Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1999 11:22:50 -0600 From: "G. Adam Stanislav" <zen@buddhist.com> To: Nocturne <dpilgrim@uswest.net>, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Horror story Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.19990314112250.008e0170@mail.bfm.org> In-Reply-To: <36EB6E7D.8058ADE8@uswest.net> References: <3.0.6.32.19990312184205.008eabe0@mail.bfm.org> <3.0.6.32.19990313082158.008eaa20@mail.bfm.org>
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At 00:08 14-03-1999 -0800, Nocturne wrote:
>Personally I think people who just scoff at those who haven't quite
>got it yet don't deserve FreeBSD. Even someone asked a question that
>is answered on the front page of the FreeBSD website I would *kindly*
>tell them where they can find the answer.
Personally, I agree. Nevertheless, when I was first starting, I posted a
question there, and got a load of really nasty mail. One of them sent me
private email (i.e. directly to me, bypassing questions), where he quoted
my signature and said something like "so, you have designed some nice
sites, but you need to get some computing experience." I replied asking him
if 30+ years of computing experience was enough for him (yep, I've been at
this since 1965). He never replied back. Just because one is new to Unix
does not mean one knows nothing about computers.
One of the ways I learned a lot about computers was by answering questions
that people could easily find answers to. Years ago I was very active in
Dr. Debug which was a Fidonet echo (same concept as Internet mailing list).
It often happened that someone would ask "Is it possible to do such and
such thing?" One might easily get annoyed and simply reply: "Why don't you
try it, dummy." Instead, I would simply try it myself and reply: "Yes, I
just tried it, and it works." That way I accomplished three things instead
of one: 1. I would learn something new; 2. I would get them their answer;
3. I would tell them in a non-offensive way that all they had to do was try
it.
Of course, the reason they asked rather than try most likely was they were
novice users and were afraid thier computer would blow up if they simply
typed something at DOS prompt. I have a good friend who got a new AT (when
it was the cream of the crop). His sister was using it for word processing,
when suddenly "Fatal Error" appeared on the screen. She almost died
thinking she killed her brother's computer! When I heard about it, I just
laughed, but to her it was a very serious situation (which, of course, she
learned from).
Your way of kindly sending them to where they can find the answer is good,
too. Chances are they did not look there because they were unaware of the
existence of the resource, or possibly did not know how to use it. It is
also possible they cannot use it: Some people have access to email but not
to the web (although, I suppose, chances are people who try their way with
FreeBSD do have web access). I have a good friend who works for the State
of Wisconsin. He has email access at work, and is very comfortable using
it. But he would not know how to load a web browser, let alone how to tell
it to get him to a web page.
>You have much better chances of getting it answered in -questions. If
>you're not subscribed to -questions, you can put a note at the top (or
>bottom) of your message saying that you aren't subscribed and thusly
>need e-mailed replies. In most instances, your e-mail address is kept
>in the To or CC headers and you get e-mailed replies automatically.
Ah, I did get my answer from Robert Nordier who saw my post here. The
problem was that I was only able to get 3.1-R using the 3.0-R bootinstall
floppy and needed to boot from boot/loader instead of kernel, and then
create a new kernel.
>In any case, it breaks the charter to ask tech-support questions in
>-newbies.
Yes. But I started typing the message to share a horror story, not to ask a
question. Only when I was done typing it, did I think it would not hurt to
add "Any suggestions?" It did not. :-) I am the type of guy who tries
everything possible to solve a problem without asking questions. Although,
admittedly, without Robert's help I would probably not have solved this
one. For the sake of others who may have the same problem, here are the
steps I had to take:
press F2
type "1:wd(1,a)boot/loader"
type "boot kernel.GENERIC"
log on as root
type "disklabel -B wd1"
type "cd /"
type "cp kernel.GENERIC kernel"
type "reboot"
press F5
press F2
Now it works and I am very, very happy!
Adam
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