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Most of the Google Code-In tasks require the FreeBSD source code to have been checked out. There are several ways of doing this, each with advantages and disadvantages. The method described here is probably the easiest way of obtaining the source for small-scale work.
The following documentation assumes that you are using FreeBSD, either on a real machine, or in a virtual environment, and that your system has Internet access.
Note that it is recommended that you do not update your tree whilst working on your tasks, as this combined with the approach documented here will cause your changes to be overwritten each time you update.
If you have any problems with any of this, please do feel free to talk to your mentor, or ask on IRC. There are many mentors available in #freebsd-soc on EFnet.
Documentation tree
As root, create a file named “doc-supfile” containing:
*default host=cvsup8.FreeBSD.org *default base=/var/db *default prefix=/usr *default release=cvs tag=. *default delete use-rel-suffix *default compress doc-all #www
For most tasks, the website source is not necessary. If you require it (or indeed, just want to see it), uncomment the “www” line. Be aware that the website is quite large, so make sure you have enough disk space.
Then, still as root, run “csup doc-supfile”. This will drop the FreeBSD doc source code into /usr/doc (and the website code into /usr/www if that line is uncommented). Run this same command every time you want to update your local copy to match the “live” copy, but beware of the note above.
Once you have the documentation tree, find the file that you want to work on, and make a copy of it. For example, if your task involves making changes to the FreeBSD Handbook bibliography, make a copy of it:
cp -p /usr/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/bibliography/chapter.sgml /usr/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/bibliography/chapter.old.sgml
Then, make your edits to /usr/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/bibliography/chapter.sgml
Testing your changes
Once you are ready to test your changes, follow the instructions at http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/fdp-primer/overview-quick-start.html
Submitting your changes
As you made a copy of the file before you made changes, you can produce a diff from it with:
diff -uw /usr/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/bibliography/chapter.old.sgml /usr/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/bibliography/chapter.sgml > /var/tmp/gcin-taskname.diff
This file can then be submitted to your task mentor(s) during the task, and uploaded to Google once you feel the task is complete.