Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 16:18:38 -0700 (MST) From: vagner@www.timandpatrick.com To: Kenny Drobnack <kdrobnac@mission.mvnc.edu> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG, Roy Bettle <rbettle@criterion-group.com> Subject: Re: Idiot seeks brain. Message-ID: <XFMail.990811161838.vagner@vagner.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.3.96.990811153408.1845A-100000@mission.mvnc.edu>
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I have been using freebsd since version 2.2.2 (about 2 years) now
and came from almost the same environment as you, I new NOTHING
about networking and am unsure if i know anything now...although
I can uasually get it to talk. You will find that the people
associated with the questions list are a VERY intelligent people
and know their stuff, therefore you might find you will get
sometimes less than appropriate answers from some people
it is because they are SO far ahead of us that our questions
or actions are stupid to them. How do we know if we dont ask stupid
questions to find out.
One of the problems I find is that FreeBSD and the packages/ports
change so rapidly that i find myself buying book after book to keep
up with the changes. EG: bind, Sendmail, Complete FreeBSD rev 1 2 3.,
Another problem is that the FreeBSD website is less than "user friendly"
and i think that is due to the nature of unix bieng less than
"user friendly" ( you better know what your doing cause it will destroy
itself with out even asking).
I dont claim to be any type of unix or network guru, I am average joe
trying to make a excellent OS "work for me" and so far it does 80 percent
of what i need it to do, granted some of the software is less than "stable"
or "forgiving" but windows has its share of this kind of software too.
As far as the OS goes I think i had 3 times in 2 years that the actual
Operating system crashed, one was running out of swap
On 11-Aug-99 Kenny Drobnack wrote:
> 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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----------------------------------
E-Mail: vagner@vagner.com or kf7nn@kf7nn.com
Date: 11-Aug-99
Time: 15:16:29
Hardware, n.:
The parts of a computer system that can be kicked.
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