SOLVED TrueNAS 12 docs in awful condition compared to 11.3 - can't IX do something?

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morganL

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Thanks Stilez, Ornias

The major changes I see are that you want more topics at the top level...which is more like a traditional manual. This can be done progressively.

As a start, we could add "ZFS Storage" as a top level topic...its a peer of "Sharing". This makes it easier to add advanced topics.

I'm also open to adding a "Basic Concepts" section... after we have sufficient content. In the meantime we could start a "Concepts" page in "Overview".

The "Common recipes" i'd prefer to keep as part of "Initial setup"...... we have too many users that want to do multiple things and hence need a generalized setup advice. However, adding a how to on "Setting up a Media server" would be useful.

Morgan
 

Stilez

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Thanks Stilez, Ornias

The major changes I see are that you want more topics at the top level...which is more like a traditional manual. This can be done progressively.

As a start, we could add "ZFS Storage" as a top level topic...its a peer of "Sharing". This makes it easier to add advanced topics.

I'm also open to adding a "Basic Concepts" section... after we have sufficient content. In the meantime we could start a "Concepts" page in "Overview".

The "Common recipes" i'd prefer to keep as part of "Initial setup"...... we have too many users that want to do multiple things and hence need a generalized setup advice. However, adding a how to on "Setting up a Media server" would be useful.

The reason for a flatter wider top level is that if you don't, you aren't helping anyone. You're just forcing then to open 2 menu levels instead of one, to get to whatever they want.

As a bonus, they are also forced to guess where the material they want is located because you've had to crush disparate or logically separable things into the same top level sections to do so ("round pegs in square holes").

The rationale for the menu structure I suggested was this. See if you agree.

  1. Everyone needs basic concepts - to not screw up pool design, to comprehend core information needed.to.run the platform. That's applicable to everyone. Basic concepts is wider than just ZFS, as you can see from the subtopics, but also splits logically into chunks.
  2. Once you have basic concepts, the next easy tranche to deal with is the kind of user who says "I just wanna X, how do I do it?" That kind of user doesn't want detail first, they want to go direct to solutions. So let them. They can always read specific other stuff when needed. So next, all your "one stop shop" solutions.
  3. All solutions need a basic setup, so I make basic setup the first recipe, and for all the others make step one "set up the basic server (see recipe 1)". This positions basic setup as simply being the first recipe.
  4. Extending via jails/plugins/VM is a neat chunk - all of these have in common "This is how to set it up, after that its up to you". Keep that as a top.level chunk on its own, as a peer to basic recipes and full details.
  5. Last, your users who want to set it up "as they want it", or are technical, or want to set up something more individual/specific. These users are more likely to be willing to read the detail, and want that detail. They are the ones who need the deeper coverage by area. But if you bury all that within "Advanced use" all you are doing is annoyingly forcing them to open 2 levels instead of 1 every single time....... and trust me, that gets *really* annoying *really* fast.
  6. Its also pretty condescending to users, to label non-advanced stuff as "advanced", it can come over as if all but elite users dont need to worry their heads about the arcane controls in "dataset options", whereas many will be interested in compression, dedup, encryption and so on. Its also incredibly vague and therefore unhelpful as a title. So I label them as what they are - "Technical and in depth", or "Managing your pool and its data". *Not* just "advanced".
 
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morganL

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There is a tradeoff in the visual layout when you have too many top levels and use the modern style.... we have 7 top levels right now. Adding a couple is reasonable, but more would require a major change in graphical layout....... won't be done in this cycle. We'd prefer to focus on completeness of content. Names can be adjusted once we have the top level optics settled. Lets discuss on slack..
 

ornias

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I'm very busy right now, But I want to add a bit:
Thanks @morganL for thinking with us and agreeing the ZFS content is a good one to put on top level. This change should already clean things up significantly and I expect the storage/zfs related content to grow expodentially and even surpass the initial setup menu eventually :)

I agree that there should be a balance between the amount of top-level items and levels.
I don't think everything should be on top level either, some very-seldome used things could just as well be another layer.
It's also VERY understandable that you aren't going to fully re-itterate on the layout.

That being said:
I was viewing the side on my wifes 1080p screen yesterday... and you might want to give the left-side menu another 10-20% width. It doesn't "fit" very well with the 2-3 layers depths, because every layer adds another indentation.
*edit*
I took a quick other look: The issue is really just with with lower resolutions, maybe just don't show the right hand menu below a certain resolution and give some more room for both text and left-side menu? I think that would solve all readability issues on lower-res.
 

tim64

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Hello,

I am a new user and as a new user I just want to give some feedback about the TrueNAS 12 documentation from a new user perspective. I do not want to highjack this discussion (for personal technical questions) and because of this I do not want technical solutions (in this discussion thread) for my problems.

Some background: I configured Samba-servers decades ago and used several QNAP-NAS boxes (but I do not like their closed system). I selected TrueNAS 12 for my next NAS because I heard a lot of good things about FreeNAS in the past and TrueNAS seems a better/modern version of FreeNAS with better ZFS and other things. So I decided to got with TrueNAS-software (from ixsystems) and TrueNAS-hardware (from ixsystems) so everything should work out of the box. Well, that was my intention.

But setting up a TrueNAS 12 NAS seems much more complicated that setting up a QNAP NAS. It even seems more complicated than setting up a samba server on a unix/linux server.

I started with a simple requirement/task as an example: Setting up a SMB-share named "office" where the local users "jim" and "john" have full read+write access, where user "jack" only has read access and all others have no access at all. And all permission-security-related settings (like ACLs etc.) are only allowed to be changed from user "admin".

I managed to add the users in TrueNAS.

But the page https://www.truenas.com/docs/hub/tasks/administrative/users/ does not help at all. It does not have information how to set up users restrictions/permissons (i.e. how to allow/disallow a specific service, how to setup a password-policy etc...) but writes about user-IDs and primary-groups without explaining, why this is important to set up manually. It seems the GUI/doc reflects more the underlying OS-view (/etc/password and /etc/group files) and makes it more complicated than it has to be.

I still do not know how to set up the users, so that they are only allowed for SMB. Is this even possible?

Because I already understood some ZFS-basics I was able to create a pool and a dataset.

But then I wanted to add a SMB-share and set up access permissions and the informations for this
https://www.truenas.com/docs/hub/sharing/smb/smb-share/
https://www.truenas.com/docs/hub/tasks/advanced/editingacls/
are sparse and nearly non-existent.

The doc-page mentions ACLs (access control lists) and ACEs (access control entries) and writes, that ACLs can be assigned to datasets, directories and files.

However, in the GUI there are permissions in path "Storage / Pools / Edit Permissions" and there is "Storage Pools / Edit ACLs" that kind of is doing the same thing. And then there is "Sharing / SMB / Share ACL".

It seems, ACLs can be setup for a filesystem (bad wording, probably "dataset" should be used as wording) and for a share.

Why are this different ways existing? Whats the best way of setting up permissions if there are only SMB-shares used on the NAS? Does it matter in this case if an ACL is setup as "filesystem" or "share" and can both setups do the exact same thing? Where are all the fields and their possible data values and the consequences of values explained in detail? Is there an easy way to see all ACLs and ACE (ACL entries) in one place at a glance? And it seems there is no clear distinction between adding an ACL and adding an ACE for an ACL.

Sorry, if this is not only about documentation. But at this moment I can not differentiate between a missing description/explanation in the TrueNAS 12 docs and a missing functionality in TrueNAS 12.

To make sure that users only see the data they are allowed to see it is important to fully understand how user permissions are set-up. This is very important for a NAS that stores sensitive data and that serves several users with different permissions.

But at the moment I do not trust TrueNAS 12 (and my knowledge of TrueNAS 12) for a NAS to store sensitive, protected data.

To look at old docs for FreeNAS 11.x does not help (I do not use FreeNAS and I do not know whats the same/different between FreeNAS 11 and TrueNAS 12).

TrueNAS 12 does use standard building blocks (like ZFS, BSD, Samba, etc.) and glues and "value adds" a middleware and a nice web based GUI.

But as long as the TrueNAS 12 documention is so sparse and superficial like it is now, this middleware looks more like the part of a problem than part of a (good) solution for a NAS. Maybe its easier to install FreeBSD and ZFS and a Samba-server manually? At least I could better understand from the docs of the building-blocks, how to set up a secure system.

If I understand it correctly, the "TrueNAS Documentation Hub" is for the community-version and also the commercial-version of TrueNAS 12. Documentation is part of a product. With the actual quality of the TrueNAS 12 documentation, I would not recommend the commercial product to anyone.

Sorry, if my text maybe sounds harsh. I do appreciate the hard work everyone puts into it (during work time and free time).
 

ornias

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Sorry, if this is not only about documentation. But at this moment I can not differentiate between a missing description/explanation in the TrueNAS 12 docs and a missing functionality in TrueNAS 12.
It is only about documentations, because there are no mission features, just badly documented procedures ;-)
Because what you want to do is certainly very easily possible (as i've done so myself)

To make sure that users only see the data they are allowed to see it is important to fully understand how user permissions are set-up.
Yes, imho (and thats a bit off topic) ACL's have overcomplicated things needlessly from a GUI perspective.

To look at old docs for FreeNAS 11.x does not help (I do not use FreeNAS and I do not know whats the same/different between FreeNAS 11 and TrueNAS 12).
95% (except new features like metadata vdevs) are the same, don't worry too much about use the old docks ;)

Documentation is part of a product. With the actual quality of the TrueNAS 12 documentation, I would not recommend the commercial product to anyone.
I warned for this response and I fully agree. I would not call the included documentation "Enterprise" "SMB" or "Ready" in any way, shape or form.
 

Gcon

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I am extremely happy wiith the FreeNAS 11.3 and earlier documentation. My immediate response to perusing the TrueNAS 12 "documentation" was "what the.... is this some sort of a joke?! *checks date* nope not April fools... "

Surely the 11.3 technical guides can be adapted and updated for 12? Just work on the task-based "baby steps" hand-holding guide as an additional resource for noobs. It seems like the baby has been thrown out with the bathwater and is now floating down the river and out to sea! You'd think that with TrueNAS being the commerical offering (whereas FreeNAS wasn't), that TrueNAS docs would be top notch and even better than 11.3 but there's now a huge regression. Something is definitely not right here.

So what's changed? Are the BSD variants about to be dead (insert "netcraft confirms" meme) due to SCALE developments? TrueNAS 12 docs in their current state do not inspire any sort of confidence in the product.

iXsystems have made missteps in the past and corrected them (Corral). Hopefully the documenation gets sorted out in time as well.
 
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Stilez

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Hello,

I am a new user and as a new user I just want to give some feedback about the TrueNAS 12 documentation from a new user perspective. I do not want to highjack this discussion (for personal technical questions) and because of this I do not want technical solutions (in this discussion thread) for my problems.

Some background: I configured Samba-servers decades ago and used several QNAP-NAS boxes (but I do not like their closed system). I selected TrueNAS 12 for my next NAS because I heard a lot of good things about FreeNAS in the past and TrueNAS seems a better/modern version of FreeNAS with better ZFS and other things. So I decided to got with TrueNAS-software (from ixsystems) and TrueNAS-hardware (from ixsystems) so everything should work out of the box. Well, that was my intention.

But setting up a TrueNAS 12 NAS seems much more complicated that setting up a QNAP NAS. It even seems more complicated than setting up a samba server on a unix/linux server.

I started with a simple requirement/task as an example: Setting up a SMB-share named "office" where the local users "jim" and "john" have full read+write access, where user "jack" only has read access and all others have no access at all. And all permission-security-related settings (like ACLs etc.) are only allowed to be changed from user "admin".

I managed to add the users in TrueNAS.

But the page https://www.truenas.com/docs/hub/tasks/administrative/users/ does not help at all. It does not have information how to set up users restrictions/permissons (i.e. how to allow/disallow a specific service, how to setup a password-policy etc...) but writes about user-IDs and primary-groups without explaining, why this is important to set up manually. It seems the GUI/doc reflects more the underlying OS-view (/etc/password and /etc/group files) and makes it more complicated than it has to be.

I still do not know how to set up the users, so that they are only allowed for SMB. Is this even possible?

Because I already understood some ZFS-basics I was able to create a pool and a dataset.

But then I wanted to add a SMB-share and set up access permissions and the informations for this
https://www.truenas.com/docs/hub/sharing/smb/smb-share/
https://www.truenas.com/docs/hub/tasks/advanced/editingacls/
are sparse and nearly non-existent.

The doc-page mentions ACLs (access control lists) and ACEs (access control entries) and writes, that ACLs can be assigned to datasets, directories and files.

However, in the GUI there are permissions in path "Storage / Pools / Edit Permissions" and there is "Storage Pools / Edit ACLs" that kind of is doing the same thing. And then there is "Sharing / SMB / Share ACL".

It seems, ACLs can be setup for a filesystem (bad wording, probably "dataset" should be used as wording) and for a share.

Why are this different ways existing? Whats the best way of setting up permissions if there are only SMB-shares used on the NAS? Does it matter in this case if an ACL is setup as "filesystem" or "share" and can both setups do the exact same thing? Where are all the fields and their possible data values and the consequences of values explained in detail? Is there an easy way to see all ACLs and ACE (ACL entries) in one place at a glance? And it seems there is no clear distinction between adding an ACL and adding an ACE for an ACL.

Sorry, if this is not only about documentation. But at this moment I can not differentiate between a missing description/explanation in the TrueNAS 12 docs and a missing functionality in TrueNAS 12.

To make sure that users only see the data they are allowed to see it is important to fully understand how user permissions are set-up. This is very important for a NAS that stores sensitive data and that serves several users with different permissions.

But at the moment I do not trust TrueNAS 12 (and my knowledge of TrueNAS 12) for a NAS to store sensitive, protected data.

To look at old docs for FreeNAS 11.x does not help (I do not use FreeNAS and I do not know whats the same/different between FreeNAS 11 and TrueNAS 12).

TrueNAS 12 does use standard building blocks (like ZFS, BSD, Samba, etc.) and glues and "value adds" a middleware and a nice web based GUI.

But as long as the TrueNAS 12 documention is so sparse and superficial like it is now, this middleware looks more like the part of a problem than part of a (good) solution for a NAS. Maybe its easier to install FreeBSD and ZFS and a Samba-server manually? At least I could better understand from the docs of the building-blocks, how to set up a secure system.

If I understand it correctly, the "TrueNAS Documentation Hub" is for the community-version and also the commercial-version of TrueNAS 12. Documentation is part of a product. With the actual quality of the TrueNAS 12 documentation, I would not recommend the commercial product to anyone.

Sorry, if my text maybe sounds harsh. I do appreciate the hard work everyone puts into it (during work time and free time).
@Kris Moore - remember I said a while back, to only expect 1 in 20 or fewer to say if they had a problem?

Classic customer feedback/service stuff. Probably less for open source where "move onto the next thing " is often a better response for a disappointed or.confused user, than saying something.

Read this excellent post by new user @tim64 and also that by @Gcon, carefully. That's the user experience right now, and what we probably all knew would happen, by release day, given the state of docs. I appreciate the resource issue, and the efforts and work that improved things between 12-RC and 12-REL. But its still a problem and a strong deterrent now. Evidently, and factually, and that's just how it is.

Not many users will have the time and will to say anything, they'll mostly be a silent group of "let's try something else" or have bad memories for years tainting any retry.

Can Tim64's post, specifically, be raised in detail to.discuss rather more urgency of fixes for the multiple "angles" of issues it raises, at some internal IX weekly meeting, just because it details in so exact a manner, all that's in need of fixing, with the 2020-10 v12 experience.

Also, can docs be given equal/higher priority to code and enhancements, for U1? Its an excellent half a product. Good thorough docs are the other half.
 
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tim64

Dabbler
Joined
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Messages
16
Hi,

And it seems there is no clear distinction between adding an ACL and adding an ACE for an ACL.


I want to give more feedback about this topic because I gave TrueNAS a 2nd (and 3rd) chance this weekend (because I really like the TRUENAS-MINI-3.0-X+) and experimented a lot and I managed somehow to add users that can access SMB shares. I still do not know if its the best way how I did it. etc.

So I want to share one of my main obstacles adding ACLs because, in my opinion, everyone already knowing TrueNAS has probably already internalized this strange UI-behaviour.

Preface:
Users have expectations about a UI based on their past experiences. So a lot of users that have already used a computer for entering data (addresses, customers, users, products, etc.) expect more or less some CRUD (create, read, update, delete) functionality for data records.

So, when I clicked "Edit Filesystem ACL" after creating a new share (which seems to be the same as "Edit Permission" for a pool), I expected to get a form/page where I can create/add an ACL itself and after I created a new ACL I expected to be able to create (CRUD) the entries/members of that ACL (the ACE records).

With this expectation, I got the following page. I have drawn in green and red how I saw that page/form:


acl-diagram.png


The word "User" on the left side connects to the "owner@" on the right side, the word "Group" on the left side connects to the word "group@" on the right side. So all these input fields are optically part of one form (I marked the form with a red border) and one ACL-entry/record.

And because the buttons "SELECT AN ACL PRESET" and "ADD ACL ITEM" look the same and are below the data fields (in their column) they are both doing something for the ACL-data-record. Then "ADD ACL ITEM" clearly (it is at the bottom, like form-buttons usually are) will mean that this button ADD/Create the ACL-record with the input fields above.

It surely does not help for understanding this form, that the form-scrollbar is detached from the form and sits at the right border of the browser-window and that the real "SAVE" button is below the screen horizon and is not visible on screen without scrolling. And I do not have a small screen resolution.

Later I understood, that this one form includes the fields for the ACL itself but also all data-records of its members/entries (ACEs) and that all ACEs are shown in the right column with all their data-fields.

But then my expectation was, that the buttons "ADD ACL ITEM" and "DELETE" are related to the fields/data-record above them (like it is in a typical html form).

It did took some time to realize that the "ADD ACL ITEM" button is completely at the wrong position because it is not related to the data above (like the DELETE-button that is next to it) but adds a new, empty ACE-record that is not saved until I scrolled down and clicked the "SAVE"-button.

And I still do not understand why there is a "CANCEL" button besides the "SAVE" button if the form-data is only saved after pressing the "SAVE" button.

I think this is an example of bad UI design and the UI should be changed. But as long as the UI is not changed (there are probably good reasons for not changing the UI) it is an issue that should be included in the documentation, so new users do not fall easily into this trap (like I did).


P.S. If there is a more appropriate area in the forum for this kind of discussion, please give me a hint.

P.P.S. There are a lot of places where the "action-icons" (i.e. the three dots that open extra masks, functions etc.) are hidden because they are not seen without scrolling because they are in the right column of lists. Thats also an UI-issue that should be explained in the documentation.
 

adrianwi

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While I understand maintaining the documentation is probably a full-time job, this decision seems like a real backward step for IXsystems.

One of the reasons for using FreeNAS was the excellent documentation, which I referred to quite often.

I've just upgraded and went to have a look at how the 2FA worked, but there's nothing there. Scanning through what is there and it's absolutely no replacement for the old documentation. It would be a real shame to lose that.
 

anodos

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The doc-page mentions ACLs (access control lists) and ACEs (access control entries) and writes, that ACLs can be assigned to datasets, directories and files.

However, in the GUI there are permissions in path "Storage / Pools / Edit Permissions" and there is "Storage Pools / Edit ACLs" that kind of is doing the same thing. And then there is "Sharing / SMB / Share ACL".

It seems, ACLs can be setup for a filesystem (bad wording, probably "dataset" should be used as wording) and for a share.
FreeBSD has native NFSv4 ACLs. They can be set on any file / directory. Newly created files/directories inherit their ACL from the parent directory. The SMB form has a convenience feature to click on a button to edit the filesystem (ZFS) ACL of the share path. This can be important for end-users who are sharing a subdirectory inside a ZFS dataset (because its ACL may be different than that of the dataset itself).

Why are this different ways existing? Whats the best way of setting up permissions if there are only SMB-shares used on the NAS? Does it matter in this case if an ACL is setup as "filesystem" or "share" and can both setups do the exact same thing?
A "share" ACL is a somewhat different beast. These exist on Windows as well, which is why there are separate tabs for them in "computer management" on a windows server. They go back to the days before NTFS, and are not on the filesystem itself. Samba stores these in share_info.tdb. The reason to have this is if you decide to eschew the native NFSv4 ACLs for some reason, you can still use the Share ACL to define permissions via the SMB protocol. These permissions are share-wide and have same behavior as on windows. Filesystem ACLs are on the actual file in question and are enforced by the kernel / filesystem.

Where are all the fields and their possible data values and the consequences of values explained in detail? Is there an easy way to see all ACLs and ACE (ACL entries) in one place at a glance? And it seems there is no clear distinction between adding an ACL and adding an ACE for an ACL.
Files /directories always have an ACL. The difference in this case is whether the ACL can be expressed as a POSIX mode without losing information. If a file can be expressed as a POSIX mode without losing information, then the "permissions" editor is unlocked and available for use. Otherwise, the ACL editor is presented. Presenting all the ACLs on a dataset's contents in one glance is not really possible because if you have 100K files, then you would have 100K separate ACLs.

In versions prior to 11.3 SMB users were always using these ACLs, but they were not exposed in any form through the GUI. This meant that users had no effective means of auditing /altering the on-disk permissions on their server other than using a windows client. If vfs_zfsacl is enabled on a server whether vanilla FreeBSD or TrueNAS, a client with sufficient access to the server can alter the filesystem ACLs (this is part of the SMB protocol).
 

OliverPA

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Feb 29, 2016
Messages
3
Seems the discussion has lost its drive by now or is the current status of the documentation already the improved version people are actually happy with?

My personal feedback is that fortunately I have some FN/TN knowledge already as I started with 9.x and up to 11.x the documentation is that of a serious product. Unfortunately since 12.x it is that of a toy product.
It starts with the cartoons on the documentation hub front page loading at 1980s modem speed (dimensions 4,667px × 3,500px scaled to 208px × 156px).
It continues with the toy menu on the left (way too short and way too deep).
On to the confusing positioning of topics within the menu structure.
Or the search that often simply doesn't work (returns no results even though they exist - using Firefox) and includes results for older products.
Nuggets like "Advanced Procedures" within "Advanced Management". Someone certainly gave up trying to find actually useful topic names...
etc, etc.
That's just first impressions covered with content accuracy and completeness not even mentioned.

Of course I'm using the product at home for free, so why should you care? But if my company was looking for a product, why on earth would I recommend TN given the state of it's documentation? In a way the "you can still use the old documentation" makes matters even worse because it is not an answer associated with a serious product.
What's concerning is that some users in this thread put in a LOT of effort to to highlight that there are not single pages that need improvement but the overall structure is lacking as well, but 3 months later I don't see that point even getting properly acknowledged by IX and it seems documentation is simply seen as good enough for now even though it truly isn't.

Honestly you are doing yourself a huge disservice. The product is BY FAR better than the impression newcomers will have when they walk away.
 

ornias

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Yes, I agree it still does not look or feel like a real enterprise product.
IX did execute some improvements, that has to be said.

But I do not think this is easily solved by an itterative proces and IMHO, this is a corral level failure.
Imho, the consequences should be a trashcan and some people let go, primarily the head responsible for this disaster.

I've tried being relatively easygoing about it, but no. This is not solvable with a few look-and-feel fixes.
And i'll leave it at that.
 

Stilez

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Messages
529
Yes, I agree it still does not look or feel like a real enterprise product.
IX did execute some improvements, that has to be said.

But I do not think this is easily solved by an itterative proces and IMHO, this is a corral level failure.
Imho, the consequences should be a trashcan and some people let go, primarily the head responsible for this disaster.

I've tried being relatively easygoing about it, but no. This is not solvable with a few look-and-feel fixes.
And i'll leave it at that.
I think the idea is capable of being made to work.

For me, the underlying problem isn't one large doc vs. many small ones, or the concept of a hub. Its about:
  1. DETAIL/DEPTH: Thinking users need it dumbed down, and stripping out of technical and detailed information, and explanation, of options and their implications. That's core detail needed to confidently and wisely use it. Fatal ! If you simplify for newcomers, you must still ensure the "meat" is solid and provided.
  2. FINDABILITY: If you replace a long ordered doc by many small ones, you have to ensure there's effective search.
  3. SINGLE DOC/OFFLINE USE NEEDS: Some will need a single doc/downloadable version for offline use, to read on the train, or when not online. You just killed that - there's no "one page PDF" or locally stored guidance now. ("Nobody ever refers to technical docs offline do they?")
  4. SEEING DOCS AS MINOR? A SIDE ANNOYANCE?: The implied attitude to docs, and lack of appreciation of their necessity, around releasing a major product change/update without decent usable docs, while *removing* old docs that could have been updated, and entire major/critical/common swathes of the product undocumented. These major changes impact experienced as well as newcomer users. Believing naively that "older docs are surely good enough" or "the forum will fix it". Jesus. What a thing to tell possible commercial users.
  5. NO CLEAR ACCEPTANCE: The failure to heed the voices saying, this really is a big problem, not just a mild issue. It's not quite Corral level, as the hub can be made workable, but its damn close, and IX needs to bite the bullet, and really listen to @ornias , @OliverPA and the many other people trying to tell you, you're f**ing up bad in this, its not trivial. We don't want our friends and colleagues to screw up. We want to say something to warn you. (And *that*, is a management/executive failure)
Please don't get us wrong. The released v12 is great. You may feel we do a big injustice here, after all your huge efforts., and we dont mean to. But software is only half the product. The other half is something far below your standards, and "iterative" and "eventually" arent nearly appropriate for this scale of mishandling.

It feels like you decided docs weren't important and half assed hub idea will somehow be okay in time. But it isnt. You should have kept the original going, if you couldn't get the hub ready for 12.0 release day. Even with the pressure of release off, its still a train wreck at 12-U1. Can't use 11.3 docs, can't use 12 docs. Ugh.
 
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ornias

Wizard
Joined
Mar 6, 2020
Messages
1,458
Yeah, I might be a snark-captain..
But I love 12, love where SCALE is going, have some doubts about the premium-features/truecommand. But besides this there is nothing that I find generally negative.

(can't say the same about many other software projects btw... Most i've serieus problems with sooner or later)
 

MotafokaBR

Cadet
Joined
Oct 30, 2020
Messages
6
...

Honestly you are doing yourself a huge disservice. The product is BY FAR better than the impression newcomers will have when they walk away.
I'm sorry to shorten the quote, but I had to point out this sentence. That almost happened to me as a newcomer.

I'm a developer and I'm used to using the terminal, to search into community forums and combine solutions and to look into log files, and for several times I considered just pay for the Unraid license just to avoid the trouble of making something work when there is no existing documentation, and the old one is not always applicable because there were a lot of changes on packages and how things are done now.

I managed to get things somehow working (still can't have a Windows 10 VM for a test environment, but I'm running one using VirtualBox on my desktop for now), and I have now almost as I wanted, but I won't out any more effort if things get strange again on the settings I rather spend time migrating to another system.
 

ornias

Wizard
Joined
Mar 6, 2020
Messages
1,458
I managed to get things somehow working (still can't have a Windows 10 VM for a test environment, but I'm running one using VirtualBox on my desktop for now), and I have now almost as I wanted, but I won't out any more effort if things get strange again on the settings I rather spend time migrating to another system.
Virtualisation is still falky at best on BSD, I don't think thats much of an issue regarding the manual itself.
Although I agree that there should be a LONG LONG list of "know virtualisation bugs" attached.
 

Patrick M. Hausen

Hall of Famer
Joined
Nov 25, 2013
Messages
7,737
I am running Windows 10 productively not only for my private machine bit also at $JOB for banking and accounting and some such. Users are quite pleased.
 

Ericloewe

Server Wrangler
Moderator
Joined
Feb 15, 2014
Messages
20,175
Not having migrated any systems to 12 yet, all I can really add for now is that the docs used to be a significant feature that distinguished FreeNAS from less organized projects. It was a selling point, even if they weren't perfect. Now, they seem to be actively discouraging users, if not scaring them away outright.
 
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