From owner-freebsd-newbies Fri Jun 19 08:31:16 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id IAA03471 for freebsd-newbies-outgoing; Fri, 19 Jun 1998 08:31:16 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from pau-amma.whistle.com (s205m64.whistle.com [207.76.205.64]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id IAA03442 for ; Fri, 19 Jun 1998 08:31:00 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from dhw@whistle.com) Received: (from dhw@localhost) by pau-amma.whistle.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) id IAA15262 for newbies@freebsd.org; Fri, 19 Jun 1998 08:30:31 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from dhw) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 08:30:31 -0700 (PDT) From: David Wolfskill Message-Id: <199806191530.IAA15262@pau-amma.whistle.com> To: newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Lists, newbies & support (was: Re: Where to get Windows Internet stuff/ More on Windows & BSD) Sender: owner-freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org >Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 16:46:30 -0700 >From: Tim Gerchmez >Newbies are generally those who are in their first few weeks or months of >learning BSD.... Really? Why do you say that? Folks who have seen this (from me) before, please feel free to skip it... but my point is that generally, there is a fair amount of diversity in the community; the unifying force is that freebsd-newbies tends to be populated by folks who are new to FreeBSD (or who have an interest, no matter how pathological[:-)] in the experiences of those of us who are new to FreeBSD). I'm still fairly new to FreeBSD. I'm not "new" to any of BSD, UNIX, system administration, programming, computing, networks, routing, wiring, or lots of other things (including Computer Science). I'm certainly willing to provide my perspectives (warped though they may be) to others; this note is a case in point. I get the impression that some folks assume that what's "new" to "newbies" here is UNIX or BSD, while the denizens are already familiar with PCs. Well, in my case, that's inverted: my prior experience with PC hardware has been minimal (and fairly unpleasant); my prior experience with Microsoft environments has not only also been minimal, but has been so unpleasant that I've largely repressed it. "Windows" to me refers to "the X Windows System". "DOS" refers to the operating system on the first s/360 (it was a model 30 with 4 MB RAM) that I used at a school (back in 1970). (Actually, I recall feeling that the use of "bytes" to measure memory capacity was just a cheap way to artificially inflate the apparent resources of the machine. The first machine I used was an IBM 1130, with 8 K 16-bit words of real core; words 0, 1, & 2 did double-duty as the index registers.) Another respect in which my perceptions differ from some others is that I only use FreeBSD here at work; it's one of the UNIX environments I administer. (It's also the bulk of what I administer.) At home, I use SunOS 4.1.1_U1 on the Sun 3/60, and Solaris 2.6 (current recommended patch cluster installed as of a couple of weekends ago, when they released 105552-02, I think it was -- the 2.6 version of the rpc.nisd patch) on a SPARCstation 5/110.) I'll grant that my case may well not be the norm... but I doubt that -- in that respect! -- I'm actually unique. david -- David Wolfskill UNIX System Administrator dhw@whistle.com voice: (650) 577-7158 pager: (650) 371-4621 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message