Fwd: Re: Which disk is which

[Jud]

It seems we have a volunteer.  ;-)

Devon forgot to cc the list and has asked me to forward this.  I snipped
a bit near the beginning (hope that's OK with you, Devon).

Jud

On Tue, 31 Aug 2004 14:42:03 +0200, "Devon H. O'Dell"
<dodell at sitetronics.com> said:
> Jud <judmarc at fastmail.fm> scribbled:
> > On Tue, 31 Aug 2004 05:55:47 +0800, "John"
> > <summer at computerdatasafe.com.au> said:
> > > Kevin D. Kinsey, DaleCo, S.P. wrote:
> > > > Hi, John ...
> > > > 
> > > > As you cc'ed doc@, I'm sending your original mail to them
> > > > also, so they'll have some background.  Comments inline.
> > > > 
> > > > John Summerfield wrote:
[snip]
> > > > Based on reading these sections/statements of the manual, it would seem
> > > > somewhat obvious that ad0 is the primary master IDE hard disk.  It is
> > > > hard, then, at least for me, to see this as a fault of the documentation.
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > The drawback to this is that you're writing from the POV of someone who 
> > > knows all this.
> > > 
> > > I'm not, I don't.
> > > 
> > > I have booted some other installers on this setup and find they do 
> > > provide more information than the bare OS-dependant name.
> > > 
> > > Ideally, on my system, the installer would say:
> > > AD0 Internal IDE drive, primary master, WD102AA 10.2 Gb
> > > DA0 External USB drive, Cypress ATMR04-0 40 Gb
> > > 
> > > so most, even modestly, technical people could instantly recognise which 
> > > disk is which.
> > 
> > Not my intent to join in beating you about the head and shoulders, but
> > what some folks have been trying to say (perhaps tersely, granted) is
> > that you're writing to people who (1) all have lots of things to do in
> > the Real World(tm), (2) have far less idea of how you think the
> > documentation should read than you do, and (3) if they share your ideas
> > about what the installer should show, which is not certain, haven't had
> > time to do anything about it.  Particularly regarding the installer, it
> > would appear that the change you want is either not trivial, not a
> > priority, or both.  
> > 
> > Here's how you ought to proceed:
> > 
> > Regarding the documentation, read the Handbook and any other sources you
> > can find regarding submitting a "patch" (a requested change) to the
> > docs, do so, and see if someone with authority to make ("commit") the
> > change agrees with you.
> > 
> > Regarding the installer, see if you can find someone (reading the
> > freebsd-hackers mailing list might be a place to start) interested in
> > and capable of making the types of changes you envision, who has time to
> > spend on the project.
> > 
> > Otherwise, things will remain as they are (actually not horrible from my
> > point of view - absolutely there is a learning curve, but I strangely
> > enjoy that sort of thing), since, as others have pointed out, you're
> > dealing with volunteers.
> > 
> > Hope this helps,
> > 
> > Jud
> 
> Changes to the installer or documentation regarding this should not be
> difficult to implement. I agree that for a new user, this seems quite
> backwards. It is the perogative of most BSD users and developers that
> new users should ``RTFM''; indeed, most aren't used to this. Our new
> users are generally people with a good idea about how computers work who
> haven't had the need to read a manual through installation before.
> People coming from either a Linux, Mac or Windows camp will not be
> familiar with our naming of IDE and SCSI (and USB mass storage, which
> share SCSI namespace, which can also be confusing) devices.
> 
> I'm not against the idea of people needing to learn our OS, but the
> installation procedure shouldn't be a curve at all -- it is a one time
> thing (at least for several days/weeks/months) for many new users. How
> is anybody to know that ad0 means IDE Disk 1 Channel 1 from the
> information that was pointed out in the manual. If one person has a
> problem with it, you can be fairly sure that a number of others have as
> well, and have simply kept their mouth shut (or went over to something
> else) for fear of lambastation.
> 
> Take a look at the first statements of your reply:
> 
> > Not my intent to join in beating you about the head and shoulders, but
> > what some folks have been trying to say (perhaps tersely, granted) is
> 
> 1) ``I'm disclaiming myself if anything I say might offend you'',
> 2) ``I acknowledge that others have said offensive things to you''.
> 
> This isn't the attitude we need to be bringing to people who are
> bringing problem reports to us.
> 
> John: since you've been so kind as to bring the problem report to us,
> I'm sure we'd benefit from your input as to how it should be explained
> in documentation. I'd also be willing to help you privately with
> patching the installer to give a bit more information about the disks.
> 
> -- 
> Kind regards,
> 
> Devon H. O'Dell   |          dodell at sitetronics.com
> Key: 4D3D8CA7     | IRC: bofh at WhatNET thebofh at efnet
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