Re: Umm...

[Reuben Sailor <rogue_(_at_)_ngxweb_(_dot_)_com>]

This thread probably should be in the misc list, but I will add some comments.

I am a *nix newbie coming straight from a windows background and I am a 
relatively young guy (late 20's).  I bought the obsd firewall book and 
found it to invaluable in learning OBSD.

I had installed red hat and then decided that I didnt want to spend all my 
free time checking for and applying patches, so I moved on to freebsd and 
in researching freebsd, I found OBSD.  Since my interest was in building a 
firewall, security, and learning UNIX, this seemed to be a perfect os for 
me.  I still have quite a ways to go, but so far I like it very much.

Some people of the list have been extremely helpful (especially, Peter 
Debono, and Nick Holland).  Without the OBSD firewall book and help from 
these people, I would have had a much more difficult time with this OS.  I 
think there ought to be something there to fill the void for beginners like 
myself, who doesnt mind taking on the challenge of learning new OS.  I dont 
think it is particularly desirable or wise to have people begin with other 
OS's and then "graduate" to OBSD.

I would be one of the people interested in purchasing some sort of 
manual/guide/whatever for obsd.....even perhaps a printed version of the 
man pages would be better than nothing.  I know some, if not all, may be 
wondering why when I can view them online.  The answer is that I find it 
fairly tedious to constantly scroll up and down on the man pages (and I 
have a 21" monitor at 1600x1200). Moreover, I would like to be able to read 
them during my 45 min commutes.  If publishing the man pages proves to be 
inefficient due to the frequency of changes, then, depending on the 
frequency of changes, perhaps posting the man pages in PDF would be a 
better alternative.

I would volunteer my time to helping convert them to PDF (not knowing much 
about unix or programming and not having much money, this is the only way I 
can contribute to the project at the moment).

In any event, I think pursuing such a venture would be a good idea provided 
it did not take any (or at least not much) resources from the development 
and there remained an option to purchase the CD alone.  The Daemon News 
offer seems interesting.  I purchased my OBSD CD along with some other 
things from them and had a very good experience.  It also appears that they 
are very active in promoting the BSD community in general.  Just off the 
top of my head, perhaps some knowledgeable people at Daemon News could do 
the writing (with some of the OBSD team serving as technical editors) for 
the book, leaving the OBSD team free to concentrate primarily on 
development.  The end result could be packaged together as a box set or 
even separate products.

just my 2 pennies worth

-RS-





At 11:24 AM 1/29/01, Theo de Raadt wrote:
> > Well, I think it would be nice if OpenBSD occupied more bookshelf space
> > at my local Border's bookstore than it does now (none).
> > I can remember when IBM's OS/2 used to occupy more shelf space in Fry's
> > than WinNT and I thought IBM just may be coming back.  Now it's
> > nonexistent.
> > Other people think RedHat is good just because that's what they see
> > taking
> > up space on the bookshelf nowadays.
>
> Bookstores like Borders want us to make a box-set, with a book inside
> too.
>
> That means OpenBSD would cost more.  Because of volumes of production,
> we would probably do only a box-set then, not sell a seperate CD.  (If
> we sold a seperate CD, and bookstores sold a box set, they might
> consider that unfair).
>
> It's complicated.  What would you guys like?