Hi! Some advice for a new FreeNAS enthusiast?!

[madmax]

Hello, I'm Max!

I have been using FreeNAS on and off for the last 9 months. I love the commit and quality from the support team that FreeNAS has for there project . I'm currently in school for Computer Science and approaching my senior year. I have some background in IT with USAF and now just learning a lot theory in school. I have learned and implemented some programs in C++, MIPS, x86, JAVA, android, and python. Not much in UNIX other then installation, maintenance and troubleshooting which is pretty much reading a manual but I would like to get involved and become more knowledgeable especially in programming and theory of such a projects like FreeNAS that are based on enterprise networks and open source. With that being said, if anyone is willing to give any suggestions or recommendations on becoming more knowledgeable? I am being proactive and have started my exploration of FreeBSD. Is there any resources such as FreeBSD docs and FreeNAS forums that are as valuable in there learning? From my limited programming experience I know there is no other substitution or faster way of learning then actual programming but I just wanted open a discussion on where I should start concentrating my time. Project such as FreeNAS is made up a lot of things so I was interested in the evolution of the project as well. Thanks for any comments even if critical.

Max

 

[ProtoSD]

Hi Max,

Probably the BEST advice I can give you is to learn how to search. Just about anything and everything you've ever wanted to know has been published and can be found on the internet if you spend time learning to search. Just read and read as much as your head can absorb and eventually things will start (or should) adding up and making sense. You'll learn about stuff you hadn't even considered. Search, search, search....... google is your best search option. If your first results don't turn up what you want, keep trying different words. I really can't stress enough how important and helpful it will be to you to learn.

Good Luck

 

[cyberjock]

Until February of last year I had never used FreeBSD and I don't have any friends that have used it either. I've just had to search search search.

If you want to do something I generally ask Google and I am relentless in looking for an answer. It can be difficult to find the answer you want if you don't have the terminology in FreeBSD. For instance, chkdsk(Windows) is called fsck in FreeBSD. If you don't know to look for 'fsck' then you can have difficultiies. I recommend you just stay with it. I've found that my FreeBSD experience has really helped me get more involved with Linux too!

 

[survive]

Hi madmax,

A couple of great things about FreeBSD is that it is very thoroughly documented & it is a single cohesive kernel & userland. There are some very active mailing lists for FreeBSD as well.

Personally I find I learn stuff fastest using what I call the "fix, break, repeat" method. Find something you want to do or figure out then do it!

-Will

 

[jgreco]

I've successfully taught people about various aspects of UNIX by telling them to go figure it out for themselves, and then come talk to me.

This may seem awful at first glance, but it really works. Handing people information on a silver platter is rewarding for the person getting the assistance, but pretty much a drag for the provider of the information. If you go out and make a proper attempt at learning something, even if you get on the wrong track, you probably wind up with a lot of the fundamentals you need. You're also in a much better position to be given a gentle shove in a different direction and then pick that up mostly on your own, and occasionally - the real win - someone comes back to me with something completely unexpected and I learn something cool too.

I can't speak for the other frequent posters here, but I find myself more interested in helping people who ask questions that show they've done their homework and understand at least some significant portion of the underlying issues.

There is no good substitute for actual experience, which is best acquired through experimentation rather than through necessity.

I find that a formal education in compsci is also lacking in this modern era, but some of the fundamentals and theory you learn are still very important everyday knowledge.

FreeNAS is an extremely complicated and competent platform, and there are many things you could potentially explore. What are your actual interests? Are you interested in learning more about IP networking? Storage networking? File sharing protocols? General network servers/services on UNIX? UNIX particulars? ZFS internals? System design and implementation? Network controllers? SATA/SAS controllers? Hard drives? Working with physical hardware? I've deliberately walked through from the abstract network to the physical hardware there. Each area has fun and interesting things to learn. If you end up with some competency in most of those areas, you wind up a "generalist". That means that you can see bigger pictures that are often hard for pure specialists to grasp, and doesn't preclude some area of specialization as well. Doesn't mean specialization is bad though.

So with those thoughts in mind, are there any things that are of particular interest to you? What are you actually looking to do? Programming? Building a FreeNAS system for fun and learning? Etc.?