>Many of the problems we've run into are addressed in the FAQ that Colin
>Wood wrote.  For a number of years he was taking questions and answers
>from the mailing list and putting them into the FAQ, and maybe it's time
>to review this to see if there are new problems that need to be added to
>the FAQ.  Unfortunately not many new users look for answers in the FAQ,

My initial experience was installing 1.4.1, and Colin's FAQ was 
invaluable, providing answers to virtually every problem I ran into.

>Technical documentation seems to
>come to two basic flavors; either a Dummy's Guide or a Reference Manual. 
>The first is way to basic for all but the newest users while the second
>tends to be far to advanced for all but the experienced users and it
>makes for extremely poor reading since it's not a "How-To". (A bit like
>reading the dictionary to learn a language.)

Agreed, and I think a "dummy's manual" would be very helpful 
especially since new users not only have to learn how to *use* NetBSD 
but also have to serve as their own system administrators.  For me, 
the latter is the steep part of the learning curve.  Sam's "Teach 
Yourself UNIX in 24 Hours" got me through the "how to use UNIX" part, 
and "UNIX for Dummies" by Young & Levine is a very useful CPU-side 
reference.

The difficulties arise in "how do I specify my news server for trn?" 
or "How do I get elm to fetch my mail from my ISP's POPmail server?" 
The man pages are frequently all but useless for the new user, often 
being more of a list of specifications than a useful description of 
how to use the application or to configure the system.

>I think there's room and a need for both types of Installation
>Documentation.  The "Dummy's Guide" (no offense intended to any new users
>here) is best written from the point of view of the novice/first-time
>user.  Most of us, having gotten past the initial installation, forgot
>all the minor details we stumbled over to get there. I'd be happy to help
>answer questions, review documentation and/or offer suggestions for this
>but I really think it needs to come from a real new user or users.
>
>The Reference Manual is probably very much like the FAQ we have now. (And
>by the way, Dave Burgess's FAQ is also a very good source even for mac68k
>users.)

The FAQs have been a great help to me, and the port-mac mailing list 
also for the things I didn't find in the FAQs (or didn't look in the 
right places).

Related to this is the architecture of the NetBSD site itself, which 
makes it hard to find stuff.  It seems to have grown organically 
rather than logically; when trying to ftp into the site using NetBSD, 
it seems like the path to find what one is looking for is about as 
counterintuitive as can be.  It's also hard to find information- 
e.g., I want to install pine but there's no way of knowing that I 
also need pico, until pkg_add points it out.  Then I have to restart 
pppd, log back into ftp.netbsd.org, sift my way through the 
directories...  and maybe do this two or three times until I finally 
have all the packages that are required.  I've had to waste a lot of 
time trying to find stuff on the ftp site due to counterintuitive 
organization.

Seems to me that the logical path would be:
  ftp.netbsd.org/mac68k/1.4.2/software/packages/category/file-3.14.tgz

rather than
  ftp.netbsd.org/pub/packages/mac68k/1.4.2/etc/etc. I'm sure I missed 
a few layers of directories there.

I'm sure that there are other considerations of which I am unaware 
that might make the current organizational hierarchy of the site be 
what it is.  Even with the inconvenience, NetBSD remains an amazing 
achievement!