Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 00:23:30 -0400 (EDT) From: Tim Vanderhoek <hoek@hwcn.org> To: "Larry E. Watkins" <lwatkins1@juno.com> Cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Looking for help Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.96.970727000034.2795A-100000@james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca> In-Reply-To: <19970726.164753.12062.0.lwatkins1@juno.com>
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[moved to -questions, since that list is more apropriate] On Sat, 26 Jul 1997, Larry E. Watkins wrote: > I've been stimulated to write because I just received the "FreeBSD News" > and have been reminded that I'm missing out on too much. Yes. :) > I've learned enough about my BSD system to complete a Perl course and > have done some extensive Perl development using vi. I've also learned how Some people really detest vi. Since choosing a specific focused goal and learning it is often the best way to attack a large and complex system (imho), you may want to consider learning emacs. OTOH, I set this as a goal for myself, and as soon as I'd learned how to quit, I decided I'd mastered it. :-) > to get files onto diskette so that I can transfer them between my Win95 > machine and my BSD machine. My Windows machine is my Internet connection > -- I've not gotten BSD to operate with my modem, and frankly wouldn't > know what to do with it once I did get connected. So, basically, I've > been using my nice BSD machine to simulate a big dumb DOS box and little > else. Hm. If your Win95 and BSD machines are the same machine, try moungint your Win95 partition from FBSD (*don't* do this if you're running a newer release of FBSD, and *don't* stress the mount!). If they're different, perhaps a couple cheapo network cards are in order (it might be a bit more work setting-up FBSD to use a little network like this than Win95, though). > I need to get out of the rut. I'd started to install XWindows so that I > could have a windows-like environment but apparently when I initially > installed FreeBSD I neglected to install everything -- XWindows wouldn't > install because it said some of the required directories are missing. I > started to reinstall FreeBSD but the warning message says it's possible I > could lose everything in the process and although I don't have a heck of > a lot to lose, there is enough working that I chose not to risk the > reinstall. If your FreeBSD installation is two years old, you definately want to consider upgrading. Many interesting things have happened in the last two years which make FreeBSD use as a desktop system more attractive. If you chose the "upgrade" option, it will trash your /usr partition, but leave the root partition alone (mostly). I'm not sure what XWindows was complaining about. X is available as a ports "package", but it might be easier to use sysinstall to install X. You can do a "custom" install on an already-installed system without losing anything (provided you click all the right choices :). > What I'd like help with to begin with is to in getting my machine > connected to the Internet and learning what I can do with it once I'm > there -- on my Windows machine I use ftp, telnet, Netscape and MS > Internet Explorer, and e-mail. Reports say Netscape4 doesn't work well, but there is a port for Netscape3 that runs beautifully. Email is a slightly religious topic. ftp and telnet are already on your system, but you might consider installing one of the ncftp ports. Lynx you may want. Connecting to the Internet isn't too hard. There is a lengthy handbook section which can be simplified to "add a line like nameserver 204.101.251.1 to /etc/resolv.conf and type 'ppp' and type 'term' and login to your ISP". From there you can setup ppp to automatically login to your ISP, and then setup dial-on-demand. > So, I need some direction and someone to give me a shove. If I could get > connected properly perhaps someone there could connect to me and take a > look at my system and let me know what I can do to make it hum. This you'll probably need to learn yourself. :) If you haven't, already, start by compiling your own kernel. > I can see the handwriting on the wall and it's spelling FreeBSD -- as > time goes by the less I can use Microsoft the happier I'll be. Looking > forward to hearing from someone whenever you have the time. Unfortunately, I have yet to see something which completely replaces MSOffice (although some things are constantly coming closer). However, I like to think that FreeBSD is so much about replacing Microsoft as improving on it. And, last thing. :) _Read_ the handbook! And there are probably some interesting documents in /usr/share/doc. -- Outnumbered? Maybe. Outspoken? Never! tIM...HOEk
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