From owner-freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Oct 22 13:36:24 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 12E5D16A4CE for ; Fri, 22 Oct 2004 13:36:24 +0000 (GMT) Received: from fidel.freesurf.fr (fidel.freesurf.fr [212.43.206.16]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3130A43D49 for ; Fri, 22 Oct 2004 13:36:23 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from olivier@gautherot.net) Received: from freesurf.fr (jose.freesurf.fr [212.43.206.13]) by fidel.freesurf.fr (Postfix) with SMTP id BD8C52A4993; Fri, 22 Oct 2004 15:36:21 +0200 (CEST) Received: from 194.98.178.34 (SquirrelMail authenticated user ogautherot) by jose.freesurf.fr with HTTP; Fri, 22 Oct 2004 15:36:21 +0200 (CEST) Message-ID: <47521.194.98.178.34.1098452181.squirrel@jose.freesurf.fr> Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 15:36:21 +0200 (CEST) From: "Olivier Gautherot" To: X-Priority: 3 In-Reply-To: References: Importance: Normal X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: SquirrelMail (version 1.2.5) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit cc: freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Curious (Student) X-BeenThere: freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list Reply-To: olivier@gautherot.net List-Id: Gathering place for new users List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 13:36:24 -0000 Hi Matthew! Welcome to the club :-) The only thing I can tell you is that you made a good choice for your new OS - definitely a lot of good stuff to learn... and valuable experience if one day you choose to look at something else but I know I should not talk about competition ;-) The community is great too - that's another asset of the project. > The other programming task I can get done given a set of standards, but > the one question that I have not been so far been able to answer due > to the lack of financial resources is: Is there a general motherboard > architechture, you see if I knew the specfic address of the DMA, IO > Controller etc, I would be in a position to write low level code to > operate with high level code. Well, if you (or a neighbour) have an old PC that you're about to scrap, it is probably a good candidate for a test machine. BSD will run on old architectures (Pentium and before) - although you should not expect to run the latest KDE or 3D flight simulator on it ;-) If you're interested in networking, you can run a more than decent firewall, though. > So I am requestion the oportunity to help further develpe this project > in return for access to highly technical data; please note I already > know a myriad of programming languages including, C, C++, C#, Fortran, > Basic, Pascal, J, J++, Java , D, Visual Basic, Assembly etc. I also > possess many other technical skills and knowledge. Furthermore I > possess an Associate Degree in Electrical Engineering, and various CXC > passes especially in Mathematics, Physics, Engilsh, Electronics. Sounds like you're going to have fun with the 11000+ packages available! Have a look at the existing software and see what you're interested in. All packages have a TODO list so you'll have plenty to occupy your free time and more. I would suggest to install the system on a machine and play around to start with. Just reading the handbook should keep you busy for a few days. Hope to see your name soon in the "New committers" list! Cheers Olivier