still more than a little rough around the edges,
the release was a significant success and was followed by the
more robust and easier to install &os; 2.0.5 release in
@@ -968,11 +974,11 @@
</indexterm>
<para>The development of &os; is a very open and flexible
process, being literally built from the contributions
- of hundreds of people around the world, as can be seen from
+ of thousands of people around the world, as can be seen from
our <ulink
url="&url.articles.contributors;/article.html">list of
contributors</ulink>. &os;'s development infrastructure
- allow these hundreds of developers to collaborate over the
+ allow these thousands of contributors to collaborate over the
Internet. We are constantly on the lookout for new developers
and ideas, and those interested in becoming more closely
involved with the project need simply contact us at the
@@ -1019,7 +1025,7 @@
was maintained by
<ulink url="http://www.nongnu.org/cvs/">CVS</ulink>
(Concurrent Versions System), a freely available source
- code control tool that comes bundled with &os;. In June
+ code control tool. In June
2008, the Project switched to using <ulink
url="http://subversion.tigris.org">SVN</ulink>
(Subversion). The switch was deemed necessary, as the
@@ -1079,16 +1085,9 @@
committer candidates in July 2012. Elections are held
every 2 years.</para>
- <para>Some core team members also have specific areas of
- responsibility, meaning that they are committed to
- ensuring that some large portion of the system works as
- advertised. For a complete list of &os; developers
- and their areas of responsibility, please see the <ulink
- url="&url.articles.contributors;/article.html">Contributors
- List</ulink></para>
-
<note>
- <para>Most members of the core team are volunteers when
+ <para>Like most developers, most members of the
+ core team are also volunteers when
it comes to &os; development and do not benefit from
the project financially, so <quote>commitment</quote>
should also not be misconstrued as meaning
More information about the svn-doc-all
mailing list