New User Experience: Current Getting Started doc is wrong for current Stable release, can't find old docs.

[Vidamus]

Hi All,

 

I wish my first post as a new Unraid user was not negative feedback, but here we are...

 

The title pretty much says it all. The current "Getting Started" Guide in the docs looks very different in some places to the current LTS Stable release. For clarity, I am referring to the documentation found here: https://wiki.unraid.net/Articles/Getting_Started

Specifically, Step 4 "Setting a root password", and 4.1 "Registering and Installing Your Key". The screenshots and steps shown are very different to what I see when setting up a new Unraid server using the 6.9.2 LTS release. So different in fact, that it seems that the GUI/Features described in the docs do not exist at all in 6.9.2, which seems to make it impossible to adapt the guide for 6.9.2.
 

Furthermore, there seems to be no method for accessing old versions of the docs. It appears that the current Getting Started guide has been written for version 6.10, so I was hoping to be able to view an older 6.9.x version of this page, but I cannot find any reference to old docs anywhere.

 

Surely "Long Term Support" Current Stable Release means continuous access to documentation for that version through-out the LTS period? However the Unraid documentation site seems not to support versioning at all.

I am hoping someone can show me that I am wrong, and that there is a Docs archive somewhere for 6.9.x releases.

 

Thanks

Edited December 13, 2021 by Vidamus
I incorrectly referred to the latest Stable release as LTS, which it isn't.

[Squid]

Just a comment (not that you're incorrect on any given point),

 

But there is no such thing as LTS with regards to Unraid.  6.9.2 is the latest stable.  6.10 stable is just around the corner.  It's always advised to keep your server up to date with the latest stable upon release (or soon thereafter)

 

But, you are 100% right that certain things have changed in 6.10.  eg: Under 6.9 to set a root password you go to Users and edit "root"  Perhaps going forward @SpencerJ / @jonp could make sure that going forward historical documentation is available.  

[-MacGyver-]

There is documentation located at this link for 6.9.x on where to go to set the root password. There are no screenshots, just words for the navigation.

 

https://wiki.unraid.net/Manual/Security#Set_a_strong_root_password

[Vidamus]

@Squid My apologies, you are correct. I had seen the wording "Stable Release" and somehow got the concept of LTS Release in my head. I misspoke, please read "Latest Stable" everywhere I wrote LTS. As you said though, my points still stand. As a new user, when I go to the download page and it says that 6.9.2 is the latest stable release, that does create an expectation that this is the recommended release for new users, and is therefore also likely to be the most well supported release.

In the context of this thread, your advice "It's always advised to keep your server up to date" seems to imply that 6.9.2 is not the version I should be installing and that I would be better off starting with 6.10. If that is case, then the Download and Getting Started pages should be updated to reflect this. When I see a version promoted as "Latest Stable" I assume that all versions after that are experimental, and only intended for advanced users.

@klepel Thanks, that is helpful, I'll have a look around in the wiki for info on setting the license too.

I can see though that the wiki also doesn't support documentation versioning. That page you linked is only useful to me because it hasn't been updated in 2 years, not because it has been preserved as historical documentation for 6.9. It does have a page history, but that page history isn't linked to Unraid versions. All this leads me to the assumption that the wiki is a disorganised patchwork of documentation contributed across many versions of Unraid. My point about the lack of historical documentation archive still stands.

For the record, I am not here to say that Lime Tech or Unraid is morally reprehensible for not doing better on these points. I do like what Lime Tech is doing with Unraid and I'd love to see this project get more attention. The new user experience is very important to adoption and therefore success of Unraid in the long term. We each only get one, real opportunity to fully understand what it is like to be a new user, and so I think it's important to share feedback about the new user experience during my only real opportunity to do so.

Thanks for your replies.

[Hoopster]

1 hour ago, Vidamus said:

imply that 6.9.2 is not the version I should be installing and that I would be better off starting with 6.10

version 6.10.0 is not yet released and is in the release candidate phase.  @Squid was simply stating that when 6.10.0 is officially released, it will be the latest stable release and it is advisable to install it then.  Whether or not you are comfortable installing 6.10.0 -rc2 now is up to you.  The documentation is being updated in anticipation of 6.10.0 soon being the latest stable release.

[Vidamus]

I am still struggling with this. I am trying to configure a VM, but again the documentation is describing settings pages that don't seem to exist in my Unraid interface and so I am stuck trying to set up my VM network with incorrect docs because I can't find the settings mentioned anywhere in the interface.

 

I don't expect this to be fixed here in this thread or anything like that, I'm just giving feedback that this is a poor experience for the first time user.

Edited January 19, 2022 by Vidamus

[Hoopster]

8 minutes ago, Vidamus said:

the documentation is describing settings pages that don't seem to exist in my Unraid interface

Are you referring to the documentation (VM Management section) accessible from the bottom right corner of the GUI or some other documentation?

[Vidamus]

I am using this page here: https://wiki.unraid.net/Manual/VM_Management#Configure_a_Network_Bridge

 

After enabling bridging in the Network Settings, it then says to set the default bridge in the VM Settings page. But there is no "VM Settings page".

 

So I take a guess and go to the "VM Manager" settings page because that's the only one that has "VM" in the name, but on this page there is only "Enable VMs" and "Default Winsows VirtIO driver ISO" settings.

 

I can't find any other settings panels relating to VM settings anywhere.

[Hoopster]

35 minutes ago, Vidamus said:

I can't find any other settings panels relating to VM settings anywhere.

In VM Manager settings, turn on advanced view with the basic/advanced toggle 

Then you will see this:

 

[Vidamus]

Bingo, and there it is, thank you Hoopster.