A Tour through the NetBSD Documentation, Part IV

This document was written for Daemonnews.

A Tour through the NetBSD Documentation
Part IV: Loose Odds & Ends
Hubert Feyrer, April 2001

This is the last part of our tour though the NetBSD documentation. Besides the places mentioned in the previous parts of this series, there are a few other places that should not go unmentioned here, and that have docs on various things in NetBSD. This last part of the tour goes through a few of them.

Misc Files and Directories

/usr/share/doc/html: This directory contains documentation available only in HTML format. Currently, there isn't much documentation available in the Unix world that's not available in one of the more traditional formats (i.e.: manpages), but it's expected that the world will not end with this one package in here.
/usr/share/doc/html/ntp:: Documentation for the Network Time Protocol, in HTML format. This includes an overview of the NTP protocol, configuration of the client and server, and some implementation details.
/usr/share/misc:: As with the section 7 of the NetBSD manpages, there are some loose odds & ends that don't fit in a better place. Some of them may still be interesting for human consumption, so a look in this directory may be interesting.
/usr/share/misc/operator:: If you're programming in C, you may have wondered about operator precedence and associativity. If so, this file is the answer to all your doubts!
/usr/share/misc/style:: The NetBSD source code style guide, previously known as KNF, kernel normal form. This document describes how to indent your code so it fits into the existing NetBSD source, how, when and where to place braces, where to put comments, order of include files and a lot more.

Web Documentation

www.NetBSD.org

http://www.netbsd.org

Documentation/Hardware:: Information and links to various hardware related documentation, including a (rather long) list of busses supported by NetBSD, but also various chips and many machines supported by NetBSD.
Documentation/bsd:: This directory contains links to some preformatted documentation from the Berkeley Net/2 and Lite2 User's Supplementary Documents (USD), Programmer's Supplementary Documents (PSD) and System Manager's Manual (SMM). The files themselves are stored on the NetBSD FTP site.
Documentation/cross:: Some hints on crosscompiling the NetBSD kernel and userland. Useful for bootstrapping new ports, this document covers how to prepare the cross compiler, setting up the source tree and then explains compiling kernel, libraries and the userland.
Documentation/current:: Describes what the development branch of NetBSD is, the problems that one should be prepared to handle, as well as various ways to track NetBSD-current and where/how to get the repository.
Documentation/kernel:: Various aspects regarding the NetBSD kernel, starting from compiling and tuning the kernel to debugging, profiling and programming drivers. Also covers subsystems like RAIDframe, UVM, and many more.
Documentation/misc:: This page covers adding users and tuning accounts, setting up printers (also to Windows machines!) and scanners, how to handle removable media like floppies, ZIPs, CDs and DVDs and answers many commonly asked questions like getting foreign keyboards to work, adding disks, etc. A big source of interesting information!
Documentation/network:: All the things you ever wanted to know about NetBSD networking, but never dared to ask. Topics covered include basic configuration, getting PPP, ISDN and NAT going, securing the machine, running Appletalk, BIND and Kerberos plus the usual troubleshooting aid. Further pages describe setting up NAT, firewalling and packet filtering with IPfilter, DHCP, and there are some exhaustive pages describing how to get IPv6 and IPsec going. There's also a long list of links for further reference. Definitely worth reading!
Documentation/power-mgmt:: If you have a laptop or notebook, you'll almost certainly appreciate this section. It describes how power management in NetBSD works, how to configure it and lists some tricks on keeping the power consumption from disk and network ad a minimum.
Documentation/software:: These pages cover commercial software available for NetBSD as well as 3rd party software that's shipped as part of NetBSD, or separate from it in the NetBSD Packages Collection.
Documentation/wscons:: This page documents the NetBSD wscons console driver. Topics covered are enabling virtual terminals, changing the keyboard map, editing the console font and more.
Documentation/x:: Setting up X hardware like mice, keyboard and graphics hardware is discussed here, as well as compiling and general X installation questions.
Ports:: This directory contains all the NetBSD ports pages, with each in it's own directory. Information available is usually some general information on the port, link to last binary snapshot, and a port-specific list of frequently asked questions.
guide:: This directory contains Federico Lupi's guide "The NetBSD Operating System", which is covers many areas of NetBSD, starting from installation over printing and compiling the kernel to the packages collection networking including DNS, mail & news, and many other topics. Available in english and italian language, and as HTML, PostScript and RTF.
ja, de, fr, cs:: Translation of the web site to japanese, german, french and czechian language, in various stages of progress.

Online Resources and Books

A lot of books cover all possible aspects of Unix, starting from using the system over administrating and programming the various subsystems and APIs, and also covering not only genuine Unix systems but also specific systems and their own special properties that make them unique. Publishers that should be looked for are first and foremost O'Reilly with their "Nutshell" series, Addison Wesley and Prentice Hall are other major ones, plus there are numerous smaller publishers that have excellent books covering Unix.

When you search for online documentation, be sure to check out not only the NetBSD web site - www.netbsd.org - but also have a look at some more generic Unix resources like the information found at www.geek-girl.com or www.unix.com.

When looking for documentation on things that you don't find in NetBSD, keep in mind that most Unix versions are quite similar in many areas, and that documentation on other (non-NetBSD) systems can be used to a certain extent. If you're not sure, feel free to ask on any of the available NetBSD mailing lists for assistance!