Welcome to the FreeBSD Documentation Project (FDP). Quality documentation is crucial to the success of FreeBSD, and we value your contributions very highly.
This document describes how the FDP is organized, how to write and submit documentation, and how to effectively use the available tools.
Everyone is welcome to contribute to the FDP. Willingness to contribute is the only membership requirement.
This primer shows how to:
Identify which parts of FreeBSD are maintained by the FDP.
Install the required documentation tools and files.
Make changes to the documentation.
Submit changes back for review and inclusion in the FreeBSD documentation.
The FDP is responsible for four categories of FreeBSD documentation.
Handbook: The Handbook is the comprehensive online resource and reference for FreeBSD users.
FAQ: The FAQ uses a short question and answer format to address questions that are frequently asked on the various mailing lists and forums devoted to FreeBSD. This format does not permit long and comprehensive answers.
Manual pages: The English language system manual pages are usually not written by the FDP, as they are part of the base system. However, the FDP can reword parts of existing manual pages to make them clearer or to correct inaccuracies.
Web site: This is the main FreeBSD presence on the web, visible at http://www.FreeBSD.org/ and many mirrors around the world. The web site is typically a new user's first exposure to FreeBSD.
Translation teams are responsible for translating the Handbook and web site into different languages. Manual pages are not translated at present.
Documentation source for the FreeBSD web site, Handbook, and
FAQ is available in the documentation
repository at
https://svn.FreeBSD.org/doc/.
Source for manual pages is available in a separate
source repository located at
https://svn.FreeBSD.org/base/.
Documentation commit messages are visible with
svn log. Commit messages are also
archived at http://lists.FreeBSD.org/mailman/listinfo/svn-doc-all.
Web frontends to both of these repositories are available at https://svnweb.FreeBSD.org/doc/ and https://svnweb.FreeBSD.org/base/.
Many people have written tutorials or how-to articles about FreeBSD. Some are stored as part of the FDP files. In other cases, the author has decided to keep the documentation separate. The FDP endeavors to provide links to as much of this external documentation as possible.
All FreeBSD documents are available for download at http://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/doc/
Questions that are not answered by the
documentation may be
sent to <[email protected]>.
Send questions about this document to <[email protected]>.