Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 07:43:20 +1000 From: Sue Blake <sue@welearn.com.au> To: Andrew Boothman <andrew@boothman.easynet.co.uk> Cc: Loren Thiel <thiel@genevaonline.com>, freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: KDE [was: Where's X go?] Message-ID: <19980612074319.25355@welearn.com.au> In-Reply-To: <35802F1C.924D0F99@boothman.easynet.co.uk>; from Andrew Boothman on Thu, Jun 11, 1998 at 08:25:16PM %2B0100 References: <Version.32.19980610160902.00f907f0@mail.genevaonline.com> <19980611185942.19282@welearn.com.au> <35802F1C.924D0F99@boothman.easynet.co.uk>
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On Thu, Jun 11, 1998 at 08:25:16PM +0100, Andrew Boothman wrote:
> Sue Blake wrote:
> >
> > Rebuilding the kernel
> > simply in order to try one of the many window managers is a bit extreme
> > in one's early days.
> >
>
> I thought that rebuilding the kernel was a recommended thing to do as
> soon as you are installed? To remove unwanted drivers and stuff.
Advice like this, when it comes from someone who know what they're
talking about, has to be taken in context. Without the right context
everyone is misled.
For example, I can imagine that someone with a good deal of unix
experience who is about to change over to FreeBSD for the first time and
will be setting up a server to run as efficiently as possible might want
to build a lean mean kernel right away. Traditionally most FreeBSD users
have been assumed to fall into this category. But I know many who use
FreeBSD on their machine at home and never touch the kernel, GENERIC
meets their needs fine.
This is not a comment on what should be done (it would not be appropriate
to suggest that here) but an observation on the range of needs and
understandings of FreeBSD users.
> That's what I picked up from
> freebsd-newbies/freebsd-stable/comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
You don't read freebsd-questions, but you read freebsd-stable?
That's an unusual choice.
> Am I right?
>
> I've never installed or used FreeBSD, but I will be doing in 2 to 3
> weeks. Hence I'm already reading the mailing lists and newsgroups.
>
> In my opinion all this reading has got me far better prepared then any
> FAQ or handbook. There is a better way then learning by making mistakes,
> and that's learning from other people's mistakes! :-)
Hmmm, you might have made your first two learning mistakes already if you
have avoided the FAQ and Handbook, and if you have chosen not to read
freebsd-questions.
You don't need to read freebsd-stable unless you are going to follow that
branch, which is not the appropriate way to go for most people,
especially newbies. What you read there will not apply to the current
RELEASE version. The Handbook explains the differences.
The people who know a lot about FreeBSD all hang out in one place and
only one place: freebsd-questions. There they answer questions on any
topic at any level. If someone gives a wrong or misleading answer, it's
visible to hundreds of others ready to correct them. If your purpose is
to watch what people are saying and how people are using FreeBSD, that is
where you should be.
Here, even as a newbie, I could get away with telling you anything I like
and there's few people within earshot who could correct me. Indeed, if I
fancied myself as a budding expert but couldn't compete with the
standards of freebsd-questions I could exploit the little puddle of
freebsd-newbies to achieve guru status with a bunch of admiring newbies
who couldn't tell if what I said was incorrect :-) If support questions
were already asked and answered here it would be open slather. Many of us
who have moved over from Linux are sick to death of guessing between six
wrong answers. For these and many other reasons we try to keep actual
support and advice out of freebsd-newbies and have it centralised in
freebsd-questions. It reduces the burden for the volunteers who only need
to follow one mailing list to offer help, and ensures quality through
peer review of all advice.
Sometimes, though, there are other issues that newbies need to discuss,
where there is no overlap with freebsd-questions, and where a bit of
discussion here can help us better formulate the questions we ask
elsewhere. There is much that only another newbie can understand, but
none of this is technical.
In the case of KDE I walked that thin line because I have seen newbies
with very little background being advised something like "oh, just
rebuild your kernel, it's easy" without any insight into the real
difficulties that this would present for some newbies, eg new computer
users who haven't even got X running properly yet. I expect that regular
members of this list would know to use that information to better
structure their freebsd-questions questions and better use their answers.
Like I said earlier, traditionally FreeBSD has been used by people who
already have many years of unix and networking experience. Unless you say
"I'm a newbie" you're likely to be treated as the default (experienced)
type of user. Only in freebsd-newbies you're likely to be treated as if
you know less than you do. The computer newbie running a fun workstation
at home is a new and rapidly growing addition to our community, who the
community is just starting to come to terms with. A lot of them are
readers of this mailing list.
Newbies have been visible as a diverse group with our own mailing list
for only a couple of months. Already we've done a lot for ourselves and
helped others to help us better, without having to try to do what
freebsd-questions already does well. If there's anything else you'd like
to see for newbies, please mention it here. Maybe it will be done.
--
Regards,
-*Sue*-
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