Re: List intolerance VS advocacy

[tapeworm <tapeworm@insekta.org>]

On Thu, 13 Jun 2002 15:28:54 -0400
Garance A Drosihn <drosih@rpi.edu> wrote:

> In this case, part of the criteria for getting in is that you
> are willing to at put in at least some of the effort in learning
> the system.  Being a "newbie" is not the issue.  One of the guys
> in our computer center picked up on openbsd because he wanted it,
> and he had pretty much zero knowledge of administering *any*
> unix system when he started.  He got up and running, without
> irritating a single person on this mailing list, by simply
> reading and rebooting and reinstalling and reading some more.

really, i think this another key thing that a lot of newbies need to pick up on is intuition and the will to just take a dive to *try* it.
when i first discovered openbsd, it was through a shell account i have.  our generous administrator had previously been running linux or something, then switched to openbsd after a particularly messy scriptkiddie obliterated certain portions of his filesystem over an irc vendetta.  in any case..fast-forward a couple years, and a friend of mine gives me a cd for openbsd 3.0

i've installed and reinstalled a couple times over mistakes i've made trying to configure portions of the system.  i've spent countless hours drudging through documentation, mailing lists, yadayada.  i still can't get an audio cd to play.  but i'm still *trying* things.
i try not to ask for help, simply because i want to understand the system on a deeper level than just, "hey newbie, type this and it'll work".  even with problems i've encountered, i've solved most of them through simply trying things, and if i fail, try to find out why it happened.

as much as i feel newbie's should be pointed to help every now and then, i do believe a lot of them ask very, very stupid questions..and this is coming from another newbie.  many of those questions stem from simply not reading the available documentation, and unfortunately, a lot of that stems from windows users who are trying to convert.  they are used to instant-on sort of configuration, all plug and play, where installing something means you run install.exe, reboot, and it simply works...and leaves the system a mess of random shit and bloated crap.

i'm not asking for a pat on the back here..simply trying to point out that it is possible for a newbie to get a system going without bugging too many people.

- erik