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Annotation of wikisrc/users/jdf.mdwn, revision 1.8

1.8     ! jdf         1: [[!toc levels=2 ]]
1.1       wiki        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: 
1.8     ! jdf        50: In [this 
        !            51: post](http://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-docs/2012/09/20/msg000295.html)
        !            52: I shared some ideas about what to do with documentation. Though much of it 
1.7       jdf        53: was proven not practical by the replies, I still have one idea: Unify 
                     54: documentation of NetBSD, and provide it all on a NetBSD system.
                     55: 
                     56: The first step is to merge as much content as possible into the NetBSD wiki. 
                     57: Currently, the NetBSD documentation is very diverse in its distribution form.
                     58: 
                     59: Then, the Google Code-In produced some nice results, including a CGI for a small 
                     60: markdown wiki to browse the wiki (if it was offline), and maybe even a terminal 
                     61: markdown browser.
                     62: 
                     63: Finally, ship these two in a pkgsrc package or even with base, and provide a 
                     64: small script which regularly updates the documentation.
                     65: 
                     66: ## NetBSD website
                     67: 
                     68: Currently, the NetBSD website is written in HTML and Docbook and requires many 
                     69: tools to be edited and committed. The final goal should be to have just a small 
                     70: homepage with a bit important information, but all the essential technical 
                     71: information should be in the wiki. There's also a separate page for this: 
                     72: [[htdocs_migration]].
                     73: 
                     74: Though the plan is currently to migrate *all* contents to the wiki, I don't 
                     75: think this is the way to go. A wiki just doesn't leave a good impression.
                     76: 
                     77: ## NetBSD community and marketing
                     78: 
                     79: Just some thoughts... I think NetBSD has a very bad way of making technical 
                     80: ecisions which are counterproductive from a marketing point of view, or just are 
                     81: not used for marketing purposes.
                     82: 
                     83: The world has changed; nowadays, there's a growing *hacker community* which 
                     84: consists of many people with an age below 30. They're just not used to the 
                     85: flexibility of the old tools Unix provides, and to the flexibility you have 
                     86: with a modern Linux.
                     87: 
                     88: There are repeating questions why NetBSD doesn't use git as its primary VCS, but 
                     89: rather CVS. CVS *is* indeed a very mighty tool, but many people don't know. They 
                     90: like git more because they can explicitly `push` with it (and don't know about 
                     91: hooks in CVS or Subversion).
                     92: The same holds for many other decisions.
                     93: 
                     94: NetBSD has a very... oldish view of how a community should be organised. On the 
                     95: one hand, there are the developers, which are coding the project, maintaining 
                     96: the website, maintaining packages, maintaining documentation, organising events, 
                     97: organising NetBSD itself... and on the other hand, there are the users. They're 
                     98: rather consumers than contributors.
                     99: 
                    100: The few ones which want to contribute are doing so, and after some time becoming 
                    101: developers with the right and possibility to do everything, but there's nothing
                    102: in between. There's only few community involvement overall, though there are
                    103: many topics which don't require a developer status.
                    104: I think breaking with the old habits and providing more community involvement 
                    105: and community support is the way to go, but except for starting with a 
                    106: user-editable wiki, I don't have many ideas how to do so.
                    107: 
                    108: ## NetBSD current
                    109: 
                    110: The same problem exists imho with the release cycle. The standard release cycle 
                    111: of NetBSD is too slow for many people who use it privately (just see how 
                    112: wide-distributed Arch Linux got), and tracking current is a rather obscure thing 
                    113: with compiling things on your own, etc. ...
                    114: And it's not well-documented. There *are* changes, but who knows them? Which was 
                    115: the current version where tmux was imported? Etc.
1.2       wiki      116: 
1.7       jdf       117: Tracking these changes more centrally, and providing a nice way to install and 
                    118: track a current installation would be a great benefit for NetBSD.