>-----Original Message-----
>From: abs@oblivion.mono.org [mailto:abs@oblivion.mono.org]On Behalf Of
>David Brownlee
>Sent: Wednesday, 16 February 2000 2:36 AM
>To: Andrew Crossley
>Subject: NetBSD guide
>
>
>	How are things going with this?
>
>
>		David/absolute
>


Gidday David (and NetBSD Crew)

Things have been slow but good.  2 heavy work weeks, but the last week have
spent a lot of time researching NetBSD and getting a list of questions for
the list.  Nothing to submit yet.  Getting the little quirks and gotchas
sorted out.  Also looking into the various ways and means to fly my web site
using unix and what i'll use to write the book.  I've got Amaya running
under Linux Emulation which I intend to create a basic site with, and it
looks like i'll use Lyx for the text.  I did a reinstall of my OSs to give
NetBSD more space, as I'm using NetBSD for more and more of my productivity.
I'm resisting the temptation to use StarOffice for everything, and
concentrating on the more "traditional" Unix tools.

I've also done a fair bit of reading of various Unix books over the last 3-4
weeks to research their layout, and make sure i don't miss any good ideas on
this issue.  I want to depart somewhat from the learning curve that most of
these books use.  I'm going to concentrate on the immediate issues for one
to get a functional desktop system working (explaining as i go of course),
followed in section 2 the deeper issues eg improving system performance etc.
Eg in section one i'll introduce shell scripting at a reasonabely early
stage.  I believe it's better to use vi to execute long and repetitous
commands, with the added advantage of them being available for future use.
by doing this, the reader soon learns to understand permissions, which sort
of kills 2 birds with 1 stone, so as to speak.  That's just 1 idea of many
that i have for the manual.

By the weekend I'll have a good bag of questions for the mailing list.  I
want to make sure i've covered my bases before i go crying to the m-list,
when a little reading could solve most of the problems.  That's the thing
about being a newbie.  A lot of learning which takes time in itself.  But
i'm retaining the feel that's neccessary to make the manual easier to read.
I won't fall into the trap of talking like a Unix junkie to another Unix
junkie !!

Hopefully after another week i'll have the skeleton of the first section,
and then it's just a matter of filling in the words.

I'm making a hard copy of posts to the list that are relevent for my level
of NetBSD experience, and that are relevent to the book.  This gives me the
advantage of reading away from the computer.  As you know it's an active
list, so the file is growing fat quickly.  I've also done the admin stuff
like prepeared an address book for the people who have offered to proof read
etc.

So there you go dood.  Things are happenin' even though i've been quiet on
the list.  that's the way i generally get to work.  My projects get slices
(not partitions :-) of my time and the NetBSD folk will see little periods
of activity, then silence, then activity etc etc etc.  But the project is
steaming ahead.  I can't let this one go..  ... the void in docs is to big.

Stay cool dood (37deg C here today!!)

Andrew