Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 23:51:07 -0400 (EDT) From: Jeff Roberts <jroberts@ashland.edu> To: chat@freebsd.org Subject: My opinion about freebsd (fwd) Message-ID: <Pine.OS2.3.95.970710234702.30D-100000@warp4>
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Hi, everyone. This is posted for/at the request of Jonah Kuo. I think
he'd like to hear some opinions regarding the usability factor, especially
in the future. Please reply to him, jonahkuo@mail.ttn.com.tw , not me!
=)
Take care,
Jeff
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 03 Jul 1997 19:07:06 +0800
From: Jonah Kuo <jonahkuo@mail.ttn.com.tw>
To: jroberts@ashland.edu
Subject: My opinion about freebsd
I'm talking about freebsd in my
opinion and it's really ONLY my opinion. Over the past half a year, I've
liked and loved freebsd, it is so great, so wonderful and of course so
powerful. As I mentioned, I'm a user of freebsd, I'm not a hacker, not
even a programmer, but I can use freebsd happily, so I appreciate the
many people out there who created it, who have helped other people, you
and
they are great and to be expected, thank you very much!
A week ago, in the FAQ, I found I can use freebsd + squid +
FWTK and a dial-up line to make an office to communicate with the
internet.***Don't have to buy an expensive router, don't have to apply
for an
expensive leased line, this kind of collection can save people a lot of
money, and reduce the bandwidth wasting, also it can decrease the
depletion of IP addresses by using the private subnetworks*** (though
I've not set it up
yet :-P), It is a terrific and efficient function that other operaing
systems don't provide, UNLESS you pay a lot of money buying this OS +
A package + B package....
So, I'm planning to set it up. I fetched the Squid, followed the
instructions in the README and INSTALL, I compiled it successfully but I
don't know what the squid.conf is talking about :-(, due to my lack of
understanding of protocols, ports or etc. O.K. ignoring that problem,
I fetched the FWTK, followed the instructions in README and INSTALL, I
make...., I encountered a problem during compile time..., Oh, no, I
can't hack. :-(, I told myself: "Don't worry, I've subscribed to the
fwtk's users list, I can ask somebody out there", though I've not get
any reply yet. :-(
Since I can't figure this problem out, I have questions about
freebsd. Is it only a hacker's workbench? Can only the unix gurus can
play
freebsd well? Does every freebsd user have to learn C language? Is the
threshold too high to common freebsd user? We all have to admit,
basically, if one wants to join the freebsd community, he(or her) must
know what the irq, io port, primary, seconary, jumpers are...and so on.
Yes, this is simple, there
are many easy to understand hardware-related books in the bookstore, but
do you think the protocols, communication ports, routing, proxy,
firewalls are easy to understand? Obviously not!
Between freebsd and commercial OSs, from the common user's
view point, the question is, "To pay or not to pay?"--pay in time or in
money. We all hope the number of freebsd users will increase, and also
hope
they can enjoy what we are enjoying, and hope the commercial software
vendors can treat users more fairly. I really don't want to see the
following happen:
"FreeBSD, turning your PC into workstation, hackers only" or
"FreeBSD, turning your PC into workstation, unix gurus only"
I'm not complaining that freebsd is too difficult to learn, in
fact, I like and love it. I'm happy we all finally have a chance to say
NO to
commercial software whose prices are too expensive, and again, I deeply
appreciate the people who constructed freebsd and who have helped
others. I just think can we take more care of the silent group and let
more
people enjoy the effort that you have made.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jonah
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