From owner-freebsd-newbies Fri Jan 25 9:13:31 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org Received: from grlu5117.cnet.navy.mil (grlu5117.cnet.navy.Mil [160.127.129.23]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0AFBC37B42C for ; Fri, 25 Jan 2002 09:13:10 -0800 (PST) Received: from penx68322m1.cnet.navy.mil (pens0394.cnet.navy.Mil [160.125.210.190]) by grlu5117.cnet.navy.mil (8.9.3 (PHNE_18546)/8.9.3) with ESMTP id LAA12481 for ; Fri, 25 Jan 2002 11:13:08 -0600 (CST) Received: by pens0394.cnet.navy.Mil with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) id ; Fri, 25 Jan 2002 11:18:29 -0600 Message-ID: From: "Burt, Randall -CONT(DYN)" To: "'freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG'" Subject: A purpose and a goal (was - RE: Networking) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 11:18:28 -0600 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: owner-freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Ok, so I've been a lurker on here for a while and I guess its time to chime in. Rick brings up an interesting point in that this list claims to be for newbies to discuss non-technical BSD topics. And yet, all I have seen has been "I can't get my network card working" or "PPP !!????" type stuff. How's about a discussion of BSD's value on the desktop vs. Linux, or great apps to get once you've gotten that rig up and running (using all the info you got from -questions ;))? I have gotten FreeBSD running on a spare box at work, so now what? What are the differences in the "flavors" of BSD, and which is right for me? (I seem to remember a small article on that last subject, but it wasn't very detailed) What can a lowly newbie do to help? Are there any BSD user groups similar to the LUGs that pop up everywhere? How would I get one started? Granted, everyone has been helpful and I must say that the BSD community seems a bit more forgiving, on the whole, than some of the hard-core Linux folks. However, it seems that this forum was intended to foster discussion about and around the community itself rather than solving particular configuration/installation/whatever type problems. I may be off base here, and ultimately this list is about what the user's make it, but I subscribed to this list because I expected the kind of discourse described above. RTB3 -----Original Message----- From: Rick Hamell [mailto:hamellr@heorot.1nova.com] Sent: Friday, January 25, 2002 11:49 AM To: Jeff Lasman Cc: freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Networking > > Intel or Kingston. Stay away from SMC/Realtek and 3Com. Also > > asking questions like this on -questions will yield better results. :) > > I'm absolutely willing to believe you, Rick. Can you tell us why you > feel that way, though? Which part? The nics, or asking in -questions? For the first part I've built, 100's of computers using every version of Windows, FreeBSD since 2.2.6, DOS, Novel, Lantastic, Banyan, Linux, and even Solaris on Intel. SMC, Realtek, and 3Com have consistently been the bad/troublesome cards. In fact I recently was willing to give SMC another chance, mostly because I needed one now. After three days of playing with it, I replaced it with an older Intel card, and had the system up and running with no problems within 5 minutes. 3Com... is just junk. :) The 509c and the 905B chipsets are the worst NIC chipsets ever. They don't confirm to standards very well in the first place. They tend to be like USR modems, they work great if you're attaching to the same model on the other end. As for the 2nd part, -newbies was created with the cavet that ALL technical questions be asked in the -questions group. The rational behind that was that people using FreeBSD tended to use it in production. -newbies are by definition new and may accidently give the wrong answer to a question causing lots of headaches for that person. If you all ready Sue's monthly posting or http://www.freebsd.org/projects/newbies.html you'll see way down at the bottom it explains what -newbies is for. Rick ******************************************************************* Rick's FreeBSD Web page http://heorot.1nova.com/freebsd Ace Logan's Hardware Guide http://hw.shatteredcrystal.com ***FreeBSD - The Power to Serve! http://www.freebsd.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message