GSoC/GCI Archive
Google Code-in 2011 FreeBSD

Prepare screencast from new FreeBSD 9.0 installer for YouTube portal

completed by: Rushil Paul

mentors: Wojciech A. Koszek, Jakub Klama

Description of a task

FreeBSD 9.0 gained new installer called bsdinstaller. New users aren't familiar with its functionality. The goal of this task is to document FreeBSD 9.0 installer in an easily accessible way: screencast. Screencast will show new users, from the first person perspective, what you click and what you type to have FreeBSD installed. Video will get published on YouTube.

Task requires:


Have a program called VirtualBox installed on your computer. 
Have FreeBSD 9.0 ISOs downloaded on your computer (mentor will point to the valid URL link to the ISO)
Video capture software (participant will choose the video capture software for this task)
Virtual Machine created in VirtualBox 

Once Virtual Machine is created, participant will record a sessions of successful installations of the FreeBSD - one for i386 (old computers) and one for amd64 (new computers).

Once finished, participant will compare two installations and make notes on what's common and what's different between amd64 and i386. Participant will verify with the mentor whether the installation was indeed correct and whether other screencast sessions are worth recording for more coverage (e.g.: we may want to show sample configurations).

Final step will be to upload screencast(s) to the YouTube.com portal.

In case of differences between i386 and amd64, more than one videos are permitted. If i386 and amd64 happen to be installed in the same way (100% key presses necessary to get FreeBSD installed match), one uploaded video is expected.

Word to participant:
You must comment the video throught YouTube 'ballons' (tool-tips). Comments must be done in English. You're encouraged to provide step-by-step audio documentary too. (It is less work, and lets other people get more insight into what you do. Simply speaking: it's faster to provide better audio description than a written description.) Audio commentary may be done in your native language. If you don't include audio commentary, you don't loose point and you won't be graded lower. In other words: you must always provide English textual description with an eventual audio presentation of what you do.