Re: Does any common mortals here (not programmers or sysads) use NetBSD as their daily productivity driver?

[latincom%vcn.bc.ca@localhost]

common mortals:
Step one:
next step:
next step:
more steps:

You:
> I think you are making a pretty big mistake by assuming we all
> weren't "common mortals" once. Nobody is born writing device
> drivers. But NetBSD is an excellent place to get into that,
> the BSDs have a long heritage in education.
>
> By considering NetBSD in the first place you're already opening
> yourself up to non-mainstream options. By and large, NetBSD
> people are hobbyists, very few people (especially outside of
> Japan) are being paid to work with NetBSD. I don't have any
> computer-related qualifications, and I work in the industry _because
> of my NetBSD-related hobby work_, not the other way around.
>
> You're on IRC a lot of the time requesting help from people who've
> mostly learned by trying things, making experiments, breaking things
> and picking up the pieces themselves.  You have to not be afraid to
> do that.  There's very little "hidden knowledge", everything you can
> possibly learn about NetBSD is available on netbsd.org (the man
> pages, the list archives, the source code) really.  Other sources
> aren't anywhere near as reliable.
>
> I think even if computer hobbyism, you might still find NetBSD
> effective for web browsing, which is where most non-mobile-app things
> are positioned these days.
>
> Increasingly, this is a world where you can get by _without_
> using a desktop computer. That ship sailed in the 2010s.
>
> My life is organized through my phone, and I open my non-work
> computer for a few little things (working on creative projects
> and stuff like that). So there is nothing to "miss" any more.
>
> NetBSD, of course, does a very fine job at routing the traffic
> between your phones, game consoles, and whatever else that
> conveniently hides most of the "conventional computer" architecture
> from you. Many people use it in that role.
>