Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 15:47:04 -0400 (EDT) From: Kenny Drobnack <kdrobnac@mission.mvnc.edu> To: Roy Bettle <rbettle@criterion-group.com>, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Idiot seeks brain. Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.96.990811153408.1845A-100000@mission.mvnc.edu> In-Reply-To: <37B1B029.51C09A83@criterion-group.com>
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Hey, I know how you feel. I grew up on Commodore 64, then DOS 5.0, then
Win 3.1, then 95. Plus, I have installed and tried Linux. Its pretty much
turning into a replacement for Windows (which I'm not sure I like).
Anyway, I spend a week trying to get my sound card working and finally did
when I joined this list. Turned out I had the completely wrong driver.
Here's my proposal - I joined the FreeBSD-newbies list thinking
it was a place for newbies to get help... I think there should be a
FreeBSD-tips mailing list, or some such thing. Or maybe a web page where
we can post tips & tricks or something. I bought the Complete FreeBSD
book, and it does cover a lot of stuff, but there are some parts where it
is either ambiguous or seems to assume some previous knowledge that the
average newbie doesn't have. For example - it just made sense to me that
I was supposed to use the SB device in my kernel for my soundblaster card.
And then both people that helped me out said "No, use the pcm0 driver".
Well, it works and I still don't even know what PCM is :-P Also, dispite
having to enable pnp0 to get my card to work, I had to select NO in my
BIOS for "Plug 'N Play OS installed".
Anyway, my advice to anyone just starting: just did in and go.
Play with everything. The worst that can happen is your filesystem is
completely destroyed and you have to re-install, but who cares? People
coming from certain other operating systems should be very used to
re-installing ;-)
> Damn ...
>
> I've read just about every message that's gone through for the past 3
> weeks or so (since I joined the list), and basically I wish I could
> borrow one of your brains for just a little bit while I figure out how
> to back-up/restore your UNIX/*BSD experience into my poor,
> Micro$haft-muddled brain.
>
> Where do I go to start *at the beginning*? I need to better understand
> the background/culture/norms of the *BSD community. I see these notes
> going back and forth discussing "motif" and "ssh" and "tsk" and other
> similar (programs?) and I feel like a blind man in a room full of
> expensive, breakable objects that everyone else can see and understand.
>
> Hey, I'm a pretty smart guy (taught myself how to configure a Cisco
> 4000-series router; 3 interfaces) ... who's feeling REALLY dumb. Please
> help me out.
>
> I'm pretty thorough too; read through about 10% of the ports list so far
> (freebsd.org/ports).
>
> Is the book "The UNIX Administrator's Handbook" (did I get the title
> right?) what I'm looking for? Is there somewhere on the Web that I can
> go to?
>
> Thanks in advance for your help.
>
> RAB
>
>
--------------------------------------*******************---------------------------------------
| |
| Kenny Drobnack |
| Student at Mount Vernon Nazarene College |
| Major: Computer Science |
| Minor: Math |
| Working on: Computer Internship at the Public Library of Mount Vernon and Knox County |
| |
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