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Date:      Tue, 17 Oct 2000 13:23:52 -0400
From:      "Peter Brezny" <peter@sysadmin-inc.com>
To:        "'Jason C. Wells'" <jcwells@nwlink.com>
Cc:        <freebsd-doc@freebsd.org>
Subject:   RE: How To's
Message-ID:  <000201c0385f$05d88b60$47010a0a@fire.sysadmininc.com>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.96.1001016140814.4856A-100000@utah>

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Thanks jason, I respect your views, and all in all, i agree that hte
documentation for freebsd is a lot better than that for linux.

However, when you're trying to get something done, and you don't necessarily
have the time or patience to read 15 pages of ipfw implementation procedures
for an advanced firewall, and only need a simple implementation (like the on
provided in rc.firewall) it would really be helpful to have some form of
short step by step, "here's how you get the thing to run" _before_ you get
into the hard core heavy duty "this is how the thing works in technical
detail" which is what i feel the documentation for freebsd realy does well.

I think this is one of the primary reasons linux has taken off faster than
the obviously superior bsd based free os's.  and perhaps that's a good
thing, fewer intelligent users = fewer intelligent hackers?  but that's a
naieve approach for sure.

short step by step "here's how to get it running" documentation would do me
a lot of good.


Peter Brezny
SysAdmin Services, Inc.


-----Original Message-----
From: Jason C. Wells [mailto:jcwells@nwlink.com]
Sent: Monday, October 16, 2000 5:38 PM
To: Peter Brezny
Cc: freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: How To's


On Mon, 16 Oct 2000, Peter Brezny wrote:

> Why don't we have a how too link on the freebsd main page?

Because we don't have Howtos, not in any official capacity.

> I've not been able to find a single document that gives you the
> bare bones of what you need to do to enable ipfw.

I found it without much trouble.  First I clicked "Handbook" on the home
page.  Then I clicked firewalls.

http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/firewalls.html

Hmmm, there is one small piece missing on this page to be complete and
thorough.  It could be that the author felt that starting ipfw at boot was
better documented in the "boot" documentation.

Ahhh, there it is:

http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/boot-init.html

It tells me to read /etc/defaults/rc.conf.  You should be able to take it
from there.

I feel it would be better for the firewall doc to add a sentence about
starting ipfw at boot.

> Please consider putting together a HOW TO page and putting a link to it on
> the main freebsd site under documentation.  We need it.

No. We don't.  More aptly stated, we don't have documentation named
"Howto", therefore we don't have a link.  Documents called Howto do exist
outside of the documentation project.  I personally, would prefer to see
those docs rolled into the official documentation.  I am sure lots of
people are working hard at just that sort of thing.

At the root of it all, Howto is just a name for how the Linux world
_doesn't_ do documentation.  FreeBSD does have documentation.  One simply
needs to learn what we call it.

Thank you,
Jason C. Wells




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