Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 19:03:23 +1030 From: Brian Astill <bastill@sa.apana.org.au> To: <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: A question from a convert from Windows to FreeBSD Message-ID: <02012419032304.01209@BAPhD.gihon.org.au> In-Reply-To: <0ffe01c1a371$661d1b20$6600640a@attbi.com> References: <0ffe01c1a371$661d1b20$6600640a@attbi.com>
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On Wednesday 23 January 2002 04:49, Douglas R. Spindler wrote: > I've been in the industry for 10 years now and have seen the light of > FreeBSD. I know a few Unix commands and know DOS very well. > > Here's my question, why do you guys make converting so difficult? An interesting question, and I note that of the replies I have seen, only Bob Geisen seems to understand the issue. You would think that installing from CD (the most obvious way, IMHO), that the install procedure which can, and does, find your network card and set it up correctly does NOT find your modem. (It doesn't find your sound card either, but I guess you can do without sound) FreeBSD with its ports collection virtually depends on your Internet access, but leaves the modem setup to you. Go figure. The problem seems to be that a high proportion of people installing FreeBSD are Un*x literate, and are not operating on the same wavelength as the converter from WinDOS. Such people access the Internet through a server, not from their own modem, I suppose. Hence no automatic support for modems. I had trouble using X as a user. The solutions offered - like "install Xwrapper" (which already existed on my system) - were unusable by me. A knowledgeable friend gave me the commands to change the mode (whatever that means) of the Xserver. That worked just fine on my single-user system. He understood whereas freebsd-questions did not. Not a criticism, just a comment. Basically, help needs to be offered at the level of the enquirer, not at the level of the answerer. That seems to be the issue almost wherever one goes to find out about FreeBSD. -- Regards, Brian To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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