Date: Mon, 1 Nov 1999 14:07:09 -0600 (CST) From: Jerry Dunham <jdunham@fc.net> To: 01031149@3web.net (Duke Normandin) Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: "easy installation"!!!!! yeah right Message-ID: <199911012007.OAA41384@freeside.fc.net> In-Reply-To: <000f01bf2431$d68808a0$6c9ac5d1@01031149> from Duke Normandin at "Oct 31, 1999 10:22:48 pm"
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Duke Normandin babbled:
> From: "Duke Normandin" <01031149@3web.net>
> Date: Sun, 31 Oct 1999 22:22:48 -0800
> I'm a 52yr old newbie --- worse I don't know jack-shit about FreeBSD or any
> *nix for that matter. So please take my following observations in that
> context. It is NOT my intention to disparage anyone.
I'm a 53-year-old sorta-newbie, so I've got you beat by a year. :-)
> I have wanted to learn Unix all this time.
> But guys, to launch myself in this new caper, "I simply want to know the
> time, NOT how to make a watch" -- if you get my meaning. Personally, being a
> tinkerer, I'll definitely want to know "how to make that watch" -- but
> later, when I'm comfortable "telling time". When you guys first started
> driving cars, where you all in a position to set the valve timing, the
> ignition timing, etc. Can you guys NOW overhaul your fuel injectors and tune
> your high-tech engines. Do you want to know how? Do you care?
I like this guy. He just wrote what I was about to write, but much better.
The problem I'm having with this thread is that it seems to segregate
users into two camps: people like my wife, who has trouble turning on
a Windoze machine, and people like Greg Lehey, who wrote the book on
FreeBSD. Well, we're not all either sysadmins or double-clicking idiots.
Here in the middle are people like Duke, who just wants to learn a bit
about UNIX, and people like me.
I'm a (ab)user, not an admin. I primarily want to use my system to get
work done. The more I learn about the valve timing and the ignition along
the way the better, but I'm NOT sitting here because I want to become a
mechanic or admin. Should I therefore be condemned to the instability and
poor performance of Windoze?
You tell me to RTFM. I really don't mind doing that, but I have two
problems: some of the man pages are NOT written for the uninitiated, and
many times I don't know really where to start looking. If I were wanting
to become an admin that wouldn't really matter; I'd simply start wading
into Greg's book and the archives until something clicked. Mostly I just
don't have time for that, and I think it's unreasonable to expect Joe User
in general to have that much immediately available time.
Do you as a group really want to divide users into two camps: FreeBSD
sysadmins, and Windoze lusers? Should those of us who simply want a
nonfragile system to get personal work done all move to Linux?
FWIW, I came to FreeBSD from the Atari ST, by way of Xenix, so I'm another
with no MS-DOS background. I do run WinNT on my notebook, but that's be-
cause my employer requires that I run SOME form of Windoze, and NT is at
least reasonably robust for a single user, even if the performance isn't
anything to write home about. I've used mechanical CAD on HP-UX, SunOS,
and IRIX, but even there I was just a user, with just a driver's license,
not a mechanics' certification. I don't want to race; I just want to
drive to the grocery store, but I'd like to get home again without a
crash.
--
Jerry Dunham FreeBSD Atarian ordinaire
jdunham@fc.net (512)335-0674 (H)
jdunham@avalanche.us.dell.com (512)728-4026 (O)
E Pluribus Unix
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