From owner-freebsd-questions Mon Nov 1 12: 8: 1 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from freeside.fc.net (freeside.fc.net [207.170.70.2]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EEE22150A2 for ; Mon, 1 Nov 1999 12:07:46 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jdunham@freeside.fc.net) Received: (from jdunham@localhost) by freeside.fc.net (8.9.3/8.8.8) id OAA41384; Mon, 1 Nov 1999 14:07:09 -0600 (CST) From: Jerry Dunham Message-Id: <199911012007.OAA41384@freeside.fc.net> Subject: Re: "easy installation"!!!!! yeah right In-Reply-To: <000f01bf2431$d68808a0$6c9ac5d1@01031149> from Duke Normandin at "Oct 31, 1999 10:22:48 pm" To: 01031149@3web.net (Duke Normandin) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 1999 14:07:09 -0600 (CST) Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL54 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Duke Normandin babbled: > From: "Duke Normandin" <01031149@3web.net> > Date: Sun, 31 Oct 1999 22:22:48 -0800 > I'm a 52yr old newbie --- worse I don't know jack-shit about FreeBSD or any > *nix for that matter. So please take my following observations in that > context. It is NOT my intention to disparage anyone. I'm a 53-year-old sorta-newbie, so I've got you beat by a year. :-) > I have wanted to learn Unix all this time. > But guys, to launch myself in this new caper, "I simply want to know the > time, NOT how to make a watch" -- if you get my meaning. Personally, being a > tinkerer, I'll definitely want to know "how to make that watch" -- but > later, when I'm comfortable "telling time". When you guys first started > driving cars, where you all in a position to set the valve timing, the > ignition timing, etc. Can you guys NOW overhaul your fuel injectors and tune > your high-tech engines. Do you want to know how? Do you care? I like this guy. He just wrote what I was about to write, but much better. The problem I'm having with this thread is that it seems to segregate users into two camps: people like my wife, who has trouble turning on a Windoze machine, and people like Greg Lehey, who wrote the book on FreeBSD. Well, we're not all either sysadmins or double-clicking idiots. Here in the middle are people like Duke, who just wants to learn a bit about UNIX, and people like me. I'm a (ab)user, not an admin. I primarily want to use my system to get work done. The more I learn about the valve timing and the ignition along the way the better, but I'm NOT sitting here because I want to become a mechanic or admin. Should I therefore be condemned to the instability and poor performance of Windoze? You tell me to RTFM. I really don't mind doing that, but I have two problems: some of the man pages are NOT written for the uninitiated, and many times I don't know really where to start looking. If I were wanting to become an admin that wouldn't really matter; I'd simply start wading into Greg's book and the archives until something clicked. Mostly I just don't have time for that, and I think it's unreasonable to expect Joe User in general to have that much immediately available time. Do you as a group really want to divide users into two camps: FreeBSD sysadmins, and Windoze lusers? Should those of us who simply want a nonfragile system to get personal work done all move to Linux? FWIW, I came to FreeBSD from the Atari ST, by way of Xenix, so I'm another with no MS-DOS background. I do run WinNT on my notebook, but that's be- cause my employer requires that I run SOME form of Windoze, and NT is at least reasonably robust for a single user, even if the performance isn't anything to write home about. I've used mechanical CAD on HP-UX, SunOS, and IRIX, but even there I was just a user, with just a driver's license, not a mechanics' certification. I don't want to race; I just want to drive to the grocery store, but I'd like to get home again without a crash. -- Jerry Dunham FreeBSD Atarian ordinaire jdunham@fc.net (512)335-0674 (H) jdunham@avalanche.us.dell.com (512)728-4026 (O) E Pluribus Unix To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message