Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 12:06:56 -0700 (PDT)
From: Tim Gerchmez <fewtch@serv.net>
To: arthur <arthur@col.auracom.com>
Cc: freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG, Marcel Mason {Personal} <marcel@nunanet.com>
Subject: Re: How important is "the OS?"
Message-ID: <XFMail.980626120656.fewtch@serv.net>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.95q.980625223546.23268F-100000@outpost.col.auracom.com>
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On 26-Jun-98 arthur wrote: > Yes it is scary, and Tim, I feel you could have safely gotten away > without using "ficticious" in your above statement, but I'm sure you > were just playing it safe. Not really. There really is no such thing as an "average" anything. "The average computer user" is a stereotype, plain and simple, and human beings are too complex to fit perfectly into stereotypes (at least 99.9% are). > At this point I feel it necessary to say I love FreeBSD!!!!!!! I'll have to agree with that one... it sure grows on you as time goes by and you learn more.. the more I learn, the more I come to appreciate it. Yesterday I appreciated it for 36 hours straight with literally about 4 short breaks to grab a bite to eat and go to the restroom :-) Today, I booted Win95 once... to check my modem string in the registry. Then it was instant reboot (a program I wrote to instantly reboot the computer from Win95, BTW) and back to BSD. > Unfortuneatly, to a wide majority, the home computer is nothing more > than an appliance, or form of entertainment, and that makes the above > statement very true, and very depressing. Although the up side to that > is that hardware prices have become ridiculously low compared to years > gone past, and that makes me sooooo happy. Ditto, especially with RAM and hard drive prices. Remember when a 4 meg stick of RAM cost $120 or so? What you probably don't remember was that was in 1995, just 3 years ago!! I remember starting a thread in a Usenet newsgroup titled "RAM prices outrageous!" - ironically, about 3 days after posting that message, RAM prices began their precipitous fall. > OK, I'm sticking my neck out here for a good thrashing, but! ... since > this is "newbies" it might be a good forum to make this statement. In my > own personal opinion it almost seems that with the easier net access, > easier as apposed to 6-7 years ago, people that are getting frustrated > with MS's products go looking for something else, and that, in a way, has > made trying a unix varient "trendy" for lack of a better term. Those that > don't mind getting down and dirty with config files will stick with it, > while others don't. They also have to have one or both of of the following: (1) A high frustration tolerance, especially in the beginning (2) A lot of general computer and OS knowledge. Either/or usually means that the person will stick with it to the point of feeling comfortable in the Unix environment. The second factor especially helps. A raw newbie to computers is unlikely to stick with a Unix variant, even with a very high tolerance for frustration. The learning curve in the first few weeks/months is just too steep. The nice thing is that curve levels out soon afterwards. > Please, correct me if you feel my opinion is wrong, Just to point out, opinions are never wrong or right, simply opinions. Everyone has them, and everyone has a right to them, even if they disagree with 99% of everyone else's opinion. Defend your opinions to the death - it's your &deity-given right to have them! > but that's just the > way I see things, and since this is a list of new-to-FreeBSD/unix type > users I'd appreciate hearing everyone's reason for looking into this > type of operating system. My personal reason? I was getting bored with Win95 and NT and looking for something new to play with. You'll get a different answer from everyone. > If anyone didn't catch my impression above, I feel that the popularity > and growth of unix varients is on a major upswing. Do you have any data to support that conclusion? I'm not disagreeing, just wondering if there's some hard data to support the conclusion. > And not to sound like > a history buff, but without the earlier beginnings of unix, there would be > no internet today. (my opinion of course) Once again, a possibility, but no supporting data. ---------------------------------- E-Mail: Tim Gerchmez <fewtch@serv.net> Date: 26-Jun-98 Time: 11:51:54 This message was sent by XFMail ---------------------------------- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message
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