Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1999 08:37:15 -0600 From: "Larry Hawk" <tymbrwlf@bellsouth.net> To: <newbies@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Experiences Message-ID: <002401bf4bc0$e0facc80$2e00040a@lhawk> References: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9912201548550.800-100000@max.alleswirdgelber> <000701bf4b1d$c76ff040$8ec101ca@bandhu> <19991221003256.D6B8E639F7@zagnut.hotpop.com> <004901bf4ba0$4bb38510$827e03cb@ORACLE>
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My biggest frustration is with the IRC channels and some of the
newsgroups. There have been several times where I have a simple question
about something that might take someone 5 minutes to help me with and all
they can do is say "hey newbie, MAN <whatever>". It's almost like the
automatic assumption is that I DON'T try to figure something out on my own
before I ask. For example, I was having a big problem getting Samba to work
on an NT network and, as it turns out, all I needed to do was change ONE
option in my smb.conf file. It took me two weeks to figure this out on my
own, and countless beratings (sp?) from (supposed) UNIX know-it-alls. I
think that their logic is the whole "give a man a fish, feed him for a day.
teach a man to fish, feed him for life" thing. But what they seem to forget
is that everybody is a newbie at sometime and helping someone out might
actually give them a jump on something else that they're having problems
with. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise; UNIX is very complex.
I thought the whole idea of the FreeBSD community was to promote
FreeBSD, but when new folks get stuck and can't get help, then they're very
likely to just say "Screw this! Windows does what I want. I don't need this
kind of frustration!". Then you've just sent away a potential user and
they'll probably never come back and try again. Unfortunately, not every
potential FreeBSD user is a 23 year old college computer major, who hacks
code for their research paper. Most of us are competent PC users who want to
explore other alternatives besides MS. I am a NT Admin and I consider myself
pretty darn knowledgeable about PCs, but my background is 100% MS, so *NIX
is very alien to me, so I can't really draw on past experience to help me
very much. But I'm learning and I'm quite proud of my progress.
Now in all fairness, there were many people who offered to help me. And
if it weren't for them I might have given up and throw the FreeBSD CDs in
the trash, but they didn't discourage or belittle me. They tried to help and
that's were the whole "community" parts comes in.
Sorry for rambling. I just had to vent a little....
Larry Hawk
tymbrwlf@bellsouth.net
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