path: root/handbook/eresources.sgml

<!-- $Id: eresources.sgml,v 1.2.4.1 1995-09-17 11:19:28 davidg Exp $ -->
<!-- The FreeBSD Documentation Project -->

<chapt>
  <heading>Resources on the Internet<label id="eresources"></heading>

  <p>The rapid pace of FreeBSD progress makes print media
    impractical as a means for following the latest
    developments.  Electronic resources are the best, if not the
    only way stay informed of the latest advances.  Also, since
    FreeBSD is a volunteer effort, the user community also serves
    as the technical support department and invariably,
    electronic mail and Usenet news are the most effective way of
    getting technical problems resolved.

    Below, the most important points of contact with the FreeBSD
    user community are outlined.  If you are aware of other
    resources not included, please send them to
    <tt>doc@freebsd.org</tt> so they may be included.

      <sect>
        <heading>Mailing lists<label id="eresources:mail"></heading>

<p><em>Contributed by &a.dufalt;.<newline>
  20 Jun 1995.</em>

Though many of the FreeBSD development members read USENET, we cannot
always guarantee that we'll get to your questions in a timely fashion
(or at all) if you post them only to one of the comp.unix.bsd.*
groups.  By addressing your questions to the appropriate mailing list
you will reach both us and a concentrated FreeBSD audience, invariably
assuring a better (or at least faster) response.

There are list charters at the bottom of this document.  Please read
the list charter before joining a list.  We must strive to
keep the signal to noise ratio of the lists high, especially in
the technical lists.

Archives are kept for all of the mailing lists and can be searched
using the the <url url="http://www.freebsd.org/How/mail-archive.html"
name="FreeBSD World Wide Web server">.  The keyword searchable archive
offers an excellent way to find answers to frequently asked questions
and should be consulted before posting a question.

<sect1><heading>List summary</heading>

<p><bf>General lists:</bf> The following are general lists that
anyone is free to join:
<verb>
List                     Purpose
----------------------------------------------------------------------
freebsd-announce         Important events / milestones
freebsd-bugs             Bug reports
freebsd-chat             Non technical items related to the community
freebsd-policy           Policy issues and suggestions
freebsd-questions        User questions
freebsd-current          Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current
</verb>

<bf>Technical lists:</bf> The following are the technical lists. You should
read the charter carefully before joining them, and you should keep
your e-mail within the scope of the guidelines.
<verb>
List                     Purpose
----------------------------------------------------------------------
freebsd-doc              Documentation project
freebsd-fs               Filesystems
freebsd-hackers          General Technical discussions
freebsd-hardware         General discussion of FreeBSD hardware
freebsd-multimedia       Multimedia discussions
freebsd-platforms        Porting to Non-Intel platforms
freebsd-ports            Discussion of "ports"
freebsd-security         Security issues
freebsd-scsi             SCSI subsystem
</verb>

<bf>Limited lists:</bf> The following are limited lists that you will need
approval to join.  Even though access to these lists is controled,
anyone is free to send suggestions and comments to them.  It is a
good idea establish a presence in the technical lists before asking
to join one of these limited lists.
<verb>
List                     Purpose
----------------------------------------------------------------------
freebsd-admin            Administrative issues
freebsd-arch             Architecture and design discussions
freebsd-core             FreeBSD core team
freebsd-install          Installation development
freebsd-user-groups      User group coordination
</verb>

<bf>CVS lists:</bf> The following lists are for people seeing the log messages
for source changes in specific areas:
<verb>
List name       Source area          Area Description (source for)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
cvs-CVSROOT     /usr/src/[A-Z]*      Top level /usr/src file changes
cvs-all         /usr/src             All changes to the tree (superset)
cvs-bin         /usr/src/bin         System binaries
cvs-etc         /usr/src/etc         System files
cvs-games       /usr/src/games       Games
cvs-gnu         /usr/src/gnu         GPL'd utilities
cvs-include     /usr/src/include     Include files
cvs-kerberosIV  /usr/src/kerberosIV  Kerberos encryption code
cvs-lib         /usr/src/lib         System libraries
cvs-libexec     /usr/src/libexec     System binaries
cvs-ports       /usr/ports           Ported software
cvs-sbin        /usr/src/sbin        System binaries
cvs-share       /usr/src/share       System shared files
cvs-sys         /usr/src/sys         Kernel
cvs-usrbin      /usr/src/usr.bin     Use binaries
cvs-usrsbin     /usr/src/usr.sbin    System binaries
</verb>

<sect1><heading>How to subscribe</heading>

<p>All mailing lists live on <tt>FreeBSD.ORG</tt>, so to post to a
list you simply mail to <em>listname</em><tt>@FreeBSD.ORG</tt>.  It
will then be redistributed to mailing list members throughout the
world.

To subscribe to a list, send mail to:
<tscreen><verb>
majordomo@FreeBSD.ORG
</verb></tscreen>
And include the keyword
<tscreen><verb>
subscribe <listname> [<optional address>]
</verb></tscreen>
In the body of your message.  For example, to subscribe yourself to
freebsd-announce, you'd do:
<tscreen><verb>
% mail majordomo@FreeBSD.ORG
subscribe freebsd-announce
^D
</verb></tscreen>
If you want to subscribe yourself under a different name, or submit a
subscription request for a local mailing list (note: this is more efficient
if you have several interested parties at one site, and highly appreciated by
us!), you would do something like:
<tscreen><verb>
% mail majordomo@FreeBSD.ORG
subscribe freebsd-announce local-announce@somesite.com
^D
</verb></tscreen>
Finally, it is also possible to unsubscribe yourself from a list, get a
list of other list members or see the list of mailing lists again by
sending other types of control messages to majordomo.  For a complete
list of available commands, do this:
<tscreen><verb>
% mail majordomo@FreeBSD.ORG
help
^D
</verb></tscreen>
Finally, we again request that you keep the technical mailing lists on
a technical track.  If you're only interested in the "high points",
then it's suggested that you join freebsd-announce, which will contain
only infrequent traffic.

<sect1><heading>List charters</heading>

<p>
<descrip>
<tag/FREEBSD-ADMIN/ <em>Administrative issues</em><newline>
<!-- XXX -->

<tag/FREEBSD-ANNOUNCE/ <em>Important events / milestones</em><newline>
This is the mailing list for people interested only in occasional
announcements of significant freebsd events.  This includes
announcements about snapshots and other releases.  It contains
announcements of new FreeBSD capabilities.  It may contain calls
for volunteers etc.  This is a low volume list.

<tag/FREEBSD-ARCH/ <em>Architecture and design discussions</em><newline>
This is the mailing list for people discussing FreeBSD architectural
issues.  It is a closed list, and not for general subscription.

<tag/FREEBSD-BUGS/ <em>Bug reports</em><newline>
This is the mailing list for reporting bugs in FreeBSD
Whenever possible, bugs should be
submitted using "send-pr".

<tag/FREEBSD-CHAT/ <em>Non technical items related to the
                              community</em><newline>
This list contains the overflow from the other lists about
non-technical, social information.  It includes discussion about
whether Jordan looks like a tune ferret or not, whether or not to
type in capitals, who is drinking too much coffee, where the best
beer is brewed, who is brewing beer in their basement, and so on.
Occasional announcements of important events (such as upcoming
parties, weddings, births, new jobs, etc) can be made to the
technical lists, but the follow ups should be directed to this
-chat list.

<tag/FREEBSD-CORE/ <em>FreeBSD core team</em><newline>
This is an internal mailing list for use by the core members.

<tag/FREEBSD-CURRENT/ <em>Discussions about the use of
FreeBSD-current</em><newline> This is the mailing list for users
of freebsd-current.  It includes warnings about new features
coming out in -current that will affect the users, and
instructions on steps that must be taken to remain -current.
Anyone running "current" must subscribe to this list.

<tag/FREEBSD-CURRENT-DIGEST/ <em>Discussions about the use of
FreeBSD-current</em><newline> This is the digest version of the
freebsd-current mailing list.  The digest consists of all
messages sent to freebsd-current bundled together and mailed out
as a single message.  The average digest size is about 40kB.

<tag/FREEBSD-DOC/ <em>Documentation project</em><newline> 
This mailing list belongs to the FreeBSD Doc Project and is for
the discussion of documentation related issues and projects.

<tag/FREEBSD-FS/ <em>Filesystems</em><newline> 
Discussions concerning FreeBSD filesystems.

<tag/FREEBSD-HACKERS/ <em>Technical discussions</em><newline> 
This is a forum for technical discussions related to FreeBSD.  This
is the primary technical mailing list.  It
is for individuals actively working on FreeBSD, to bring up problems
or discuss alternative solutions.  Individuals interested in
following the technical discussion are also welcome.

<tag/FREEBSD-HACKERS-DIGEST/ <em>Technical
discussions</em><newline> This is the digest version of the
freebsd-hackers mailing list.  The digest consists of all
messages sent to freebsd-hackers bundled together and mailed out
as a single message.  The average digest size is about 40kB.

<tag/FREEBSD-HARDWARE/ <em>General discussion of FreeBSD
hardware</em><newline> General discussion about the types of
hardware that FreeBSD runs on, various problems and suggestions
concerning what to buy or avoid.

<tag/FREEBSD-INSTALL/ <em>Installation discussion</em><newline> 
This is the mailing list for people discussing FreeBSD installation
development for the 2.0 release.

<tag/FREEBSD-MULTIMEDIA/ <em>Multimedia discussions</em><newline>
This is a forum about multimedia applications using FreeBSD.
Discussion center around multimedia applications, their installation, their
development and their support within FreeBSD

<tag/FREEBSD-PLATFORMS/ <em>Porting to Non-Intel
platforms</em><newline> Cross-platform freebsd issues, general
discussion and proposals for non-Intel FreeBSD ports.

<tag/FREEBSD-POLICY/ <em>Policy issues and
suggestions</em><newline> This is a forum for policy discussions
related to FreeBSD.  This includes where FreeBSD is going, how to
set up a consortium, whether or not and how to make FreeBSD pay
for itself, how to attract more users, and so on.  When a topic
relates directly to FreeBSD but has little or no technical
content then it should be sent to this list.

<tag/FREEBSD-PORTS/ <em>Discussion of "ports"</em><newline> 
Discussions concerning FreeBSD's "ports collection" (/usr/ports), proposed
ports, modifications to ports collection infrastructure and general
coordination efforts.

<tag/FREEBSD-QUESTIONS/ <em>User questions</em><newline> 
This is the mailing list for questions about FreeBSD.  You should not
send "how to" questions to the technical lists unless you consider the
question to be pretty technical.

<tag/FREEBSD-QUESTIONS-DIGEST/ <em>User questions</em><newline>
This is the digest version of the freebsd-questions mailing list.
The digest consists of all messages sent to freebsd-questions
bundled together and mailed out as a single message.  The average
digest size is about 40kB.

<tag/FREEBSD-SCSI/ <em>SCSI subsystem</em><newline> 
This is the mailing list for people working on the scsi subsystem
for FreeBSD.

<tag/FREEBSD-SECURITY/ <em>Security issues</em><newline> 
FreeBSD computer security issues (DES, Kerberos, known security holes and
fixes, etc).

<tag/FREEBSD-USER-GROUPS/ <em>User Group Coordination List</em><newline>
This is the mailing list for the coordinators from each of the 
local area Users Groups to dicuss matters with each other and a 
designated individual from the Core Team.  This mail list should
be limited to meeting synopsis and coordination of projects that span
User Groups.

</descrip>

      <sect>
        <heading>Usenet newsgroups<label id="eresources:news"></heading>

        <p>In addition to two FreeBSD specific newsgroups, there
          are many others in which FreeBSD is discussed or are
          otherwise relevant to FreeBSD users. <url
          url="http://minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au/BSD-info/bsdnews&lowbar;search.html"
          name="Keyword searchable archives"> are available for
          some of these newsgroups from courtesy of Warren Toomey
          <tt>&lt;wkt@cs.adfa.oz.au&gt;</tt>.

        <sect1>
          <heading>BSD specific newsgroups</heading>

          <p><itemize>
              <item>comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.announce
              <item>comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
            </itemize>

        <sect1>
          <heading>Other Unix newsgroups of interest</heading>

          <p><itemize>
              <item>comp.unix 
              <item>comp.unix.questions 
              <item>comp.unix.admin 
              <item>comp.unix.programmer 
              <item>comp.unix.shell 
              <item>comp.unix.user-friendly 
              <item>comp.security.unix 
              <item>comp.sources.unix 
              <item>comp.unix.advocacy 
              <item>comp.unix.misc 
              <item>comp.os.386bsd.announce
              <item>comp.os.386bsd.apps
              <item>comp.os.386bsd.bugs 
              <item>comp.os.386bsd.development 
              <item>comp.os.386bsd.misc 
              <item>comp.os.386bsd.questions 
              <item>comp.bugs.4bsd 
              <item>comp.bugs.4bsd.ucb-fixes 
              <item>comp.unix.bsd 
            </itemize>

        <sect1>
          <heading>X-Window system</heading>

          <p><itemize>
              <item>comp.windows.x.i386unix 
              <item>comp.windows.x 
              <item>comp.windows.x.apps 
              <item>comp.windows.x.announce 
              <item>comp.windows.x.intrinsics 
              <item>comp.windows.x.motif 
              <item>comp.windows.x.pex 
              <item>comp.emulators.ms-windows.wine 
            </itemize>

      <sect>
        <heading>Word Wide Web servers<label id="eresources:web"></heading>

        <p><itemize> 
            <item><url url="http://www.freebsd.org/"></item>
          </itemize>
    </sect>