Re: Why there isn't an ISO: a very bad state of mind

From: clvrmnky (clvrmnky_at_coldmail.com.invalid)
Date: 11/10/03 

Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 11:56:45 -0500

[Herein lies my latest and final rant on this subject, if such a
sprawling and convoluted attack on computing in general can be called a
"subject". I apologize for adding more noise than signal to this group,
and will disappear for a bit whilst I do a complete reinstall/update of
several edge and server boxes from 3.1 to 3.4. I'm sure it will be both
"easy" and "friendly" and that I will be expected to pay attention to
the details and makes sure I do my homework first. I also apologize for
the snarkiness and SHOUTING, but I'm still working on my second cup of
coffee.]

GP wrote:

> Marc Espie wrote:
>
>> Have you ever really looked at OpenBSD documentation ? we've got a lot
>> of generic manpages that show how to set up a lot of stuff in simple
>> terms, whenever possible. Between afterboot(8), vpn(8), ssl(8) and a
>> few others.
>
>
> Ho! So you have installation instructions in the man pages. If this is
> how things work, maybe you should have a list of man pages in the order
> in which they should be read.
>
You've been told repeatedly that you need to start with "man afterboot".
  Which, in turn, points you at the MOST IMPORTANT MAN PAGES AND DOCS
YOU NEED TO GET STARTED.

Since there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY FOR THE OBSD TEAM TO KNOW EXACTLY WHAT
YOU WANT TO DO, it is expected that YOU can take this primer wherever
YOU NEED TO GO WITH IT.

>> So, if you have good ideas about this, how about starting working on it ?
>> Write actual documentation, send patches, etc.
>
>
> I am indeed planning to write some very basic information for a
> user-friendly distro, which doesn't mean a "for dummies" distro. It
> would be for people who can read solid instructions, if you wish.
>
Such a thing already exists -- there are innumerable user desktop
Linux distros out there. If you intend to help OpenBSD, you should know
your audience first, otherwise you are wasting your time. You might
want to start with the concept that OpenBSD is not a "distro". You
might want to move from there to the idea that things like "wget" and
"ISO" are not "Linux".

> But my experience is mainly with Slackware and my feeling is Volkerding
> doesn't give much of a damn anymore: there are too many things to fix --
> this cd-rw problem I was talking about is but one exemple -- scripts
> exit without an error message, no discussion group onsite and
> alt.os.linux.slackware having turned into a mess loooong ago (see my
> message to Null), outdated documentation both onsite and on the market,
> etc. In a word, nobody coming from Windows will like Slackware.
>
Gee. YOu have experience with exactly one non-Windows OS, and immediate
assume that your only experience is not the yeardstick for the whole
world? Ever consider that other people may have different
considerations than you. Ever consider that you might still be a
newbie, and anything you know may be from standing on the shoulders of
giants?

> So, I'm taking a look around and one of the options was OBSD. When you
> guys don't provide ISOs or any instructions on installation save using
> ftp, to me this is a wrong attitude. And that's only the very first step.
>
Bull***. OpenBSD is even less interesting for someone "coming from
Windows". That is not, and never was, it's intended audience. Cripes,
I'd wager half the people who use it do not even install X11. I know I
do not, and my company certainly does not.

You are talking about "advocacy" and not "documentation". This is a
valiant effort, but the two should not be conflated. HOWEVER, before
you considered advocacy of OpenBSD, PLEASE learn how people use it, and
what they expect to hear. Very few people who "get" the point of
OpenBSD really want to hear another "this is how you burn a CD" HOWTO.

For crying out loud, WE ALREADY KNOW HOW TO FIND THIS INFORMATION. It's
called "Google", and it's the only way to fly. Hey, a Google search
often ends up back at openbsd.org, or deadly.org or monkey.org.

This is the way it should be and all is well in the universe.

> When companies put a product on the market -- a car, a cellphone or even
> a movie -- they have people which are not specialists use it beforehand
> and many adjustments are made at this stage. Your man pages seem OK, but
> not for a newbie.
>
Wow. You get it. I wonder if you asked Sun the same question? Just
becasue OpenBSD is free doesn't mean it's newbie-easy. Just because
it's free doesn't mean it isn't a serious tool in the right hands.

There ALREADY are newbie-friendly computer systems. They come
preconfigured and pre-installed. They have all the apps you need, and
installing new ones is easy to do. The people who write the docs and
manage the support for these platforms doa fine job of CATERING TO THAT
MARKET.

If you want that kind of support, buy a Windows box or a nice Apple G5.
  Don't come to OpenBSD complaining about the lack of hand-holding to
make a simple bootable CD.

A cellphone or car is a CONSUMER PRODUCT. OpenBSD is NOT. OpenBSD is
USED to MAKE CONSUMER PRODUCTS. A movie is media, and one does not need
to know the underpinnings of creating a film to enjoy one. HOWEVER,
learning more about the process can increase one's enjoyment of the film.

However, OpenBSD is not a chunk of media to be enjoyed; a single night
of installing on a spare PC for fun, unless by "fun" you mean having to
solve interesting problems and learn about cool stuff and be involved in
a never-ending discovery of New Ways To Do Interesting Ways and Solve
Problems (which I happen to do). Installing _any_ operating system is
not a passive operation.

You are expected to contribute to the process, possibly by testing your
own knowledge in interesting ways.

It is expected you will know whether you are this type of person or not,
and will make your decision accordingly. It is also expected that you
will not deride and belittle others (as you have been doing) for making
a different choice.

> MAKE THIS TEST. Ask a few persons who have never used Linux or another
> BSD before, to log on to your site, and see if how they manage to get up
> and running. Do not provide any other instructions and see how long they
> take, wonder if anybody having a regular job and a family to take care
> of would spend that much timea installing an OS. In its present state,
> though not everything si wrong about it, OBSD documentation would fail
> miserably.
>
Been there, done that. My GF doesn't care what the *** OS I have on my
internal network. I taught her enough in 5 minutes to manage her web
presence, mount a drive and check her mail. This is all she needs.

If she wanted to learn how to hack at old PCs installing Linux or BSD
for vanity on spare boxes, she'd be lucky to have me around. HOWEVER,
given that she doesn't want to do this, what is your point? If YOU want
to, then DO YOUR OWN FUCKING HOMEWORK.

How many fucking times a day do you _have_ to install an OS? How many
times a *year*? How many? If you do it for a living, you had better
fucking learn how to make your own ISO.

You either use OpenBSD primarily as a tool at work, or you use it to
hack. Either way, you are damn well better come prepared to work a
little. Not a lot, just a little. Complaints to the contrary are
generally met with immediate feelings that the complainer is lazy, or a
loser.

> At first, people don't want to learn all the inner workings behind the
> scene. They want to get something working. Final. They want something
> like the instructions I got from Bas Keur. Then, they might have a need
> of options other than those used for wget in this instance and, since
> they have learned about wget because they USED! USED! USED! it, and if
> they've been told about man pages, they will check for some other
> options. That's the way people learn: using things, not reading man
> pages and faqs before anything works.
>
Then read the wget man pages. This information is not hidden and each
and every single one of us in this forum learned it the same way you
have to: by asking an intelligent question and moving forward in
discrete steps.

You don't have to use wget to understand written instructions. And,
hey, guess what? You now have a skill you can use elsewhere. Basic
problem-solving is a transferable skill.

The OBSD team has given us plenty of /OpenBSD specific/ information most
of us need to get started, with the assumption you know how to find the
rest. Regardless of what you or anyone else may think, I'm of avergage
intelligence. I installed OpenBSD on several i386 boxes after a few
years of Linux experience using only the FAQ. This was back in the 2.6
days, and on an ISA box.

Somehow I managed to do an ftp install to make a 3-legged router config
running a secure web server. It really isn't that hard, and I resent
being told that because /you/ do not want to put the time into
bootstrapping yourself, the OpenBSD project is somehow at fault.

There is always room for improvement. Your bellyaching is not improvement.

> And if, while installing, a problem might happen with such a controller
> or video card, don't clutter the basic instructions with all those
> apartés. Make a page called Problems and link to anchors from the main
> page. Then, make another page called More for people who want to know more.
>
All actions are possible "problems". How can anyone, including document
writers, know every possible problem you or others may run into? There
are things called "Frequently-Asked Questions" that address the most
common specifics that one usually runs into. However, there is no way
for a small group to index a complete list of every single "problem" one
might encounter. Especially if the knowledge to solve that problem is
involved or (here's the kicker) IS NOT LIMITED TO THAT SINGLE APPLICATION.

In fact, each problem of which you speak is broken down into smaller
pieces. It is expected you know how to solve this small pieces, or
break them down further until you _can_ solve it, so that the larger
intention can be completed to a satisfactory point. Repeat until you no
longer care to hack, or you lose your job or get fired.

Life is infinitely more complication and simpler than you think.

> Some people say that OBSD is not for this kind of beginners. The problem
> with this conception of not starting at the very beginning is that
> sooner or later, there will be "holes" in the documentation and there
> are "splits" all over the place to explain how this and that really
> works. And, of course, most of the time, there are even more holes in
> those splits.
>
As with all human endeavors, you are expected to fill in the dark places
in your knowledge yourself. Some things are easier to learn that
others. It is expected that the intended audience for OpenBSD can be
expected to read the FAQ, search the internet and form intelligent
questions based on the information they find. After a while, it is
further expected that one will be learn what they need to bootstrap
themselves to the next step, and so on.

> Also, and this is one problem I face, if people get experience on Linux,
> they've sweated a lot to learn those basics and then they not very keen
> on learning other names for interfaces, utilities, etc. Only a fringe of
> the fringe OS that Linux is will move on to OBSD. So, you better make
> sure they get to it from the start.
>
Your logic is impeccably flawed. Whether or not people ger experienced
on Linux first, the types of skills necessary to work with a Unix-style
operating system will work in a variety of settings. Your assumption is
that somehow Linux is the Lingua Franca simply because you percieve it
to be more successful. Success can be measured in a variety of ways,
however.

You might want to inspect the TCP/IP stack for the Linux kernel (and
Windows, if you can find it) and see where /that/ came from. The world
encompasses more that your short-sighted view of it.

Learn your history before you pretend your 2 years of Linux experience
on a single distro means anything more than you think it does.

> So, the reason I won't be working on BSD stuff instead of Debian's or
> some other Linux distro is that I feel there is less undertanding here
> of what needs to be done. What I'm doing now is pleading for the most
> basic marketing rules and what I get for my efforts is people saying I'm
> trolling.
>
Marketing? What planet are you from? OpenBSD is a *tool*. It is a
means to an end. What is your intention? What do you plan to /do/ with it?

You are called a troll because you are behaving like one. Think about that.

> At the present time, I get next to no paradoxal sleep. I get awaken each
> night after 4 to 5 hours of sleep and I get no sound sleep thereafter.
> So I don't feel like fighting the people I'd be supposed to work with in
> order to get my point through. I don't want to explain at lenght why
> marketing -- considering the "client" POV -- is necessary even with open
> source.
>
Perhaps less time tilting at windwills is in order?

> Add to this that I have some reticences concerning the BSD license,
> that, as I already said, I'm more used to Linux, and you should
> understand I won't invest any energies into learning OBSD.
>
Oh, that GPL will protect us all *so* much better. Learn something now,
chump: different projects need different licenses. Believe what magic
you want, but my *commercial* software company needs to use a variety of
licenses for different releases. We use the BSD style where it makes
sense, the GPL less often, and a proprietory license for the rest.

> But from the hours I've invested here so far, you should gather that
> before you can get anybody to help you write good doc, you should at
> least provide well in sight on your site, either links to an ISO or to
> instructions on how to create one, so that people can install and
> reinstall wherever they want without having to d/l every time. Then,
> unify all instructions on how to install OBSD from there.
>
Hours invested only in yourself. The information you requested was
available in a variety of ways, from a variety of sources. You just
refuse to teach yourself, and call others stupid for your lack. Priceless!

> I believe this is all I've got to say on the matter. Good luck!
>
Good riddance.

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