From owner-freebsd-newbies Sun Jun 14 17:52:06 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id RAA08765 for freebsd-newbies-outgoing; Sun, 14 Jun 1998 17:52:06 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from mx.serv.net (mx.serv.net [205.153.153.234]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id RAA08687 for ; Sun, 14 Jun 1998 17:51:47 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from fewtch@serv.net) Received: from desktop-pentium (dialup323.serv.net [207.207.70.216]) by mx.serv.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id RAA05588 for ; Sun, 14 Jun 1998 17:51:52 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19980614175142.007b4420@mx.serv.net> X-Sender: fewtch@mx.serv.net X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 17:51:42 -0700 To: From: Tim Gerchmez Subject: The 7 circles of Unix knowledge (humor) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org The following is in the public domain and may be reprinted in its entirety/added to/embellished, etc, if anyone finds it humorous enough to do so. The way I look at it, there are seven "circles" of Unix knowledge: * Newbiehood. Equivalent to a white belt in Karate. Haven't entered the 7 circles yet. * You enter the first circle by installing and configuring Unix correctly, and getting Xfree86 up and running correctly with no problems, and have tried various X clients (including window managers) and servers. Some knowledge of Unix commands and structure is also necessary to graduate to this level. * To graduate to the 2nd circle, you need to master Unix networking in its entirety. This involves many possible forms of networking... Internet, local area networks, various kinds of WANs, etc. This is the level many sysadmins of various ISP's are at, or are just entering the third circle. * The third circle may be entered by mastering ALL the various utilities included with Unix and furthering your knowledge in every area. You can usually recognize someone within the 3th circle by their writing... every 2nd word or so consists of a 2 or 3-letter name of a Unix program ("I've tried vm and md, but pcd and ox aren't quite as useful as fvm is. You should try mss or rw sometime though, it's even better than srmt. Even ptt isn't as useful."). A person with no Unix knowledge cannot understand 75% of what a 3rd circle member says or writes. * The fourth circle takes the longest to reach, and is entered when you no longer need to type 'man command' for any Unix command in existence, and have memorized most or all existing Unix documentation, can program fluently in Perl, C, write complex CGI scripts without thinking about it, etc. This is generally the point where the word "Guru" applies. The ability to compress an average 100 line (80 characters per line including white space allowed) C program down to 2 lines without blinking is a requirement for entering the fourth circle, and this ability is tested by higher-ups before admission is granted. * The knowledge required to enter the 5th and 6th circles is secret, and unknown to those below those levels. Reaching the 6th circle generally takes 20 years or more of 40+ hours/week Unix administration and programming, and even longer for many. A 6th circle initiate (just beginning at that level) could write their own entirely unique version of Unix from scratch in C by themselves in a matter of one or two weeks, device drivers and all. Needless to say, there are probably only 2 or 3 members of the 6th circle currently alive on Earth, and they keep their knowledge hidden from everyone but each other. (6) Mastering the 7th circle at last, you leave your body and pass into universal guru-dom, merge into the digital domain, and vanish from the Earthly plane entirely. Only one or two souls have made it to the 7th circle in the history of Unix. Who knows who they were, or where they went. They exist now in binary digital form, traveling rapidly from PC to PC as minute pulses through the ether of the cosmos. Occasionally their presence is responsible for the crash of a Windows machine, as they pass through the system bus and RAM in their endless exploration of all things digital. Unix, of course, would stay up and running in their presence, and those who claim to have had it up for a year or more solid without a crash may have been graced with the presence of a 7th circle initiate. Tim -- My web site starts at http://www.serv.net/~fewtch/index.html - lots of goodies for everyone, have a look if you have the time. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message