Date: Wed, 26 May 2004 21:30:38 +0200 From: Olivier Gautherot <ogautherot@freesurf.fr> To: Chauncey Smith <csmith@icdc.com> Cc: freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Technical questions and Newbie experience. Message-ID: <1085599837.922.40.camel@ogautherot.og-lan.freesurf.fr> In-Reply-To: <005401c442c1$5ef878c0$9b02a8c0@WAND> References: <005401c442c1$5ef878c0$9b02a8c0@WAND>
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> I think we need to have more conversations about our newbie experiences so > when a new person joins the mailing list he can see what the list is all > about. I know that it happens atleast once a week someone can't start X > windows or someone can't load a port because they're not root, or they > simply don't know about the resolve.conf feature of FreeBSD 5.x. That's a good point. There are at least 2 types of newbies: 1) the "I have 50 years of experience in Solaris and you-name-IX and 5 Linux distros and I'm starting with FreeBSD now" on one hand and 2) the "my room mate installed FreeBSD on my machine and I have just discovered that there is an ON switch on the front panel" on the other :-) Having been a newbie myself a few months ago (with fairly extensive Linux background), I acknowledge that, even though the manual is really good, it's a thick reading for people switching or simply starting with computers (no flame, I don't mean to start a controversy about whether FreeBSD is good for a very beginner :-). What I missed is a "Installation and first steps in FreeBSD in 10 lessons". I know there are 1,000 web sites that claim this but I've found no short document on the official FreeBSD web site telling you where to look for info when you start - I was probably too eager to get started... All software products I know have a "Getting started" guide so I guess we should have one too (X in VESA mode, no sound, networking in DHCP client - and pointers to the manual for 3D graphics support, sound servers, firewall, NAT, DHCP server etc.) Any clue whether such a thing exists? and if it could be added to the doc section of www.freebsd.org? About my experience, I use FBSD for email, word processing and plan a firewall (my wife still runs Window$... :-( ) in picobsd on a cheap VIA motherboard. Also in the waiting list are musical notation (would be great to have that in OpenOffice...) and a videorecorder (still missing the video acquisition card for that). I doubt I'll have much time for the other projects with the (human) baby coming up... Cheerio Olivier
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