Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 15:17:39 +0200 From: Szilveszter Adam <sziszi@petra.hos.u-szeged.hu> To: freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: I'm leaving Message-ID: <20010514151739.A3213@petra.hos.u-szeged.hu> In-Reply-To: <006201c0dc44$ca69ebc0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com>; from tedm@toybox.placo.com on Mon, May 14, 2001 at 12:09:17AM -0700 References: <20010514084709.A68348@welearn.com.au> <006201c0dc44$ca69ebc0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com>
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Hello everybody [Technical information: Since I think everybody who is on the Cc: list at present is member of one of the two list this message will get posted to, I am pruning the others. I am aware that N6REJ is no longer with us but I think that this sort of in-fighting might be of no particular interest to him, esp the last mail must not have been very encouraging to a newbie. Cc: lists have a tendency to grow uncontrallably, luckily some sane MUAs allow the "List Reply" function.] Disclaimer note: I know that Ted likes to spur a nice flame session on -advocacy every so often when he feels "strongly" about something but I am also aware that he wants to help. So, I am trying very hard to not not be put off by his style but rather react to the points raised. In the off-chance that this might not succeed in some cases, it means that I have been unable to control my dissatisfaction. I still think that if someone hates customers, they should not be working in the Customer Service (ie advocacy) department, you cannot actually help people when you have an unflattering opinion of them. And this is not only for you Ted, there have been reactions on -doc lately in Re: ftp.freebsd.org problems (which was completely our fault as far as the communication disaster that still hasn't settled fully goes btw) that made me feel sick and ask myself: Maybe I like the software, and software is not to blame in any case, but do I really want to be identified with this group of people as well? With this in mind, let's go: On Mon, May 14, 2001 at 12:09:17AM -0700, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: > >On Sun, May 13, 2001 at 12:26:23PM +0200, Rahul Siddharthan wrote: > >> > >> Often you can find the answers in the docs if you know where to look. And quite often not. PR Support: Exhibit No1 Yesterday I helped a poster who submitted a PR because he could not install FreeBSD. Although he was quite vague about his hardware setup, only pasting the output of the Linux "mount" command, but somehow I had a gut feeling that his problem (he could not actually write out the partition information in sysinstall) was due to the fact that he was trying to install into an extended partition. Upon asking for clarification, he promptly confirmed that this was the case and could continue on his way. Upon looking at the documentation, however, I was very surprised to find that not only do we not say on our front page that FreeBSD (unlike many PC OSs) does require a primary parition to install (and if possible the first one, since you have to be within the 1024th cyl to boot) but upon first glance I could not find it anywhere. Maybe it is just me (I do not remeber from where I learned that you need a primary for installation), but I think that given that I am familiar with the structure of our docs, a newbie is not likely to fare any better. (But eg I have a hard time seeing how running DOS binaries on FreeBSD is pertinent for INSTALL.TXT) As others have suggested a regular proof-reading and QA team would be useful as already employed by many other projects and companies. This is also a good way to show how people without necessary high-level coding skills can help out. But this needs to be organized much like the freebsd-newbies effort, that it is actually visible, because "insider wisdom" that "we welcome new contributors" is not actaully readable on the web page although incidentally that is the place people are going to look at. Also, simply saying: "Read the doxxx dammit and submit patches in ready-to-insert format when you're ready" is not going to cut it, the effort needs to be led and coordinated by experienced folks who can also act as liaisons to the "innards" of the project, by talking to those who'd actually rather code than talk. (and there are people like that on the FreeBSD project) Also, they could supply necessary background info on items that are not obvious at first sight but are actually important. Doc Project: Exhibit No2 Although I do not claim to have actually led a documentation project or even part of it, but there was some movement some time back that the FreeBSD documentation be translated into Hungarian. We even started out and even though I could not donate much of my personal time to the actual translation, it soon turned out that people needed a person to turn to when they had questions about how the doc project technically worked, and there needed to be someone who whacked them back into shape when they did not obey the rules. Although these people have never used DocBook in their whole lives before, and most did not even have the docproj port installed (understand, most in Hungary are on modems and do not have the luxury of free broadband Net access, on the contrary, they still pay by the minute.) so did not even undestand some of my yawnings but after a couple of iterations they simply got used to it and started to conform to the rules. I set up a "test" environment to which I co-d the latest translations and made sure it was DocBook-ly correct and turned it into HTML, so that they could see the result of their work on the web page and so that other Hungarian users could comment on it. This endavour would not have been possible had it been left at: "Wanna submit doxxx? Great. Send patches!" but this way at least the chance exists that these people might teach others too and so more and more doc makers would join us and ultimately maybe the Project too. > This is exactly why I wrote my book The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's > Guide - Yes, it looks like a very useful resource! Thank you for that! (Sorry I could not buy it yet because it costs approx one third of a month 's wage for an average Hungarian emloyee, not to mention students...) > is teriffically damaging as Microsoft has been on a 20-year campaign to > doublespeak the entire industry. Just to give you an example I had to spend > 3 pages explaining that there IS a difference between the word "Domain" used > in Microsoft Windows networking, and used everywhere else.) Maybe I am just acting very dumb here, but most people I have spoken here about it either had no clue about any of them (which is good because they are not yet "spoiled") or have only heard about the Internet variety. Which again is good. This may be because Windows has a long history of coming with localized docs, and the two "domains" are translated using different words most of the time so people do not confuse them. And many places do not use Windows domains at all, because win95/98 does not require it. > >The man pages do this a lot. For example, in ls(1) we have a few words > >that probably won't be understood without unix knowledge, and I have > >no problem with that. Words like "FIFO", "symbolic link", etc > >need to be looked up in a unix text somewhere and learned. Until > > No - these are not "UNIX" words in particular, they are general computer > science terms. Khm, khm. Come on Ted. What's next? "Before you touch this complex and expensive equipment called "a computer" you have to present proofs that you have succesfully completed a CS Basics class"? Why does someone *using* a computer need to get involved with *computer science* at all? Do you have to be an electrician to use a household appliance? This might have been true in the old days when computers were not an ubiquity, but rare and fragile species filling rooms apiece. But then there was really hardly any need for *users* on the system: users simply submitted their jobs and operators fed it to the machine. My father is an engineer and when he went to university he had to do this to get his complex calculations done. It seems to me that many diehards still long for this era, but it's past, gone, for good or worse. The question is not (as you suggest later on) what a FIFO is called but whetever you are required to know what a FIFO is and how it operates etc to be able to install and administer a FreeBSD (or any other) box. We are not talking about people versed in Windows programming who now try to convert to FreeBSD... we are talking about that mystical species, who seems to think that computers are not only for their own good but rather for what they can do and their usefulness can be measured by this. And sometimes we seem to be cheeky on purpose, in an attempt to keep others out. Like: > >deprecated This word is not used anywhere outside of standardization bodies. Why are we still sticking to it? > That is a good idea, any writing can be helped by conciseness. Not only > adding examples but how many man pages have things that are frankly wrong > in them I wonder? I'm all in on this one. That's why it is important to have good developer-documenter relations because while it is not in the job description of a developer to have excellent verbal communication skills, it is them who undestand the code best. > are coming from a paradigm that in recent years has been designed to give > it's > users as little information about how things _really_work_ as opposed to how > _microsoft_windows_ works. Objection. The last sentence should read: "to give it's users as little information about how things really work as opposed to how you can do them on MS Windows"...:-) They are not actually telling you up front how Windows works although sometimes I'd be really curious to know:-) > Your talking about a company that would happily replace all instances of > FIFO > in it's documentation with WSIB then allude as how this is short for > "Windows Sequential Inline Buffer" and make no mention of FIFO anywhere, > if they thought it would gain them a competitive advantage. They have been > doing this with Internet technologies since they got into it, and people > that only have been raised on this diet have an incredibly f&*k up > understanding > of ordinary Internet terms, which makes it hard to wean them off Windows. Maybe again because of the language thing, the only "side-effect" of MS-izations here I can see that web designers choose to ignore the standards and design for IE, because everybody uses that anyway, and that newbie users tend to think that while IE is "The Internet" because that's what the link on their desktop says, Netscape is a browser. How the two relate in their heads I do not know. By the time I got to know IE I was already well aware that it is a browser. (actually, a browser interface, just like Mozilla is just an interface to the Mozilla framework whatever it will be used for later) But the users (unlike the designers) are rather easy to teach once you catch their attention. Have done that on numerous occassions here at the dorm with non-technical users with success:-) > >Yep. There might only be one or two things that are hard to understand, > >but they are presented in such a foreign and frighteneing environment > >that suddenly nothing makes sense and it's not clear exactly where > >the problem is. Then asking questions about it is real tricky. Totally agree. I witnessed (OK, I did more than that:-) a Linux user who was intrigued by my FreeBSD success story and decided to switch to it, how he became totally uneasy although he was used to working on the command line. But at once he could no longer be sure eg how to safely shut down his machine, if the halt command would still work and DTRT. And if you think that this is nonsense, than try to use the killall command on various Unices and watch! For best results, try it as root! So much for the alleged "normal environment" that is supposed to be the mother of all computing wisdom. Of course, with a little bit of gentle help he was soon well on his way and today he is sometimes a more "violent" proponent of FreeBSD than I'd like to see. > No, they aren't presented in a "foreign" environment, they are presented > in the "normal" environment - the problem is that the windows-only admin > has been fed goat cheese for so long they don't understand that normal > cheese isn't supposed to stink. Ted, I am sure you are aware that there was a time when people had to be warned that "not all the world uses VMS". So much for the normal environment. "Normal" is what you are familiar with and what you see most around you use. If in your case it is UNIX, it is UNIX for you. But there is no intrinsic relationship between CS and UNIX in the form that you are trying to suggest here. Many CS students today already learn programming on Windows, for good or for worse. But CS itself OS independent. > >> Would it be a good idea to have a "default GUI install" as one of the > >> install options, which sets up either KDE or GNOME, and a web browser, > >> and desktop icons for the HTML-ised version of the FreeBSD handbook? > >> Then when the user logs in and wants to learn more about the system, > >> there's no need to poke around in /usr/share/doc (many people don't > >> seem to realise it exists, until it's pointed out to them): they can > >> just click and read. Some sort of tweak could be made to the > >> KDE/GNOME help browsers to include the basic FreeBSD stuff there too. In re: GUI install, just out of curiosity I decided to give the new GNOME a whirl yesterday. It took an amazing amount of time to compile (even if I don't count the time while it was just waiting for me to wake up and answer the question "Do you want to be hacked?" for GDM) and had an insane number of dependencies. Really hats off to Ade for the work! (as an aside, I think my theory is slowly getting confirmation that if you want a GUI that reasonably resembles Windows, it will end up to be at least as complex, resource-hungry and convoluted as the original... these days, source code and all, troubleshooting GNOME is becoming an impossible undertaking unless you are one of the authors, there is just too many places that it can break) I deleted all my earlier .gnome dirs because I wanted to see what the default install would look like. (I still missed .esd, so I still don't know if ESD would work at all:-) Well, the default install started with an astonishing windows-green desktop and two menu bars that took up much of the screen (presumably one for windows the other for Mac converts) and the possible "customization" for FreeBSD was that there was a fish in the right lower corner which, according to the About box, wastes disk space, eats CPU cycles and generally anyone caught using this applet should be rushed to hospital. (I am not making this up, read it for yourself!) (but maybe it is also in the default install dunno) and the Help browser only incorporates the Handbooks for GNOME, the info pages and maybe the man pages too. Now, this is the place where we should come in. I am sure that the FreeBSD Handbook and FAQ would make a great appearance there. But maybe that would require writing a new interface to the Help browser, dunno. They seem to have switched to XML in the meantime. Although I would not use it as my wm of choice, it may still help newbies with proper customizations. Like how about: you can choose if you want both task bars or just one of them at install time? These only require a proper config file to be copied, no recompile. I do not know the full extent to which GNOME can be scripted, but I know that the FreeBSD project could even produce a custom "Beastie" version of Mozilla with not that great effort:-) > But, he didn't look at all the docs that are out there, don't you see? > > This isn't a problem with a falling down of the FreeBSD docs. The problem > is that we have here a user that isn't committed enough to spend the > 3 hours to walk into a bookstore, and pick up a piece of documentation > (ie: my book) that _would_ help him, and read it and see for himself that > it _would_ help him and buy it!!! He's probably never even touched a Linux > book either although the technical bookstores are stuffed with them!!! But, > I'll bet that he as spent at least $500 on Windows books. Again, I must stress that giving support is different from writing a book in that in a book you can say: I am going this route. You either come with me or you are SOL. In a real support situation, there is actually interaction. If you do not like this, do not answer support questions, that's fine. But do not be mad at people because they want to solve problems, not to gain in-depth knowledge. Of course if somebody is missing the basics than you can (again, gently) point them to the source of info first, and if they do not peruse them, that's their fault, but you have tried, but *expecting* them up-front to know what they are supposed to learn is somewhat funny no? Similarly, after giving the info and working with the person with the problem (which is not the same as just saying something to get them off your neck) I may point the person to additional info, which is tailored to the level of interest, expertise and likely attention-span of the person in question. (Of course having a sheer amount of docs at your disposal may help in this somewhat, to say an undertatement this time) The fact that this works best in a person-on-person setting seems to suggest btw that no matter what kind of AI you use, no "expert system" can fill this very important "help on help" function as well as a human can and I have no problems with that. You may need help to be able to use help sources at all. Many developers are subscribed to FreeBSD lists and "expert level" questions get answered fairly quickly, which is also good. But this "help-on-help" function is underrepresented, sometimes just indicated by silence, sometimes reduced to the anti-support hymn "RTFM! And get L0st! (192bpm 2001 remix)" which seems to be a smash hit everywhere where people are supposed to help others, not just computers. List support: Exhibit No3 Although I do not write as much on the FreeBSD.org lists as I used to, but this has to do a lot with the fact that I no longer use -STABLE so I would not be able to help much. But "at home", on the Hungarian users' mailing list I am usually the person who does first line support and "extracts" info from the seemingly sometimes unintellegible postings and quite often someone can help the person afterwards. This requires patience, good people skills, good verbal communication and an undying cheerful attitude, but on the days when I do not feel up to snuff on these, I simply step back from the keyboard and do not write anything so as not to accidentally insult people when they do not deserve it. What if the person you asked about something at say IRS would answer by mocking you for not understanding tax law instead answering? And it is not the "I am entitled to" part that is important here, it is the "standards of public service" part, paid or not. An OpenSource project, to quote myself, is sooo much more than just code. Among other things, it is also public service. It is even more so in the case of a centralized project like the BSDs where developers are often the face of the projects when they speak from @<name>bsd.org addresses. > Well, I have no sympathy as at least FreeBSD _supplies_ docs _for free_ > on the website - that's far better than what you get when you buy a copy > of Windows, there's no docs supplied at all! Ted, I cannot believe you are serious. Have you visited www.microsoft.com recently by any chance? It is choke-full of docs, even the ResKits are mostly online although you have to pay for those in book form. Agreed, finding something on that site is not easy by any means, but the (very insecure:-) IIS Indexing service works wonders so a Search should turn up a lot. Hell, if I do not know what a Windows system file is good for, I just go to the MS home page, enter the file name into the Search box and voila. Usually the answer is somewhere in there. > >What you see above is a person coming to FreeBSD with some decent > >working knowledge of his old environment, applying those concepts > >that he has already to try to understand what's required for > >installing FreeBSD. It's useless to tell him to forget his old OS, > >because at his point there is no way to tell which concepts are > >microsoftisms and which are not. No way. We who know more than he > >have to meet him in the middle until we have a common language. > >Because we can. Yes. That's my strategy too. > I don't agree with this at all. I think that your not going to be able to > gain > consensus in The FreeBSD Community as to what a _detailed_ set of > expectations > are. IMHO it should be not as much a warning sign to those who are outside but rather a warning sign to those on *this* side of the counter. Similar to the "Our Policy" signs at some companies. So that those who bother to write back to a poster might refresh their memory that you are *not* required to hold a CS degree to ask a question just because it is more convenient to answer. Yes, this is harsh, but this what all "people jobs" are about. Smartassing is never desired. So a general consensus is fine, details can form themselves out. Like the one on the Hungarian Linux Beginner maillist which says: RTFM is not an answer on this list. > > why can't we state those expectations clearly? > In short, it's the argument "I had to work and sweat my way to understanding > and I made > it, so if your complaining to me about how hard it is, then I'm not that > sympathetic." > > Just because this argument isn't Politically Correct, doesen't make it > wrong. Hmmmm.... while I do not care about PC when it means something else than a computer, I think that once you are taking the trouble to answer this attitude does not fly. > Fortunately, > there are some people (like myself) who once we have ploughed on through, we > are willing > to reach a hand back and pull some newbies along a broken trail. Contrast this laudable attitude with what you write below... well... > But, if it's Newbie Expectations that you want', well here's mine: And here is mine: > Guide to Proper Newbie Expectations to have before running FreeBSD Guide to proper relations between members of the project with varying knowledge level. > The following is a bit of a guide that I wrote up which should be read by > anyone > who thinks they want to run FreeBSD. These are what I would call "The > FreeBSD > Community's minimum expectations for you" if there was such a thing and they > had expectations. Happily, there's not, but it may help you to pretend that > there > is so this is why these are here. Use at your own risk! This guide is meant to be some guidance to those who decide to ask for help on the various FreeBSD support forums and to those that decide to answer them for whatever reason. > 1) We didn't write FreeBSD to make things easy for YOU! We wrote FreeBSD to > make > things easy for US! 1) This is not a pissing contest. Respect is the name of the game here: The person asking a question or answering you is not threatening to break your precious chinaware nor is he/she insulting your mother so chill off. After all, this is just a computer program, not an end of the world as we know it. Poster, understand that people who answer are doing so in their free time and usually put in tremendous amount of work into this thing we call the FreeBSD Project. Respect it. Answerer, be aware that people generally do not ask questions just for the heck of it, but only if they have problems. You know what kind of frustrating feeling that is. Try to symphatise (sp?) with the person and work with him/her on a solution rather than giving a fast answer to get him/her off your chest. If you know a better way than what the poster is presumably aiming at, go ahead and mention it. People are interested in solutions... respect the poster. If you are more knowledgeable, let it show, but let it rather shine through than kick them in the head. People appreciate this. <...> > 2) We don't (in general) make money off of your use of FreeBSD. I know this <...> > FreeBSD before Wall Street wised up. Like someone else said, FreeBSD users > make money the "eld fasoned waye - waee EARN it" What this means is that > our interest in seeing you with a successful FreeBSD installation is that of > fans at a sports game - we will happily cheer you on if you win, but if you > lose, we really don't feel that we owe you a consolation prize. 2) Poster, understand that there is no business relationship between you and the Project that would "entitle" you to quick and effective support. Answerer, bear in mind that by taking up the challange and answering that question, you are a representative of the Project, even if for that one occasion only. Behave as a repsonsible fan: People are going to judge the team you are out for by your actions and attitude. What's more, since our team always needs new fans, it is your behaviour that may decide if people grow to like us and will want to know more about us, or you turn them off. Understand that there is nothing that would entitle you to be rude to a person even if that person hasn't paid you to be nice to him/her. This is not a business relationship, this is you helping the Project you like. > 3) We think it's unfair if you aren't willing to spend the same money on > hardware you use for FreeBSD, as on hardware for That Other Operating > System. We think it was sometime in 1996 that a newbie actually signed on > and said "Hey, guys, I want to run FreeBSD and _I_DON'T_HAVE_A_MACHINE_YET_ > and _WHAT_SHOULD_I_BUY?_ We still treasure that moment with a warm spot in <...> 3) Poster, be aware that computers tend to be made up of very different hardware items. Some of these are better supported by FreeBSD than others, some may not be supported at all. Please consult the Supported HW list as you would with any other OS purchase. At first this may seem strange, but soon you will see that just a little bit of attention to detail is paying off several times, and after it becomes your habit, it will be almost invisible but always with you. Answerer, most people who ask a question are doing so sitting in front of a computer. (Although Avian Carriers according to RFC 1149 are also getting supported) More often than not, this tends to be their own computer. So don't assume that the person wants to sell his/her machine and get a brand new one, rather they want to make the best out of what they have. While buying a computer may not sound much like a big deal to you, remember that not all people eat, drink and breathe computers, and to many people (hell, most people) in this world a computer is a big piece of value that they cannot buy every other day. If you must say that a hw item is not supported then say so, but in all other cases try to be reasonable. It is only in very limited circumstances that a machine is totally useless under FreeBSD, but even in these cases it is just good common sense to also offer the person advice on what other system might support his/her hardware. The person might find another use for the computer in which it is still useful as supported by FreeBSD etc. Remember, the person came here to try this OS most probably because he/she has heard success stories and nice things about it: he/she is inspired. Do not ruin that inspiration by being rude or condescending. This is the same inspiration that hooked you to computers way back when, after all, right? > 4) We feel it's reasonable to expect 2 weeks of your time understanding > FreeBSD. Of course, we mean the SAME kind of time that you would spend if > your boss would give you 2 weeks for a project, ie: 80 hours. We feel that > 80 hours can easily be divided up over a month's time of 3 hours every > evening getting to know FreeBSD. We figure that if you have prior computer > experience and you've spent 3 hours every evening attempting to install > FreeBSD for a month, then that's pretty reasonable for a brand new operating > system you've never seen before, and you will have a running system out of > it. 4) Poster, understand that getting to know a new system to the point when you can get useful things done on it requires time. You have already taken the first step: you are asking a question. This is good. But be aware that there will be many things for you to learn and to get used to. While there are supporting aids out there to help you, no one can do the actual learning for you. But believe me: Even if it sounds intimidating at first try, you will be all the richer for it when you look back later. Answerer, please be aware, that while this system may be an integral part of your life now, same is not true for everybody. After all, if they knew all the answers, they wouldn't bother to ask a question right? Asking is human and actually may be more work than you think: it involves realizing that you have a problem, analyzing that complex to make out possible components, identifying causes and consequences, and condensing your numerous "missing links" into an answerable short form (aka question) for another human being. Even if the question in front of you doesn't seem like a big deal, view it with the head of the person who sent it: it may be his/her best effort. If needed, ask for clarification, repeatedly if needed. Also remeber that while the documentation may contain a whole lot of useful answers, it is still "code" to which you have to have the underlying "key" to be able to dechiper. Some docs require more of this, some less. So, if needed, point the Poster to pieces of documentation that you think may be useful. But do not simply say: "Read the dox". Once you have the answers, it will be easy to find them in the docs, but until you don't... rather, you as someone who may have more knowledge than the Poster, should peruse the docs regularly to see if your knowledge is still current and to learn about possible quirks you may have not heard about. Even the best docs can profit from someone explaining them in a concise and efficient manner. This is what a human is superior to a machine that can simply keyword search. > 5) We expect that if your going to make unfavorable comparisons between > FreeBSD and other operating systems, that you are going to know FreeBSD > front, back, up, down, and sideways. In short, newbies that make a lot of > "Well, linnnuuxx has THIS and FreeBSD is so LAME for > not having it" kinds of remarks basically succeed in making themselves look > like idiots. 5) Poster, understand that this system may be different (or even very different) from what you know. But this doesn't mean that you cannot get the same things done here. But you will have to re-learn the ways of doing it. When asking a question, make sure that you are asking about your problem and not stating something that you do not know. People may react adversely to this and the whole thing is pointless anyway since you are in the same boat now. Being constructive helps, so that when you have cause for real criticism, it will be better received. Answerer, do not take every opportunity to flame a person for his/her criticism of your favourite piece of software/meaning of your life. Often behind this criticism there is a real problem and a desperation that the person cannot cope with it. Try to help with the problem ignoring the criticsm whenever possible. If needed, take a rest before answering, do something that will relax you. As responsible fan, you do not want to convey the image that your favourite project that you like is made up of a bunch of hooligans, do you? Also, since you have greater knowledge about the issues, you should see that since you are probably not talking about the same thing, there is no point in arguing to death. On the other hand if someone raises a real issue, be frank with them and tell that the criticism is grounded. Do not feel that they insult the project you like: a real fan knows both strengths and weaknesses of the team he is fond of. Simply repeating the "official propaganda line" here will not help, because people are going to feel that you are trying to smartass them, and may even ignore you or the project as "unprofessional" since a professional always knows his worth. > 6) We expect that your not going to be foolish enough to install an > operating system you know nothing about, and have no prior experience on > particular hardware with, onto a production system that has data on it you > want to keep. In short, a newbie installing <...> 6) Poster, be aware that making several OSs coexist on the same system is not an easy task. Prepare yourself: Make full bakcups because there is still a possibility that things might go wrong. Also, not everybody might be familiar with the system combination you want to try, so please be patient if at first nobody answers your question. If you feel uncertain about the procedure, please do not start it because this is a quick way to do damage to your system. Answerer, just because you would never run anoother OS on your computer do not flame someone who would like to. They may have divers reasons for doing so, eg they may want to retain their familiar environment for a while before finally switching over or they just want to evaluate something, or they have a piece of software that won't run on FreeBSD. Instead feel flattered that this person still wants to try your favourite OS. If you don't know how to solve the problem fine, stay tuned, maybe someone will and then you will have learned something as well. > 7) We expect that your not under some artificial time limit to have a > running FreeBSD system up. Like the saying goes, Your Lack Of Prepardness > Is Not Our Emergency. If you boss just came to you and told you to get a > FreeBSD system up and running in 2 weeks, and you've never seen a FreeBSD > system before, well then there's a lot of jobs out there looking for people, > we are sure you can find something in 2 weeks. Seriously, trying to learn > something under pressure is not the way to do things. There's companies > that sell prebuilt FreeBSD servers if you really are in this situation. > 8) Finally, and most importantly, we expect that you have a CLEAR IDEA of > what kind of problem your going to solve by setting up FreeBSD, and that > your POSITIVE that setting up > FreeBSD is going to solve it. 9) Finally and most importantly, if you ask a question, be aware that someone (likely several persons) will have to invest time and resources into finding out what your question was and if they will help you. Remember, in this context only what you say exists of you. People will judge you on the basis of what you say and how. Since you are either already running FreeBSD or want to do it, it is not indifferent what they will think about you. If you answer a question, then do it for real. Don't waste everybody's resources and time by giving seemingly "cute" answers. If you do not want to answer, then don't do it. No one is forcing you. It is just too easy to vent your frustration by kicking the person next to you, but don't do it no matter if you ask or answer. In addition to being bad manners, this doesn't even make sense. Today's askers may be tomorrow's answerers, and vice versa. No matter what you do while with us at the Project, always think about whetether based on the above, this group would want you as a fan? -- Regards: Szilveszter ADAM Szeged University Szeged Hungary To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message
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