Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2000 23:31:45 -0400 From: "Eric Ogren" <eogren@earthlink.net> To: "David Murphy" <drjolt@redbrick.dcu.ie>, <freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: make world failed Message-ID: <03d301bf9de6$4f694080$0200000a@dinternet.dyn.ml.org> References: <Pine.BSF.4.10.10004031529120.36725-100000@home.offwhite.net> <Pine.BSF.4.21.0004031348070.2849-100000@dt051n0b.san.rr.com> <20000404001130.A83840@enigma.redbrick.dcu.ie> <00040400022200.20912@Bozo_3.BozoLand.domain>
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Hi- IMO this thread has gone on long enough. However, since I'm hypocritical, I'm going to post one (and hopefully only one) message regarding it. > > 1) The responsibility for locating available documentation > > rests with the user. Who else should the responsibility fall on? Blindly doing things on ANY operating system is a bad idea. Just because WinNT/Win2000 has a more user-friendly administration interface doesn't mean that your average person should just start screwing around in the control panel. Any user should read the documentation, especially with anything related to system maintenance. I know that people generally don't like to do this, but it's still necessary: we try to make software as user-friendly as possible, but computers, and specifically OSs are still complicated. and, just a kind of general comment on the documentation: The RELNOTES, ERRATA, and README files AFAIK have always been mostly associated with a binary release. If you were simply doing a binary upgrade (which I believe we reccommend for those who don't follow the -stable/-current lists), you wouldn't have to know that you can't simply do a "cd /usr/src && make world" to upgrade between major version #s. Personally, I feel that, given as probably 90% of FreeBSD users buy/burn a CD or simply download FreeBSD from the net, cluttering up the relnotes/errata/readme files with instructions on how to upgrade from source would just needlessly a) confuse the majority of users and b) put unnecessary information into these files. As has been pointed out to you, the handbook does say that those who wish to use -stable / -current (ie upgrade via source) MUST read the -stable and -current mailing lists. I don't know how else we can make it more clear that upgrading from source is not advised for newbies or people that are not willing to put in the time to read [or at least skim] the mailing list. The one big problem that I see is that the makeworld.html file does not yet have any caveats regarding the 3.x -> 4.0 upgrade. This should definitely be fixed, and I believe Nik Clayton (doc project manager) is/has prepared patches to fix this. How else would you suggest that this is made more clear? I'm not trying to flame you; I'm trying to get your opinion. I've been using FreeBSD for 3 or 4 years now, and I've been thinking of trying to get more involved in some way. Maybe writing some documentation to clarify the upgrade process could be a way to get started. Since it seems you don't feel that users should be forced to submit their own docs, could you at least tell a [prospective] doc-guy where else he should put pointers in? thanks, Eric To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
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