Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 22:14:49 -0500 From: Dave Vollenweider <metaridley@mchsi.com> To: freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Getting over the FreeBSD Learning Curve Message-ID: <20041008221449.6c4e6ac9.metaridley@mchsi.com> In-Reply-To: <03B03879.3F8E9EA6.492E7C3F@netscape.net> References: <03B03879.3F8E9EA6.492E7C3F@netscape.net>
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On Fri, 08 Oct 2004 21:51:15 -0400 braidsenfro@netscape.net (Akbar) wrote: > It occured to me that you get better with FreeBSD one desired feature at = a time. I wanted to input Japanese text, I had to look around, read, and as= k. =A0It broke when i installed chinput, then i reinstalled it and got a be= tter understanding of enabling japanese input in X. Before that i had to un= derstand something about installing software. I wanted to burn a CD, and en= ded up making my first Makefile, so now i know how to read them better in t= he ports. I've been using FreeBSD for about six months now, and I can say that it is = all about learning how to do things on your own. That's true of most if no= t all Unix-like OSs, Apple's Mac OS X notwithstanding. > I'm a newbie of better than a year now. =A0Still excited about FreeBSD, b= ut admittedly, it seems like FreeBSD is not for people who want everything = now. =A0That's what Apples are for. For example, i ran an OpenGL screen sav= er under KDE and it was horribly slow. I also have a SB Audigy Gamer card t= hat i don't hear anything out of at the moment, but I will, eventually. Again, that's the learning curve coming in, and it's true of most Unix-like= OSs. I've used Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and a tiny bit of Solaris. All re= quire the user to search around and find how they can do what they want to = do. For most people it doesn't seem worth it, and that's one of the reason= s why MS Windows is so popular. But, these people don't want to learn, eit= her. FreeBSD and the other Unix-like OSs are perfect for those of us who w= ant to learn how these systems work. Other OSs try to hide the inner worki= ngs as much as possible. That's the difference. But, that difference mean= s that the FreeBSD user, with sufficient knowledge and experience, can gain= total control over his or her own system, something that users of OSs that= try to hide the inner workings will never achieve. As for your screensaver, the first mistake was running KDE; that's the slow= est desktop environment you can use, and it sucks a lot of RAM, which most = likely slowed down your screensaver. On the sound card, it's possible that= someone will make a driver for it, or you can even do it yourself if you'r= e up to it. That's the beauty of freely-available open source software: an= yone can contribute to it. Some parts are more glamourous than others, of = course, but that doesn't mean they're less necessary. In fact, the less gl= amourous parts are ususally the most necessary. > I'm sure almost all newbies want to be gurus. Here's my postulation on ho= w. Think of something you want to do on your FreeBSD station, then concentr= ate on doing it. Once that's done, go to the next thing. In other words, do= n't look at FreeBSD as a whole. =A0Chances are, you don't care about everyt= hing that it is made of, or can do. But over time you'll have a degree of f= luency in FreeBSD. I agree with this advice. I'll pass along some more that I've been given: = learn what's behind the programs you use, which includes the programming la= nguages, if you really want to know the system. This also gives you the po= wer to make big changes as you see fit, changes which you may even want to = submit for inclusion into FreeBSD itself. I know this is advanced, but thi= s is one of the reasons why I've begun learning Perl. Other languages incl= ude C (the big one for Unix), C++, Ruby (which portupgrade uses), Python, L= ISP...the list goes on and on. In using FreeBSD we are using something whe= re we have the ability to look at how it works. I say let's take advantage= of it.
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