From owner-freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Feb 23 12:36:54 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0DE0C16A4F7 for ; Mon, 23 Feb 2004 12:36:54 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail.gmx.net (mail.gmx.de [213.165.64.20]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 533C643D1F for ; Mon, 23 Feb 2004 12:36:53 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from krylon@gmx.net) Received: (qmail 27598 invoked by uid 65534); 23 Feb 2004 20:36:51 -0000 Received: from B6285.b.pppool.de (EHLO wintermute) (213.7.98.133) by mail.gmx.net (mp025) with SMTP; 23 Feb 2004 21:36:51 +0100 X-Authenticated: #685629 Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 18:37:58 +0100 From: Benjamin Walkenhorst To: freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.org Message-Id: <20040223183758.70781f8d.krylon@gmx.net> In-Reply-To: <001501c3f99e$1083d4d0$9446a8c0@owner> References: <001501c3f99e$1083d4d0$9446a8c0@owner> X-Mailer: Sylpheed version 0.9.8a (GTK+ 1.2.10; i386--netbsdelf) X-Operating-System: NetBSD 1.6.2_RC4 User-Agent: Sylpheed 0.9.8a X-Face: "G=jn*S]P-JmPX0[GAK; )7Yo0p?#U/0m{g!*j3XGvT80*#5pX0kPN$4+azk{O#@ZEZV9BS:4y; \9utXK@+?.mCT.k%G&Ix2XEj-`bBt{TituWYrQ5npZb+:ERfmRt-((lW:itQr$C|B~; vhJ:>2,{tA}#)P'g3h6eE8JT|Qfcm50pUoy{zb8=jvof2?lY}EYTEt4z=5*i%OJ136\?S8^g~^>,s&,jBb'=K|ryeVtUX5 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: Greetings and salutaions.. X-BeenThere: freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Gathering place for new users List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 20:36:54 -0000 On Sun, 22 Feb 2004 18:46:17 -0500 "Mr_H" wrote: > Howdy everyone, > > I have finally decided to send a post. It's been a few months > since I have sucessfully installed FreeBSD 4.8 using the boot > floppies and the ftp install method. It took several attempts to > do it correctly. Since that wonderfull day, I have met many great > people and, using a unix based IRC client has opened up a world of > possibilities. I too had no experience, except for MS products, When I first came to Unix-like systems, I found them very difficult to use, too. But I can be a tough customer. =) And all those wonderful things I could and can do with it made realize just how much windows sucks. =) > and have had an apparently tough time getting acquainted with the > 'CLI', which is why I decided to write. I see several people > having the same issue(s) I once had. All I can say to other > newbies is to simply stick with it. I spent approximately 2 I decided to spend some money and get a good book to introduce me to the command-line and shell-scripting. And it still took me a lot of time. I just learnt what I needed to know to accomplish a given task, and so I learnt to use the system step by step. I've been using Linux for more than three years now, FreeBSD for about 7 to 8 months, and I still learn a lot of things. Someone once said "Unix *is* simple - it just takes a genius to understand its simplicity". I'd rather say it takes a lot of time to understand its simplicity (not wanting to call myself a genius *g*). That goes for the command-line as well - once you got the basic vocabulary and the 'grammar', it's very simple and comfortable to use. I prefer the command-line for many tasks, since it's often faster. Or I am faster via command-line, anyway, since I'm a very good typist. =) > horribly frustrating weeks trying to set up a gateway. Without the > support of my IRC peers, and some much needed advice, I may have > fallen by the way side and resorted back to M$. I, too, was frustrated, and more than once. If I had started with FreeBSD instead of SuSE, I might have given up. But I spent 45 Euro on SuSE 7.0 back then, which was a lot of money for me at the time. I just don't wanted that money to be lost. =) Later, it became a question of honour - I just could not stand the thought of leaving the problem unsolved. Sometimes I would just let my machine stand around for weeks or just use windows (which I still keep installed for playing games), but sooner or later I would look at the problem again, and often to find the solution quite obvious. =) Frustration is something you have to learn to deal with if you're using Unix. But as you gain experience and skills in problem-solving, problems turn from annoyances to challenges. With each problem you overcome you know your system a little better, until one day you sit down at a windows-machine and make stupid mistakes like forgetting to copy marked text to the clipboard manually or try to roll up windows or use "/" as a directory delimiter on the command-line. I've had all of these already... =) > I now have a home > network, a personal webserver, and a new, clearer understanding of > computers in general. The best part of it all is that it was > free!! (minus the obligatory legwork) My understandings only > continue to improve each day. Eh, well... =) Just as I said. =) I hope you enjoy FreeBSD as much as I do. After using SuSE for about one year, I tried Debian for some time, but when I tried to set up my ISDN-card manually, I blew up my system, so I returned to SuSE (the only time I ever gave up on a problem like that). Then, in summer 2003 I tried out FreeBSD 5.0. Since I had gotten used to configure SuSE almost entirely manually, I liked FreeBSD a lot, since its configuration files are a lot tidier and ... reasonable than SuSE's. But some things did not work, my ISDN-card, my TV-card did not work entirely, I had to load third-party-modules for my soundcard... ;-/ So I stuck with SuSE. Then I tried Slackware and loved it immediately, mainly for being quite BSD-like, so it became my primary system. In december, I tried out FreeBSD 5.2, and now it is my primary system. I also use NetBSD on my second machine, which I use as an internet-gateway, NFS-server and some basic explorations of Unix' networking-capabilities, since I don't have much experience in that area. FreeBSD is a great system indeed, easy to use, easy to configure - once you know how it works - and all in all a lot of fun. If you run into more trouble you'll find the mailing-list to be very supportive and friendly. For technical questions you should turn to freebsd-questions. Kind regards, Benjamin -- If you want to know what god thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to. -- Dorothy Parker