Ok, my computer's booting up again, which is good. :) Now, to those who mentioned that freeBSD site, awesome site!!! :) Still, I think I know what you guys are talking about when you mention configuring x windows and such, but when I tried it, my computer just rebooted. Anyways, I'm going to go nice and slow with that site next to me and get this working. I'll keep ya'll updated if anything goes wrong. Another question, when you guys are programming, are you programming from the command-line or from a graphical IDE? Thanks!

Quote: Original post by romanMagyar
Another question, when you guys are programming, are you programming from the command-line or from a graphical IDE? Thanks!

[oh] Don't ask. That's flamewar territory.

Anyway, it's good to hear you're working on it. Keep us updated, okay.

When I program (in windows) its often from a graphical non-IDE programmer's editor. In my case the version of SciTe that ships with the ruby installer for windows. I also use Visual Studio 2003, and on linux/freebsd Kate or any other grpahical editor, and on BeOS I used Pe.

Try installing the packages for a windows manager system (KDE, Gnome, whatever) ... when you do this, they will install any missing xwindows packages they need to (if they are not installed). Be prepared to use up a chunk of harddrive and time in the process though (and if you compile from ports, it can take days on an old 400MHz machine).

Quote: Original post by Xai
FreeBSD would be REALLY hard to setup and use if you don't have access to the online handbook (like if you are installing it on your only compuer :). With access to the online handbook, it is just a simple matter of very slowly and carefully reading the section of the handbook that interests you. The handbook is very good, very detailed and very clear - if you take the time to read it very carefully (and are fairly computer literate). Whenever I install FreeBSD I have another computer with an open web browser to the handbook (http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/index.html - but the most dependable link is just to go to www.freebsd.org and click on Handbook).

Yes, I'm thinking of ordering a printed copy for those reasons.

Hi guys, back again. I've got another question. It's a simple one so I didn't see the need to create a new thread. Again, I just want to state that I'm knew to Unix and freeBSD, so it's a little overwhelming. Anyway, got a question for using the vi editor. I ran vi, created a simple "Hello, World" program, compiled it by doing <g++ first.cc> and then ran it by entering <a.out>. I get the message "a.out: not found." I made sure I was in the right directory, that first.cc was there as well, which it is, as well as the a.out executable file. Any reasons why the program isn't running?

. is not in your PATH.

try ./a.out

Doh! :) Thanks alot! Ok, I get it. The . puts you to the working directory, then you access it through /a.out. Gotcha.

I have another question (hopefully you guys aren't getting sick of my questions). Since I'm learning UNIX and such, I was wondering, which field would be better...doing the hardware stuff (network administrator) or being a network programmer? I know both fields have their own merits, but is there an "obvious" choice?

no obvious choice, they are so different in their day-to-day operations that not a lot of people who are both good at and enjoy doing one, are good at and enjoy doing the other.