From owner-freebsd-questions Wed Aug 11 17:40:40 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from fellspt.charm.net (fellspt.charm.net [199.0.70.29]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B4A88155C7 for ; Wed, 11 Aug 1999 17:40:30 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from dutch@charm.net) Received: from charm.net (coretel-115-069.charm.net [209.143.115.69]) by fellspt.charm.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id UAA03471; Wed, 11 Aug 1999 20:38:46 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <37B21784.A642939A@charm.net> Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 20:38:28 -0400 From: Dutch Collins X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 [en] (X11; I; FreeBSD 3.2-RELEASE i386) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: vagner@www.timandpatrick.com Cc: Kenny Drobnack , freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG, Roy Bettle Subject: Re: Idiot seeks brain. References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG vagner@www.timandpatrick.com wrote: > > I have been using freebsd since version 2.2.2 (about 2 years) now > and came from almost the same environment as you, I new NOTHING > about networking and am unsure if i know anything now...although > I can uasually get it to talk. You will find that the people > associated with the questions list are a VERY intelligent people > and know their stuff, therefore you might find you will get > sometimes less than appropriate answers from some people > it is because they are SO far ahead of us that our questions > or actions are stupid to them. How do we know if we dont ask stupid > questions to find out. > > One of the problems I find is that FreeBSD and the packages/ports > change so rapidly that i find myself buying book after book to keep > up with the changes. EG: bind, Sendmail, Complete FreeBSD rev 1 2 3., > Another problem is that the FreeBSD website is less than "user friendly" > and i think that is due to the nature of unix bieng less than > "user friendly" ( you better know what your doing cause it will destroy > itself with out even asking). > > I dont claim to be any type of unix or network guru, I am average joe > trying to make a excellent OS "work for me" and so far it does 80 percent > of what i need it to do, granted some of the software is less than "stable" > or "forgiving" but windows has its share of this kind of software too. > > As far as the OS goes I think i had 3 times in 2 years that the actual > Operating system crashed, one was running out of swap > > On 11-Aug-99 Kenny Drobnack wrote: > > Hey, I know how you feel. I grew up on Commodore 64, then DOS 5.0, then > > Win 3.1, then 95. Plus, I have installed and tried Linux. Its pretty much > > turning into a replacement for Windows (which I'm not sure I like). > > Anyway, I spend a week trying to get my sound card working and finally did > > when I joined this list. Turned out I had the completely wrong driver. > > Here's my proposal - I joined the FreeBSD-newbies list thinking > > it was a place for newbies to get help... I think there should be a > > FreeBSD-tips mailing list, or some such thing. Or maybe a web page where > > we can post tips & tricks or something. I bought the Complete FreeBSD > > book, and it does cover a lot of stuff, but there are some parts where it > > is either ambiguous or seems to assume some previous knowledge that the > > average newbie doesn't have. For example - it just made sense to me that > > I was supposed to use the SB device in my kernel for my soundblaster card. > > And then both people that helped me out said "No, use the pcm0 driver". > > Well, it works and I still don't even know what PCM is :-P Also, dispite > > having to enable pnp0 to get my card to work, I had to select NO in my > > BIOS for "Plug 'N Play OS installed". > > Anyway, my advice to anyone just starting: just did in and go. > > Play with everything. The worst that can happen is your filesystem is > > completely destroyed and you have to re-install, but who cares? People > > coming from certain other operating systems should be very used to > > re-installing ;-) > > > >> Damn ... > >> > >> I've read just about every message that's gone through for the past 3 > >> weeks or so (since I joined the list), and basically I wish I could > >> borrow one of your brains for just a little bit while I figure out how > >> to back-up/restore your UNIX/*BSD experience into my poor, > >> Micro$haft-muddled brain. > >> > >> Where do I go to start *at the beginning*? I need to better understand > >> the background/culture/norms of the *BSD community. I see these notes > >> going back and forth discussing "motif" and "ssh" and "tsk" and other > >> similar (programs?) and I feel like a blind man in a room full of > >> expensive, breakable objects that everyone else can see and understand. > >> > >> Hey, I'm a pretty smart guy (taught myself how to configure a Cisco > >> 4000-series router; 3 interfaces) ... who's feeling REALLY dumb. Please > >> help me out. > >> > >> I'm pretty thorough too; read through about 10% of the ports list so far > >> (freebsd.org/ports). > >> > >> Is the book "The UNIX Administrator's Handbook" (did I get the title > >> right?) what I'm looking for? Is there somewhere on the Web that I can > >> go to? > >> > >> Thanks in advance for your help. > >> > >> RAB > >> > >> > > > > > > > > --------------------------------------*******************--------------------- > > ------------------ > >| > | > >| Kenny Drobnack > | eek! some sig file. I know some things and I do not know a bunch about FreeBSD. And to this day I make the darnest mistakes and have to ask why. (see micro size font [or some variant of] questions mail, Duh!). The one thing I have found out is - buying to many books is mot always the best or cheapest way to get info. Case: I have the 6 volume 4.4BSD set (120 $US), and I just found half out the set on the Walnut Creek FreeBSD 3.2 CD. I figger the CD is one of the first items to buy if you haven't already. The CD is somewhere between 40 and 60 $US, I forget. And ypu can get it at Walnut Creek http://www.cdrom.com/ Have fun -d To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message