14 DAY TRIAL // I have recently heard of an ambitious project, called Menhir, which targets the noble idea of bringing Linux closer to its users and providing more information on each of its aspects. According to its creator, the project mainly searches to bring to the users' knowledge information on all the four open source systems.
According to the founders of the Menhir project (but not only), it seems that Linux is now known mostly as a GNU distribution. The GNULinux expression has become almost the same with Linux, which is not true. Not completely, at least. There are also three other powerful open source distros which are worth all the users' attention, as they can compete very well with any GNU version. I'm referring to FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenSolaris. Along these three exponents stands the famous Slackware distro, which is also interested in helping the growth of the Linux publicity.
Therefore, through Menhir, the developers in charge with the project aim at building a strong, open community to cultivate and distribute the knowledge about all four, free operating systems. With that purpose in mind, they have already considered some development projects which should be run during Menhir. The first of them would be a document based on BSD Associate Exam Objectives which would guide every user in the use and administration of FreeBSD, NetBSD, Slackware and OpenSolaris, followed by another document based on Advanced Linux Programming which would deal with some more advanced development on the four platforms.
After that, all four systems - Slackware, FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenSolaris - will be ported to the pkgsrc format. In the end, the pkgsrc tools will enable any user to install one of the operating systems with their userland. There are also many other projects said to be featured during Menhir. For example, the Menhir developers have also said they intend to set up a collection of kernel configuration files for laptops, servers and desktops.
Any user is more than welcomed to join the project's Google newsgroup at groups.google.com/group/menhir-discuss and provide the Menhir team with feedback regarding any kind of comment, question or proposal and why not, join the contributors list.