Annotation of wikisrc/users/jdf.mdwn, revision 1.7
1.1 wiki 1: [[!toc ]]
2:
3: # jdf's wiki page
1.2 wiki 4:
1.7 ! jdf 5: Note: This is not what I'm really working on, it's just a place to gather some
! 6: notes I took about some topics.
1.2 wiki 7:
1.7 ! jdf 8: ## NetBSD flavoured
1.2 wiki 9:
1.7 ! jdf 10: Currently, NetBSD is a very generic operating system, leaving almost all
! 11: choices up to the user. While some consider this a strength, and it
! 12: definetly is for people who know what they're doing, it's an obstacle for
! 13: people who then have to setup *everything* by hand.
! 14:
! 15: Creating a *NetBSD flavoured* distribution shouldn't be much work, and require
! 16: just minor sysinst modifications.
! 17: It shouldn't be much work to just package distribution sets that already
! 18: include a list of packages it installs and several preconfigured configuration
! 19: files, maybe also some additional wrapper scripts.
! 20: On the other hand, you could also add some package calls to sysinst and just
! 21: provide a list of packages you consider necessary.
! 22:
! 23: My original attempt was to create a range of distributions for different
! 24: purposes, i.e. one for developers, one for graphic designers, one for servers,
! 25: etc. I don't know if this is the right way, esp. since some of the applications
! 26: are *very* specific. You cannot really provide a sane server default
! 27: installation except for some basic things like installing a vim, but that's all.
! 28: My current idea is to provide just one, maybe named *NetBSD flavoured*, with at
! 29: least the following tools on board:
! 30: * vim
! 31: * pkgin
! 32: * git
! 33: * fossil
! 34: * subversion
! 35: * some other important VCSes
! 36: * light-desktop (i.e., LXDE)
! 37: * screen (tmux is in base)
! 38: * some sane X terminal emulators
! 39: * a browser (Firefox?!)
! 40: * a mailer (Thunderbird? Claws-mail?)
! 41: * emacs (maybe too large?)
! 42: * perl
! 43: * python
! 44: * mplayer (when it's possible to pack it up)
! 45: * pdf viewer
! 46: * preconfigured bozohttpd running on localhost showing documentation
! 47:
! 48: ## NetBSD documentation
! 49:
! 50: In [http://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-docs/2012/09/20/msg000295.html](this
! 51: post) I shared some ideas about what to do with documentation. Though much of it
! 52: was proven not practical by the replies, I still have one idea: Unify
! 53: documentation of NetBSD, and provide it all on a NetBSD system.
! 54:
! 55: The first step is to merge as much content as possible into the NetBSD wiki.
! 56: Currently, the NetBSD documentation is very diverse in its distribution form.
! 57:
! 58: Then, the Google Code-In produced some nice results, including a CGI for a small
! 59: markdown wiki to browse the wiki (if it was offline), and maybe even a terminal
! 60: markdown browser.
! 61:
! 62: Finally, ship these two in a pkgsrc package or even with base, and provide a
! 63: small script which regularly updates the documentation.
! 64:
! 65: ## NetBSD website
! 66:
! 67: Currently, the NetBSD website is written in HTML and Docbook and requires many
! 68: tools to be edited and committed. The final goal should be to have just a small
! 69: homepage with a bit important information, but all the essential technical
! 70: information should be in the wiki. There's also a separate page for this:
! 71: [[htdocs_migration]].
! 72:
! 73: Though the plan is currently to migrate *all* contents to the wiki, I don't
! 74: think this is the way to go. A wiki just doesn't leave a good impression.
! 75:
! 76: ## NetBSD community and marketing
! 77:
! 78: Just some thoughts... I think NetBSD has a very bad way of making technical
! 79: ecisions which are counterproductive from a marketing point of view, or just are
! 80: not used for marketing purposes.
! 81:
! 82: The world has changed; nowadays, there's a growing *hacker community* which
! 83: consists of many people with an age below 30. They're just not used to the
! 84: flexibility of the old tools Unix provides, and to the flexibility you have
! 85: with a modern Linux.
! 86:
! 87: There are repeating questions why NetBSD doesn't use git as its primary VCS, but
! 88: rather CVS. CVS *is* indeed a very mighty tool, but many people don't know. They
! 89: like git more because they can explicitly `push` with it (and don't know about
! 90: hooks in CVS or Subversion).
! 91: The same holds for many other decisions.
! 92:
! 93: NetBSD has a very... oldish view of how a community should be organised. On the
! 94: one hand, there are the developers, which are coding the project, maintaining
! 95: the website, maintaining packages, maintaining documentation, organising events,
! 96: organising NetBSD itself... and on the other hand, there are the users. They're
! 97: rather consumers than contributors.
! 98:
! 99: The few ones which want to contribute are doing so, and after some time becoming
! 100: developers with the right and possibility to do everything, but there's nothing
! 101: in between. There's only few community involvement overall, though there are
! 102: many topics which don't require a developer status.
! 103: I think breaking with the old habits and providing more community involvement
! 104: and community support is the way to go, but except for starting with a
! 105: user-editable wiki, I don't have many ideas how to do so.
! 106:
! 107: ## NetBSD current
! 108:
! 109: The same problem exists imho with the release cycle. The standard release cycle
! 110: of NetBSD is too slow for many people who use it privately (just see how
! 111: wide-distributed Arch Linux got), and tracking current is a rather obscure thing
! 112: with compiling things on your own, etc. ...
! 113: And it's not well-documented. There *are* changes, but who knows them? Which was
! 114: the current version where tmux was imported? Etc.
1.2 wiki 115:
1.7 ! jdf 116: Tracking these changes more centrally, and providing a nice way to install and
! 117: track a current installation would be a great benefit for NetBSD.
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