From owner-freebsd-stable Tue May 25 21: 7:11 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from fw.bby.com.au (ns.bby.com.au [192.83.119.129]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BADAE14E6C for ; Tue, 25 May 1999 21:07:05 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from gnb@itga.com.au) Received: (from daemon@localhost) by fw.bby.com.au (8.8.8/8.6.9) id OAA09627; Wed, 26 May 1999 14:07:04 +1000 (EST) Received: from lightning.itga.com.au(192.168.71.20) via SMTP by fw.bby.com.au, id smtpd009622; Wed May 26 04:06:57 1999 Received: from lightning (lightning [192.168.71.20]) by lightning.itga.com.au (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id OAA22577; Wed, 26 May 1999 14:06:56 +1000 (EST) Message-Id: <199905260406.OAA22577@lightning.itga.com.au> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0.1 12/23/97 From: Gregory Bond To: jonathan michaels Cc: "Jordan K. Hubbard" , Sergey , Robert Withrow , freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: [Q] How stable is FreeBSD 3.X ? In-reply-to: Your message of Wed, 26 May 1999 13:33:57 +1000. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 14:06:56 +1000 Sender: owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG It seems to me there are three ways new BSD users can approach this list (or the newsgroup) if they have a problem. 1) They could read the documentation, and try and solve it themselves, and then perhaps post something like: Hi. I installed FreeBSD 3.1 from the CD on my system (a Frobozz 34 Motherboard, a KickHertz 73 processor and a blitblatter 28 video card), and every few days it reboots with a message panic: locking against myself What can I do? Almost certainly they would receive a polite and useful response, along the lines of: This is a known problem and is fixed in the -STABLE branch. Update your system according to the instructions in the handbook. 2) They could just post anyway, without reading the documentation, perhaps like: My FreeBSD system keeps rebooting. What's wrong? which is likely to receive a much testier response, because there is no evidence that they have done any reading on their own, and this request is completely without usable information. 3) They could come out all guns blazing, like: What sort of idiots are you? I've installed this FreeBSD rubbish and it reboots all the time! What sort of moron calls this a RELEASE? Can you guess what sort of response this will generate? Can you guess which of these three approaches the original poster to this thread took? Jordan: Perhaps you could add a section to the ABOUT.TXT file to make it even more explicit the sort of information that makes for a useful trouble report. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message