Add a Splash Screen Section to the Handbook?

[Manolis Kiagias]

Gabor PALI wrote:
> Dear members,
>
>
> A few days ago we received a generous contribution from Joseph J.
> Barbish on using splash screens in FreeBSD [1].  Initially, it started
> as a fix for the FAQ, but after I suggested Joe to insert the
> descriptive part of his work into the Handbook, he offered an entire
> section for referencing from the FAQ.
>
> He recommended to put this section into Chapter 3 ("UNIX Basics"), but I
> would like to receive some comments on this before I start to integrate
> it into that chapter.  (Do you think it is needed, if yes, it is a good
> place for that and so on.)  Of course, after it has been moved to the
> Handbook, it would shorten the corresponding FAQ entry to contain only
> the necessary references and to avoid unnecessary duplication of the
> content.
>
>
> Thank you for your comments in advance.
>
>
> Cheers,
> :g
>
> [1] http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-doc/2008-November/014989.html
>   

I followed the discussion and I think this is useful info that should be
part of the documentation. The submitted text looks ok more or less (and
I am quite sure you will it touch it up anyway ;) ). I am more concerned
about the placement of this info though.
Supposedly the first part of the Handbook is more or less introductory
and designed to teach fundamental UNIX concepts. Granted, this rule is
violated a few times, some parts are way more advanced and refer to
later sections. However I believe we should keep chapter 3 focused on
exactly the title: UNIX basics. Imagine yourself being a beginner and
trying to find some useful info on basic UNIX commands. Would you rather
find the discussion of a splash screen useful? I doubt it. What's more,
you would not be able to fully understand what is going on.
There is another possible section for this info: Chapter 12 (boot). If
you come to think about it, the splash screen is more related to booting
than actual system operation (the "basics"). In fact there is a section
on loader.conf in chapter 12 and I think this info could be adjusted to
fit the chapter nicely.

There are could also be other places, but this is the only that comes to
mind at the moment. One could also argue we need something of a "Misc
settings" chapter, where all this useful but maybe hard to categorize
stuff would go. But then again, this maybe the role of the FAQ.

By the way, the above is just a suggestion, if the general consensus is
to merge it into the Basics chapter, I won't object :)

manolis@