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Date:      Thu, 2 Nov 2000 13:23:32 -0600
From:      "Ignacio Cristerna" <ignacioc@avantel.net>
To:        "Neil Blakey-Milner" <nbm@mithrandr.moria.org>, "Ignacio Cristerna" <ignacioc@avantel.net>
Cc:        "Micke Josefsson" <mj@isy.liu.se>, "Bob Martin" <bob@inu.net>, <freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   RE: About introducing newbies to FreeBSD
Message-ID:  <FOEDJPDHEFHBAFLANPOBCEFACOAA.ignacioc@avantel.net>
In-Reply-To: <20001102204320.A34775@mithrandr.moria.org>

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Please, I donīt mean to say that I donīt like FreeBSD; au contraire, I love
starting with its little diablito. My post is to point a feature that may be
confusing ther first(s) times you install FreeBSD. After hitting the wall
many times, Iīve learned to use the expert installation option; I find it
easier to use.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG
[mailto:owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Neil
Blakey-Milner
Sent: Jueves, 02 de Noviembre de 2000 12:43
To: Ignacio Cristerna
Cc: Micke Josefsson; Bob Martin; freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: About introducing newbies to FreeBSD


On Thu 2000-11-02 (09:55), Ignacio Cristerna wrote:
> What is absolutely maddening is the way the installer accepts input from
the
> users. Sometimes you press (or are supposed to press) <RETURN> and some
> other times you are supposed to press <SPACE>.  But the worst part is when
> you just finished installing the OS and you find yourself back in a menu
> telling you to do some final adjustments. If you decide to do these final
> adjustments, the f*****ng  installer installs the OS again! Itīs
outrageous!

That would be a bug.  You can get bugs fixed if you mention them to
someone who can fix them, or fix them yourself.  If you're a newbie
(from the subject), this is as simple as (optionally) making sure with
other people that they get this problem too (questions@FreeBSD.org is a
good place to do this), making sure yourself the problem exists, and
then reporting the bug, if someone doesn't fix it when you ask around if
people get the problem.

There are two ways to report bugs - mail, and the PR system.  I suggest
filing a PR, and then sending mail to a mailing list (possibly
hackers@FreeBSD.org if you're _really_ sure you found a bug) after a few
days (some people do it immediately, but often things are dealt with
jsut by people watching the bug reports) providing a short overview, and
a pointer to the PR.  The PR will probably be assigned to the maintainer
of the code, if any, (in this case, Murray Stokely (murray@FreeBSD.org))
and then they'll ask a few questions if they can't reproduce the
problem, and then will work on a fix, or assign it off to someone who
will do the fix.

File the PR, please.  These don't get lost nearly as easily as mail
archives.  If the person can't do it now, he may assign it to the
general pool, and at least if you file the PR, the general pool will
know about it, and someone may stumble over the problem, or see the PR,
and fix it.  Otherwise, it will most probably be forgotten.  It's not
about the developers being bad, it's about the developers having tons of
work sometimes, and less work other times, and that if something slips
passed when they're working lots, they usually don't want to dredge
through mail archives searching for problems (most of which will be
solved already anyway), and they don't necessarily have perfect memory
as to what problems they saw last week, and of those, which still aren't
solved.  This is why the PR system exists - to provide a more
failure-resistant memory to the developer community.

What doesn't make the bugs get fixed is people who don't report them,
and then hold them as some sort of trump card to complain vitriolically
on the mailing lists on a thread that the people who count may not be
reading.  I'd suggest you make sure to calmly look at the problem,
write out as much information as possible, and as much detail, and
describe all your steps, and do what I say above.

Neil
--
Neil Blakey-Milner
nbm@mithrandr.moria.org


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