1: [[!toc ]]
2:
3: # jdf's wiki page
4:
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.
7:
8: ## NetBSD flavoured
9:
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.
115:
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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