[nycbug-talk] eurobsdcon

[Pastor Mac]

On Sunday, May 23, 2004, at 10:30  PM, G.Rosamond wrote:

> I think there's been some good input on this.
>
> I'd actually like to hear more from the lurkers on the list, whether 
> or not they have attended a NYCBUG meeting.
>
> It would seem that they would have some reaction to the posted 
> comments. . .and some insight others are missing.


A documentation project has also been pitched targeted towards home 
users, experimenters/dabblers, and other such non-power or professional 
users over on the freebsd-newbies list.  I've also been seeing a 
recurring thread in comp.os.unix.freebsd and comp.os.unix.freebsd.misc 
from inquirers about what FreeBSD is as it relates to Linux.  Indeed, 
it seems with a recent Usenet poster that he thought FBSD is simply a 
flavor of Linux.  Several replies followed up on that question (the 
replies were well written and polite, btw) and the original poster went 
out and bought a FreeBSD set from Fry's.

I think the idea of writing a tutorial for basic users, i.e. those who 
have a good command of PC/Mac navigation, who want to see what an open 
source *NIXish OS is like and how it can be deployed as a home 
server/firewall would be a quality project.  I've looked about and 
around for such a basic tutorial on either Linux or BSD and have yet 
been able to find something that was, IMO, really geared for a non-geek 
user.  This angle, I believe, is where a BSD could really take off--the 
central storage for a family's documents, music, etc plus providing a 
truly first rate firewall.

Since the above is what I intend for my home, I'd love to offer 
whatever writing skills I have to help document whatever materializes 
as my home server to the project.  From my initial introductory post a 
couple of weeks ago, I received extremely generous offers of help which 
I intend to follow up on when we get to Sussex in less than two weeks.  
As to making meetings in the City, I cannot judge yet how often that 
can happen.  Sussex is a bit far away but NJT does have a terminus in 
Port Jervis however it is a 2 hour trip one way.  In spite of the 
logistics, I very much would like to be a part of the user group and 
contribute whatever I can offer back to the community.
Pax,

Pastor Mac
On OS X