New Freebsd Install Guide Available

[Jerold McAllister]

Ted Mittelstaedt writes: 

>  
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
>> [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Jerry
>> McAllister
> 
>> Well, both types of documentation are needed.   The official formal
>> documentation, which, of necessity , needs to be written in a rather
>> formal language style and other explanitory docs for newbies and
>> those of us who need a more conversational and step by step style
>> at least to get started at things.   There are several good books
>> out with more conversational style and some reasonable web sites
>> with tutorials.
>>  
>> The only problem with many of the web sites and even the books is
>> that they tend to take a personal preference prejucidial attitude
>> toward things rather than encouraging readers to try out various
>> things and giving them instruction toward those other choices.
>> Some examples are installing and using Gnome.   To read some guides,
>> one would think it is impossible to run FreeBSD without Gnome.
>> Some seem to imply it is absolutely necessary to install a third
>> party MBR/boot manager such as Grub to boot FreeBSD, just because
>> they like it.  Some tend to think the only possible shell to use
>> is bash or sh and anyone using something else can't possibly get their
>> work done.  The list could go on.
>>  
> 
> That sort of thing may be present in some books but it wasn't in
> mine. 
> 
> I will say one thing though, that a 3rd party book must specialize on
> some aspect of FreeBSD if people are going to buy it.  People that
> buy documentation usually have a more specific need than that they
> just want to boot FreeBSD on whatever spare PC they have lying around.
> So, for example in my book all examples were Bourne shell, because
> the focus of the book wasn't on running shells under UNIX.  However I
> never wrote in the book that that readers should only use Bourne.
> In fact, on the section on system administration I specifically said
> Bourne and csh wern't optimal for new users, and tcsh and bash were
> more popular, followed by an overview of the major shells.  Please
> be careful where your swinging that tarpot and brush in the future.

Sure, I know that.    I probably should have continued the qualifier I
used for the web site and said something like 'some of the books' since it
would be what I meant.   And the prejudices are different from one source
to the next - it isn't the same everywhere.   It is just something to be
aware of.  Even the official Handbook has a few personal prejudices that
aren't really as absolute as the text may imply, though I haven't looked
for any lately and it continues to be updated. 

////jerry 

> 
> Ted Mittelstaedt
> Author, The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide.
> http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com/
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