Re: Proofreader touchups to VAX INSTALL.more?

[Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

>> I'm reading over the 10.0_RC6 INSTALL.more for VAX.  I'm noticing a
>> handful of minor proofreading-type changes (eg, wrong verb tense).
> I guess here is fine (or just commit the fixes to the roff sources in
> src/distrib/notes).

I haven't had commit access in...about a decade, I think?  (And,
actually, I think that was the right call by whoever decided it; I
was/am inactive enough that the risk outweigh{ed,s} the benefit.)

Quotes here are from the VAX INSTALL.more.  I haven't checked any other
formats, or any other ports, to see how widely shared they are.

There are all very minor.  They are also all recommendations at most.
Except for a very few cases, the intended meaning is clear to me, but I
am a native anglophone; my wetware can auto-correct many issues which a
non-native speaker might have more trouble with.

>      support for the others included in source form.  Please see
>      the NetBSD website: https://www.NetBSD.org/ for information
>      on them.

I would argue the : after `website' should be removed.

>      One important new feature in this release is the support for
>      extended attributes and access controll lists on FFS file
>      systems.

s/controll/control/

>      For new installations the installer will default to disable
>      this features, so the file system is compatible with older
>      NetBSD releases (before 10), and allow other operating sys-
>      tems to mount this file systems at least in read-only mode.

s/will default to/by default/, or s/disable/disabling/ (but not both).

s/this features/these features/.  (Or "this feature", but there are two
features mentioned in the previous paragraph.)

>      release.  The complete list of changes can be found in the
>      following files:
>      CHANGES:
>            https://cdn.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-10.0_RC6/CHANGES
>      CHANGES-10.0:
>            https://cdn.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-10.0_RC6/CHANGES-10.0
>      files in the top level directory of the NetBSD 10.0 release
>      tree.

There's an extra "files" there (both before and after the list of
files).  Personally, I'd just delete both "the following files:" and
replace the later "files" with "which are also present".

>      kern-GENERIC
>               This set contains a NetBSD/vax 10.0_RC6 GENERIC
>               kernel, named /netbsd.  You must install this dis-
>               tribution set.

Is the last sentence actually true?  Is it never suitable to install
one of the other kern-* sets instead?

>      rescue   This set includes the statically linked emergency
>               recover binaries installed in /rescue.

I'd prefer s/recover/recovery/.

>      FTP                       The preparations for this instal-
>                                lation/upgrade method are easy;
[4 lines snipped]
>                                install or upgrade.  If you don't
>                                have DHCP available on your net-
>                                work, you will need to know the
>                                numeric IP address of that site,
>                                and, if it's not on a network
>                                directly connected to the machine
>                                on which you're installing or
>                                upgrading NetBSD, you need to know
>                                the numeric IP address of the
>                                router closest to the NetBSD
>                                machine.  Finally, you need to
>                                know the numeric IP address of the
>                                NetBSD machine itself.

This looks a little confused.  Needing to know the IP address of the
FTP server has little-to-nothing to do with DHCP; it's DNS that matters
for that.  (DHCP can give you various things, DNS server among them,
but that's the only connection to DHCP I can see.)

"[T]he numeric IP address of the NetBSD machine itself" strikes me as
the one thing on that list that DHCP unequivocally _will_ help you
with.

>      If you wish to install the sets from tape then stage you
>      will need to download the *.tgz files from

This seems a bit incoherent to me.  It appears to be using "stage" as a
verb, but it is not at all clear to me what it means by it.  None of
the verb meanings of "stage" I'm familiar with match the context.

>      All VAXen that can boot over network uses MOP, a DEC proto-
>      col.  To be able to use MOP, a MOP daemon must be present on
>      one of the machines on the local network.  The boot princi-
>      ple is:
>            o   The VAX broadcast a wish to load an image.
>            o   A mopd answers and send the boot program to the
>                VAX.

I see three cases of verbs which appear to be in the wrong tense (or
possibly number):

s/uses MOP/use MOP/
s/broadcast/broadcasts/
s/and send/and sends/

Also s/wish/request/, but that's not _wrong_, just a bit suboptimal
(and is not a case of a verb being in the wrong tense or number).

>      requires that you have access to an NFS server on your net-
>      work so you can configure it to support diskless boot for
>      your machine.  Configuring the NFS server is normally a task

s/so you can configure it/which you can configure/

>      system, consult the documentation that came with it.  (I.e.
>      add_client(8) on SunOS.)

I believe e.g. (I forget the exact Latin; the usual English gloss is
"for example") would be more appropriate than i.e. (id est, literally
"it is", more idiomatically "that is" or "which is") here.

>      that describes netbooting of VAXen from many different
>      OS'es.

I'd s/OS'es/OSes/; I've never liked the use of ' when pluralizing,
though I acknowledge that there is disagreement on that point.

>           It will take a while to load the kernel from the
>           floppy, probably around a minute or so, then, the ker-
>           nel boot messages will be displayed.  This may take a

s/so, then, the/so; then the/ (either change alone is worth doing, but
IMO doing both is best).

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