I've got Mandrake 9.2 on a 'new to me' machine. Now to find two
freebie monitors so I can play with Mandrake and FreeBSD (other
'new to me' computer).
It's ALL new to me! I'm sure I'll end
up in a few other groups... singing a newbie song. ;-)
A lot of new people don't realize that the complete FreeBSD
handbook - a very excellent reference - is installed along with
the OS. Here's a little script I use to access it:
handbook
-------------------------------------------------------------------
----------- #!/bin/sh
# Open the FreeBSD handbook in links if at console, else in
konqueror if in an xterm if [ "$TERM" = "cons25" ]; then
links
file:///usr/share/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/book.html
else
konqueror
file:///usr/share/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/book.html &
fi
-------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------
Copy the part between the dashes to /usr/local/bin, name it
"handbook", and chmod to 555. From the console it invokes the
links text-based browser and from an xterm it invokes konqueror.
You may need to log out and log back in before the command will
work. The above script loads the entire book at once. If you
prefer page-by-page format, substitute "index.html" for
"book.html". However I prefer the book format because you can use
the browser's search feature to search the entire book.
You'll need to install links. It should be on your install CD's.
If not, and assuming you've chosen to install the Ports collection
and that your system is able to connect to the Internet, just do
this as root:
cd /usr/ports/www/links
make install
rtfm is also handy. It does a more thorough search of man pages
and info pages than apropos:
cd /usr/ports/misc/rtfm
make install
The best newsgroup for questions is <comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc>.
They're a more mature bunch than you'll find in most Linux groups
and friendlier overall IMO, but they have little patience with
people who won't RTFM. You'll get lots of friendly help if they're
convinced you tried to help yourself first, conversely you'll get
some nasty replies if you ask something that's clearly answered in
the READMEs or in the handbook or via Google.
Don't let that put you off FreeBSD, though. I'd only been using
Linux for one month when I tried it. It was a hard slog for a few
months, and four years later I still have no idea what I'm doing
half the time, but it remains hands-down my favorite operating
system.
