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Subject: Re: What printed documentation do we need?
To: kelly@fsl.noaa.gov (Sean Kelly)
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 96 10:26:34 MET
From: Greg Lehey <lehey.pad@sni.de>
Cc: doc@freebsd.org
In-Reply-To: <9601232037.AA07363@emu.fsl.noaa.gov>; from "Sean Kelly" at Jan 23, 96 1:37 pm
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>
>>>>>> "Bora" == Bora Akyol <akyol@wireless.stanford.edu> writes:
>
>     Bora> By the way, How complete are the O'reilly books that are on
>     Bora> 4.4BSD. I browsed through and thought that they were mostly
>     Bora> man pages.  I am thinking about buying them but do not know
>     Bora> if it's worth it.
>
> A lot of people think it's nice to have all the man pages printed
> nicely and bound together.  I'd be one of them if I had money up the
> wazoo, which I don't.
>
> However, I do recommend at least one of the books from the series:
>
>    4.4BSD System Manager's Manual
>    By Computer Systems Research Group, UC Berkeley
>    1st Edition June 1994
>    ISBN: 1-56592-080-5
>    804 pages, $30.00 (US)
>
> and if you're feeling particularly rich, then get these other two:
>
>    4.4BSD User's Supplementary Documents
>    By Computer Systems Research Group, UC Berkeley
>    1st Edition July 1994
>    ISBN: 1-56592-076-7
>    712 pages, $30.00 (US)
>
> and
>
>    4.4BSD Programmer's Supplementary Documents
>    By Computer Systems Research Group, UC Berkeley
>    1st Edition July 1994
>    ISBN: 1-56592-079-1
>    596 pages, $30.00 (US)
>
> You'll find a lot more papers/articles than man pages in these.

OK, now we're getting back to my original message.  I think it's very
likely that Walnut Creek will print FreeBSD versions of the 4.4 System
Manager's Manual (SMM), Programmer's Reference Manual (PRM), and
User's Reference Manual (URM).  These would all be significantly
larger than the Lite 4.4BSD manuals.  My question was: are the USD and
PSD (the last two manuals mentioned above) worthwhile?  About 65% of
the material is AT&T copyright, and most of it is obsolescent.  Could
you (and anybody else who is interested) tell me which parts of these
two manuals you find particularly useful.  If you look in the flyleaf,
you'll then see if it is subject to any copyright.  In particular, of
course, is there any added value by printing FreeBSD versions?  My
thoughts are that we should print completely different manuals
describing software which is not described in these manuals.

Greg