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From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@FreeBSD.org>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: The FreeBSD mini-faq - a semi-monthly publication
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 06:02:00 -0700
Organization: Walnut Creek CDROM
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-- 
- Jordan Hubbard
  FreeBSD core team / Walnut Creek CDROM.

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---------------------------------------------
General FreeBSD Information - Periodic Posting
Last Updated: June 16th, 1997
---------------------------------------------

This mini-FAQ attempts to point out various important FreeBSD facts
that many newcomers to USENET may be unaware of.  It is posted once a
month or whenever I feel like it.

Questions sort-of-answered in this guide:

	o Where can I find more general information on FreeBSD?
	o Is USENET the best place to get my questions answered?
	o Where do I get information about important FreeBSD events?
	o What are the FreeBSD mailing lists?
	o Any good books on FreeBSD?
	o Where do I get FreeBSD?
	o Is FreeBSD a good Internet server solution?
	o Any examples of FreeBSD being an Internet server?
	o Which is "better", FreeBSD or Linux or NetBSD or NT or ...?
	o Is FreeBSD really free?  How and why do you guys do this?
	o Waaah!  Something is broken!  How do I get it fixed?

--

Q. Where can I find more general information on FreeBSD?

A. Always good resources are the Handbook
   (http://www.freebsd.org/handbook) and FAQ
   (http://www.freebsd.org/FAQ) documents.  Want to know how to
   dual-boot your FreeBSD system?  How to use the NT boot manager?
   How to build a new kernel?  All of these points and many more are
   covered in the Handbook and the FAQ, so please give them a read
   before asking questions that may already be answered there.

--

Q. Is USENET the best place to get my questions answered?  If not, where
   do I get help?

A. USENET is actually a bad place to ask for help, generally speaking,
   though some of FreeBSD's volunteers do go far out of their way in
   trying to answer at least some of the questions posted here.

   Most of FreeBSD's support folks do not, however, even read USENET
   due to an extreme lack of time and the fact that the signal-to-noise
   ratio of USENET is generally terrible, so the very best way of
   getting help is to send email to freebsd-questions@freebsd.org.

   Please do NOT send questions directly to project members (like me!)
   since, in so doing, you only deny all of the other approximately 700
   questions mailing list subscribers the chance to answer your
   question and can only delay your getting an answer.  Also, most of
   us in the project already receive well over 500 messages a day and
   we're likely to simply delete your question if we don't have time
   to answer (which is a lot of the time).

--

Q. Where do I get information about important FreeBSD events, like
   upcoming release dates and such?

A. Please subscribe to freebsd-announce@freebsd.org by sending mail
   to majordomo@freebsd.org.  This is a very low-traffic mailing list
   and should be subscribed to by anyone interested in keeping up to
   date on what FreeBSD is up to.

Q. That's nice, but I'm not much of an email sort of person.  Don't you
   have something more snazzy which I can read over a burrito at lunch?

A. Ah, you want the FreeBSD Newsletter then.  Subscriptions are free,
   and you can register for one by filling out the registration form
   during your initial installation or, if you skipped that step, by
   visiting http://www.freebsd.org/register.html

   The newsletter is published by Walnut Creek CDROM and will be sent
   out about 3-4 times a year, or whenever we have some extra energy.

   Contents for the newsletter are provided by the FreeBSD user base
   and contributions are always welcome - just send email to
   newsletter@FreeBSD.org if you'd like to contact the editor (me!).
   
--

Q. Are there other FreeBSD related mailing lists like this?

A. Yes.  Please visit:
   http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/eresources:mail.html
   It covers the full range of available mailing lists and, more
   importantly, the appropriate subject material for each.  PLEASE
   READ THIS!  People don't generally appreciate off-topic postings in
   the wrong mailing lists, and reading the mailing list charters will
   acquaint you with the do's and don'ts of each list.  Since most
   lists have thousands of members, and nobody likes embarrassing him
   or herself in front of thousands of people, it's really a good idea
   to make sure you're using the right mailing list for the right
   purpose before you send stuff to it.

--

Q. Are there any good books on FreeBSD?

A. Walnut Creek CDROM (http://www.cdrom.com) sells "The Complete
   FreeBSD", basically an installation guide and set of manual pages
   which comes with two CDs inside.  If you've never installed FreeBSD
   before, this isn't a bad reference.  In Japan, you have almost an
   embarrassment of riches with at least 3 books on FreeBSD that I
   know of.  There are also books on FreeBSD in Chinese, published in
   Taiwan.  Please see the Handbook section on books for more
   information (this is a rapidly moving target and I won't even try
   to keep the mini-faq up to date in this regard since the Handbook
   does it already).

--

Q. Where do I get FreeBSD?  Can I get it on CD, floppies, DAT, punched
   cards or paper tape?

A. There are two popular ways of getting FreeBSD: Over the net and on
   CD, the details for both of which are covered at:
   http://www.freebsd.org/where.html

   As for floppies, DAT, punched cards or paper tape, we've never found
   anyone masochistic enough to try and sell FreeBSD distributions on
   these media so you're probably out of luck (and please don't ask us
   to send you 80 floppies in the mail - we'll only laugh at you).

Q. Isn't it cruel to laugh at the disadvantaged?  Not everyone has an
   Internet connection or can afford a CD, you know!  You sound like
   an elitist boob, to me.

A. Life can be cruel that way, yes.  Better get used to it.

--

Q. Is FreeBSD a good Internet server solution?  What makes it so great?

A. FreeBSD is an excellent Internet server solution, heck, TCP/IP
   itself first came to UNIX through BSD and, to many researchers, BSD
   remains the definitive reference platform for it.  So if
   networking's what you want, you've come to the right place with
   FreeBSD.  See http://www.freebsd.org/welcome.html for a better
   synopsis of all this.

--

Q. Talk is cheap - do you have any actual examples of people doing
   Internet services with FreeBSD?

A. You bet.  Visit ftp://ftp.cdrom.com if you'd like to see the
   busiest general FTP server on the Internet - it's running FreeBSD.
   Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com) are also serious FreeBSD users, along
   with many others.  Visit http://www.freebsd.org/gallery.html for
   more information on some of the people using FreeBSD commercially.

--

Q. Which is "better", FreeBSD or Linux or NetBSD or NT or ...?

A. Ahhh, we love it when this question comes up.  In fact, some of
   us may someday join monasteries just so that we can spend as
   much of our time as possible in quiet contemplation of this
   important question.  As a question, it is surely ranked above all
   others for its sheer brilliance, relevance to everyday life and,
   indeed, its expression of the sheer totality of universe as we
   know it.

Q. That's very nice, but aren't you avoiding the question?

A. Yes.

Q. Why?  It's a simple question and a lot of people would like to
   know!

A. I know that, grasshopper, but it's one of those questions without
   a real answer, like the sound of one hand clapping or the essence
   of "Mu."  In the ongoing Maelstrom of development surrounding all
   of the operating systems in question, their relative merits are
   constantly changing things and very subjective besides - any given
   feature of OS X may be totally irrelevant to one user but of
   critical importance to another, and different trade-offs are made
   by each OS in pursuit of the goals that its users feel to be
   important.

Q. So you're not going to answer the question?

A. No.  Only YOU can answer the question, given your specific needs
   and likes/dislikes.  I like FreeBSD and feel it to be superior or
   I'd be running something else myself.  Your own mileage may, as
   they say, vary.  And with the exception of all but NT, the OSes in
   question are FREE so you can evaluate each before making a
   decision.  What more could you ask?

   More to the point, expecting to be spoon-fed your answers in life
   is both unrealistic and stunts your growth besides, so put the time
   and energy into installing all the ones you're interested in and
   then choose for yourself.  The respective developers of each free
   OS have given you their stuff for free, and at considerable
   personal effort, so the very least you can do is be willing to
   exert a little effort yourself in evaluating what they're providing
   you.

Q. Gee, thanks for the lecture.

A. You're entirely welcome.

--

Q. Is FreeBSD really free?  How and why do you guys do this??

A. Yes, it's really free.  We do it by donating all of our time
   and otherwise abandoning any pretenses of having actual lives.

   As to why we do it, well, that's harder to define but it's probably
   reasonable to say that most of us do it because we love UNIX,
   Berkeley UNIX in particular, and we feel it's worth our time and
   effort to keep it alive.  Most of us do not want to be writing
   applications in Visual Basic to feed ourselves come the new
   millennium, and this is one good way of forestalling that terrible
   fate.

--

Q. Waaah!  Something is broken!  How do I get it fixed?!  WAAAAAAHHHH!!

A. Well first off, calm down.  Nobody can understand a word you're saying
   while you're blubbering like that!  Second, it would help if you
   could now describe the problem to us, taking special care to note
   the following facts:

	o Which version of FreeBSD it is you're talking about.

	  At least half of the bug reports we receive concern problems
	  which have already been fixed.  There are still users running
	  FreeBSD 2.0 out there, for example, and that was released in
	  December of '94 (yeesh).  We really do need to know what
	  FreeBSD version you're running in any bug report we receive.
	  (``uname -a'' is your friend).

	o A description of the problem and whether or not it's a new
	  problem or one which has existed since the system's initial
	  installation.

	  If it is a new problem, try and also list any additional
	  events which occurred at around the time that the problem
	  first appeared.  A significant percentage of the problem
	  reports we receive are not, in fact, problems with FreeBSD
	  so much as they are acts of misconfiguration by confused
	  system admins and the more we know about what might have
	  led up to the problem's appearance, the better our chances
	  of spotting the real cause.

	o The steps a support person might take in trying to reproduce
	  the problem, assuming that it's reproducible.

	o If a fix is known, an attached diff is always much appreciated
	  and, assuming it's not a bogus diff, will greatly accelerate
	  the resolution of your problem report.

   You should also be very clear on the fact that the people doing
   the tech support on the other end are doing it for free, and
   shouting at them or otherwise making strident demands will only
   result in their rightfully deciding that you're some kind of mad
   dog which bites those who feed it and they'll stop feeding you.

   Nobody likes having a problem with their system, and it's obviously
   a frustrating experience for you if you're unlucky enough to be
   experiencing a nasty difficulty, but that still doesn't excuse
   you from being civil and you're expected to remember that
   regardless of any frustration you may be feeling.  Be professional
   and FreeBSD's tech support will gladly return the favor.

   All those necessary preliminaries out of the way (bad experience
   having made us cautious where all of the above is concerned), there
   are two ways of contacting the tech support folks:

	1. Send email to questions@freebsd.org

	   The questions answered here are also archived and
	   searchable from http://www.freebsd.org/search.html - you
	   might do a quick keyword search before asking your question
	   on the off-chance that it's already been answered there
	   (and you'd be surprised).

	2. If you have a more formal bug report to file, e.g. you're
	   sure this is some sort of error with FreeBSD and not simply
	   a "how do I ..." sort of situation, then you should use the
	   send-pr command (``man 1 send-pr'') or, if you're more of
	   a fan of HTML-based interfaces, visit:
		   http://www.freebsd.org/send-pr.html

	   This will assign your problem report a unique ID# which
	   will be sent to you by return email.  You should reference
	   this PR# in any follow-up correspondence to us, the PR
	   mechanism also ensuring that you are kept informed of the
	   PR's progress up to final resolution.

--

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