> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://book.bsdcn.org/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://book.bsdcn.org/ask/flat/afterword/wo-yu-freebsd-de-gu-shi.md). # My Story with FreeBSD ## My Story with FreeBSD — Part One I remember those boring days when someone in a chat group claimed that Linux could only run WPS. I expressed my doubts and, through the Baidu search engine, discovered Ubuntu Kylin — the Ubuntu Kylin project developed under the CCN Open Source Innovation Joint Laboratory, which was jointly established by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's Software and Integrated Circuit Promotion Center (CSIP), the National University of Defense Technology (NUDT), and Canonical. Speaking of Kylin (Qilin), it was originally an auspicious symbol, like the dragon, with Chinese characteristics, but it became an appendage of capital — I deeply regret this. At the time, following the USB burning method on their forum, I downloaded UltraISO via Baidu and asked a family member to purchase a 4 GB USB 2.0 Kingston flash drive. The burning speed was extremely slow. The laptop I used was a Lenovo G400, with an i3-3110M processor, 4 GB of RAM, a 500 GB mechanical hard drive, and a graphics card consisting of the basic HD 4000 + AMD 8570M. I quickly entered the installation interface, but unfortunately the wireless card was a Broadcom BCM43142, which was not open source. Fortunately, Ubuntu came with many proprietary drivers built in, so I was able to break free from the cheap ethernet cable tangled like a ball of yarn. Before this, I had only experienced Windows installation via Ghost and had never encountered any other operating system. After entering Ubuntu Kylin, I didn't feel particularly amazed — I just found some things counterintuitive, with window widgets on the left instead of the right, opposite to Windows. Unity was very resource-intensive, and my specs caused frequent lag. I started installing other software, proving one thing: Linux is more than just WPS. After that, I felt the need to dive deeper — this was my desire for freedom. Any machine that could be hacked, I was willing to study: Android rooting, flashing Android on a Kindle, Apple jailbreaking, cracking educational devices to install software. I feel this might seem like a desire for control, but actually it's not — I'm not part of the root suicide squad. Perhaps it was the oppression of Chrome and Ubuntu's desktop on me. Since I had no preference for any games, I had no frustration about why games couldn't run on Linux. Perhaps with these specs, I couldn't run any games worth playing anyway. I had been studying various aspects of Linux, but lacked research on the server side — I only had theory without practice, and suffered greatly as a result. I recently read Bird Brother's Linux Server book and found that everything I had painstakingly learned over the years was already in there. I had to sigh — listen to good advice and you'll eat well. Because I had only studied the first basic book, I didn't believe that was the only book worth reading. I went to the largest local book wholesale market to find *The C Programming Language* and its exercise solutions, but unfortunately, they didn't have them. After all these years, I started pondering certain things. Ubuntu Kylin was very unstable, so I started installing the original Ubuntu, only to find I had wrongly blamed Kylin — Ubuntu was the same. Later, I installed and used almost every distribution for a period of time. I deeply regretted the arrogant attitude of some people in the community, so I rarely spoke up. A question I still don't understand is: why use CentOS instead of Scientific Linux? Both are RHEL code reconstruction distributions. The latter is far superior to CentOS — you can even swap software sources with RHEL without issues, not to mention the developers' caliber, as the latter mostly comes from research institutes or universities. Is this so-called blind conformity? People approach Linux with a specific purpose, always wanting to study things like kernel source code analysis or computer architecture — more theoretical subjects — or specifically pursue Red Hat certification. As you can see, whenever a new semester begins, forums and communities flood with newcomers asking all sorts of interesting questions. And some so-called "big shots" just keep muting people. My Broadcom wireless card caused me many troubles that shouldn't have existed. Every compilation and installation was very troublesome, with lots of code to modify and various manuals to consult. In contrast, Intel was very convenient — plug and play, no drivers needed. Later I found out that the Lenovo G400, or rather laptops in general, have a whitelist for components. I didn't want to risk flashing the BIOS, so I swapped with someone for a different wireless card — this same laptop model was available with Intel wireless cards. So now when I see the Raspberry Pi also using Broadcom, I feel regretful — if it's not open source, why get involved in open source products? It just adds unnecessary trouble. ## My Story with FreeBSD — Part Two The behavior of those people amused me, and I increasingly distanced myself from so-called communities and forums. The TV series *My Own Swordsman* said it well: where there are people, there is the jianghu (martial arts world), and the jianghu has never left or changed. Conflicts in communities are rarely at the technical level. As the old saying goes, wise people rarely voice their opinions (the greatest sound is silence) — they just silently observe. And in so-called technical groups, there are even more of these wise people observing. Do people with real technical skills hang out in chat groups? One group member put it well: "I'm not afraid to discuss technology with you; I'm afraid you have no technical skills at all yet insist on wanting to discuss technology — cut the nonsense." Technology must be converted into productivity to demonstrate its value — this statement is the thorough expression of these people's pragmatic character. Someone told me to settle down and study one system, learn one programming language, instead of installing operating systems every day. I strongly disagree with this thinking — this is the root of their conservatism. Is a system productivity? My attitude hasn't changed at all — no, it's not. This is just suffering philosophy, torturing yourself, not using what works well, setting up a cage for yourself under the guise of freedom and openness, like a two-dimensional paper person who can never jump out. For me personally, I only require two things from a system: stability and being up-to-date. Most operating systems don't meet my requirements — stability alone eliminates Ubuntu and its derivatives like Linux Mint, and for being up-to-date, Arch Linux would crash on me within three days. I ultimately chose Gentoo Linux. I believe this is a process of natural selection — anyone who truly likes these things will go from Ubuntu to RHEL, experience some others, and finally settle on Gentoo. Many people use Linux only out of necessity and don't really care whether they like it or not. They consider this a childish notion, but who is really more childish? I saw that Shiyanlou's Linux basics course described "FreeBSD" as a Linux distribution. I contacted them, and they said they would seriously criticize the teacher who made the course, claiming to be a FreeBSD enthusiast themselves. This isn't just an error — it's a matter of basic common sense. From that point on, I doubted their course quality and never used Shiyanlou again. Speaking of programming, I only know C and Java — and by "know," I mean I can write "Hello, World!" level code. I strongly disapprove of VC++ 6.0. Perhaps it's not Microsoft's fault but rather a problem with the education system — or more accurately, a problem with people. There are also absurd exam questions like `a++ + ++a` that are of no help to students' learning. I simply chose to give up if I couldn't attain the truth. The classic marble series from China Machine Press isn't problematic — it's just not very meaningful. In actual work, no one uses things like compiler theory or introduction to algorithms. Low-level programmers are just porters rather than creators or researchers. It's hard to accept this reality. Back then, I wanted to create a student club, but it was simply impossible. First, there were no people; second, there was no money. How could a school where students couldn't even access the internet meet the conditions for a club to exist? And things that can't be done naturally leave no room for discussion. Many attempts failed — this is quite normal. It only indicates that the matter hasn't reached the right stage of development, or the chosen environment isn't suitable, and my failure clearly belongs to the latter. Finding people who share the same vision and values — I think that's very difficult. Perhaps it's fundamentally impossible. I had no support whatsoever. There are plenty of complex and difficult things in life, and I understand this deeply, so I make no excuses — they're useless anyway. As for the chicken-soup literature's advice about "finding a way to succeed," that's also untrustworthy. Before this, I just wanted to find someone I could have a real conversation with, just like the idea expressed in Liu Zhenyun's book *Someone to Talk To* — in a person's lifetime, having someone they can truly talk to is very fortunate. And I was more like the old missionary in that book, passing my torch at an ordinary institution. But very unfortunately, there was not a single person I could "really talk to." FreeBSD today — aside from the current situation, the community's foundation has had an important influence. I've said before that it depends on who your target audience is. If it's foreigners or programmers, why translate the Handbook? If they don't even understand this, there's no need to continue. But obviously I don't think this way, and this is also the reason why FreeBSD is increasingly declining today. Some people are already working on the kernel, while others still can't install the system — even though FreeBSD can be installed by simply clicking Next all the way. And I don't care about those who understand the kernel; I care more about those who don't know anything at all. I failed to install FreeBSD smoothly on my first, second, and third attempts. Because I was using a Lenovo G400, installation under UEFI was impossible — the screen would become garbled, but it wasn't related to video memory. To this day, I've only filed a bug report with no response. Thus I lost the opportunity to encounter FreeBSD at the very beginning and fell into the abyss of Linux. ## My Story with FreeBSD — Part Three The Lenovo G400 was the laptop I bought offline at Gome Electronics. I didn't know anything, so I just bought it casually — not that I had a choice. Everyone knows that as long as it's not a particularly dishonest merchant, goods generally follow the basic economic principle that value determines price. So having no money means losing the freedom to choose. Even now, I still don't have this freedom — even in the whole world, not many people have true freedom. Therefore I'm still suffering the torment of 4 GB of RAM. I think a lot and do a lot; but the more I fail, the more I think, and doing becomes all the more precious. The Lenovo G400 had CMOS issues — loading UEFI boot on certain versions of Kali could cause motherboard damage. And Lenovo's BIOS updates were only available on their US website; the Taiwan and Hong Kong regional sites also redirected there for downloads. It seemed to have resolved the issue, but it cost me nearly months of time. Lenovo pre-installed Linpus Linux on the computer, and my G400 was immediately Ghosted by the Gome staff. I wanted to take the opportunity to restore it because I saw the software had a one-year warranty. Much later, Lenovo called to say the computer was fixed, but they couldn't restore Linux — they didn't know what that was. I emailed Linpus, but they never responded. It wasn't until half a year later that I remembered this matter and emailed again. This time, someone who seemed to be customer service answered some of my questions, such as the system's stability (based on Fedora, which made me skeptical), how to delete the desktop help icon, and so on. But they still didn't answer how to restore the pre-installed system. A year later, I dug out these emails from my QQ Mail inbox and contacted them again. As *The Peach Blossom Spring* says, "after that, no one ever asked about it again." Later, I learned from the fragmented remarks of some so-called "big shots" about the so-called "American Lenovo." I have now completely blacklisted Lenovo. But overall, it was still poverty that hurt me. With 4 GB of RAM, I couldn't even open Photoshop, let alone anything else. Many people think I'm lucky — at least I have a computer — but there's more misunderstanding and absurdity. I'm reminded of a joke: a company posted a job listing with the employee benefit of "providing iMacs for all Apple development engineers." I wanted to laugh — what else would you use to develop iOS besides Apple devices? Windows? Or a Hackintosh? Clearly, this kind of company has pitfalls. The idea that you can study computer science without a computer — anyone who thinks this way clearly lacks basic reasoning skills. This kind of analogical reasoning works quite well here. I was pondering a simple question — not where all my time went, but where my childhood was. Or more deeply, where my youth was. It seemed to be filled with various exams, mock tests, perhaps also various tutoring sessions. "It has always been this way" doesn't make it right, but our resistance was futile. The system determines everything, and it's nearly impossible to change. And those who are sacrificed become the so-called screws of society, hammered in by the hammer of their environment, seeing everyone as a nail — anyone different from themselves must be hammered in. And the people who truly enjoy life? I'm afraid I really am one of those who were sacrificed. Although I've always walked alone, I've never felt lonely. A great spirit is what sustains me. For this reason, I have very serious mental illness. A doctor prescribed over 500 yuan worth of medication for me, but I ultimately didn't take the prescription to the pharmacy to fill it. An inclusive society is what I hope for, but unfortunately, we cannot obtain any external support of any kind. At this moment, what I feel is not loneliness, nor despair, but a kind of joy. Because when despair reaches its peak, the summit beyond is exactly this. Perhaps it is the pursuit of freedom that led me away from Linux and toward BSD. What Linux brought me was mostly suffering philosophy, not kernel technology analysis, protocol experiments, service installation, or Red Hat RHCA certifications. A person is never a tool — absolutely never, cannot be a screw, otherwise they are no longer a person. The spirit of human existence lies entirely in human value. If one self-identifies as having instrumental value, then they become like those people: accomplishing nothing, filling their schedules with heavy work and socializing, refusing any reflection, claiming to be too busy, asking not to be disturbed, and mocking those with ideals, telling them not to think too much, to do more practical things, and not to speak in vain. People are not tools. The instrumental nature of an operating system is inherent — so is an OS a tool? Want to discuss elegant technology? There are plenty of those black brick-like books from China Machine Press. What is technology? What's there to show off? I don't really understand. As for learning? I'm afraid it's not the right time yet. I expect I'll need to finish translating the manual first. Those things that no one reads and have no practical significance — I don't want to treat everyone as tools to be used, or as ducks to be force-fed knowledge. Never expect others to be like you — that's neither humanitarian nor realistic. ## My Story with FreeBSD — Part Four FreeBSD is already 29 years old (as of 2022; the FreeBSD project originated in early 1993, with the first official version released on November 1, 1993), but it still has significant shortcomings in graphical interface — as is the case with most open source projects. In software engineering terms, this is a lack of user requirements analysis. It's like what some people say: just write code every day, don't worry about what it's for. Under the guidance of this thinking, many immaturely designed and unfriendly software products have been created — some are just reinventing the wheel. Upper-level theory has become almost independent of the lower level. If you could once see the shadow of assembly in C's pointers and arrays, today that's no longer the case. So if I'm not a developer, I don't think kernel analysis helps us much in using FreeBSD. After all, we live in a market economy, and any method of measuring value is ultimately price. Treating people as tools — if your boss wants to keep you, it's largely because you're the lowest-cost option among all their choices. Some people nowadays are populist. I've always said that Posts & Telecom Press has constrained the development of mainland China's computing industry. As everyone knows, there's basically one book for getting started with Linux: *Bird Brother's Linux Private Kitchen*. This book should have come out four years ago, but was continuously delayed until now. But when I got the new edition, the fourth edition, I was very disappointed. The cover says "Based on CentOS 7.x" — I immediately questioned its quality. The Linux kernel version number hasn't even reached 6, and this says 7? The translator claimed it had been sent back for reprinting and unapologetically said it could be collected like a misprinted banknote. And some people claim Bird Brother has political stance issues but can't produce any evidence — this is just parroting others. Self-study has a problem: you think you've learned something when you actually haven't, or what you've learned doesn't conform to the so-called mainstream educational assessment methods. Many people apply natural science thinking to social science — analogical reasoning — and this is something I disagree with most. Many populist tendencies are like this. Many people overemphasize individual agency while completely ignoring the harsh environment — this is also a manifestation of populism, believing that majority opinion represents truth. Anyone who doesn't think this way gets labeled, accused of not working hard enough — this is exactly like a capitalist mocking a starving beggar for why they don't eat meat. I don't know where the problem lies, nor do I consider whether there's a solution — this isn't numbness, but helplessness. And there's nothing to criticize. Returning to online mutual aid — I don't know how to approach it anymore. Now I mostly just observe, being a "wise person" (see Story Three). I've been hurt many times. I used to help people install operating systems and troubleshoot online for free, but in reality, I got nothing in return. No one thinks these simple tasks have any significance for academic research. I was just wasting my time, and those wise people — once I was no longer useful, they ignored me. As if I were a tool. This kind of thing has happened too many times, not just with a few people. I can only comfort myself. I know Cong Fei's story and can face his thoughts directly. My original purpose wasn't to gain anything, but why was I ignored? I've said before that free things often end up this way. Something must be paid for to demonstrate its value — even if it's just one cent. That's why I understand why some products require paid trials. These are things you won't find in domestic economics textbooks. In a word, FreeBSD's value has been diminished by the lack of commercialization that Linux has. I'm also a "wise person" now, lurking in the crowd, never expressing my opinions, just silently observing. When there are too many "wise people," this organization becomes hard to sustain. And the reason is even simpler — "I'm very busy, I'm at work, I don't have time." As if they're busier than US President Trump. To put it bluntly, they just can't achieve shared vision and common purpose. I've seen many such people in Linux groups — everyone calls them big shots, but for the group, apart from having a flashy title, they contribute nothing of substance, nor do they serve any indirect purpose like promotion. People simply know that so-and-so in the group is a big shot, and then what? Expect them to answer questions and solve problems? I think they'll mostly be "very busy." Yes, big shots are so busy — how could they solve such simple problems for you? More often it's mockery. So my conclusion is: big shots are useless, newcomers are useless — this is a terrifying result. What ultimately forms is more like a university club — knowledgeable, but not particularly so. I've been in four "enthusiast"-related organizations. Two online, two in real life. So I now have absolutely no illusions. The team leader told me they wanted to set up a forum, so I submitted articles. In the end, it was the people who were the problem — a bunch of people playing games every day, how could you expect them to contribute to the team? Since they weren't willing to sacrifice anything, the team might as well have disbanded. With institutional norms, philosophical guidance, adequate funding, and market demand — clearly it was the people who were the problem. China's education system makes it impossible for me to find a single person who meets my needs. Yes, in all of vast China, not even one. It's evident that if you want to stagnate a nation, education is the best method. I couldn't find anyone with dreams for a team — as opposed to esports. The more people in a group, the closer it approaches the social average. Zhihu, Douban, and Bilibili have degraded their own user atmosphere and core values. This is for traffic monetization. Otherwise, look at AcFun and ofo. This is the sorrow of the era, not just my personal sorrow. My sorrow can't make anyone feel anything — the next second, the reader clicks the X on the side of the screen and naturally forgets everything. And what you forget is the pain of someone else's half-lifetime of depression. And one day, you too will be forgotten. But that's okay. So when I learned that "Qintai" was in Wuhan, I went there immediately. Hoping to find a soulmate like the story of high mountains and flowing water. Soulmates are hard to find — what I saw was only something like the "First Ancient Qin Grade Assessment," another money-making scheme. Truly unworthy of this place. It would be better to let Tao Yuanming's Peach Blossom Spring live forever in academic papers and textbooks. I understood — I have no best friend. Actually, relying on people rather than other things — the president of National Tsinghua University, Mei Yiqi, once said, "A university is not defined by its grand buildings, but by its great masters." This conflicts with what I just said. Quoting famous sayings cannot add credibility to a proof in science — I'm merely using it as my citation. What I want to say is that groups don't not need big shots — they need genuine big shots, not pseudo-wise ones. Otherwise, no matter how many people you gather, it's useless. Education is the Ministry of Education's business; I'm not skilled at it. According to management theory, informal organizations exist within formal organizations — what's commonly called "circles." This is also a method of class division. I don't particularly agree with it, but its existence is undeniable. For people who can't even afford food, how can they research FreeBSD? Steve Jobs and Dennis Ritchie died in almost the same week (Jobs passed away on October 5, 2011, and Ritchie on October 12 of the same year — exactly one week apart), but all I saw at the time was coverage of Jobs, and someone even wrote a very expensive biography of Jobs. The passing of a master went uncommemorated — that's fine, different circles. I just feel there should also be a biography of Ritchie — he deserved it, and we owe him a biography. If you still don't know who he is, please click the "X" in the corner of your screen. Many people say there are no viruses on Linux, or if there are, they come from a dual-boot Windows installation. But that's not actually the case — it's just that the profit incentive isn't large enough. When you notice something wrong with your system, it has already become a breeding ground for viruses. I predict today that in the future, trojans and viruses on the Linux platform will not be much fewer than on Windows, and the same goes for macOS. There is no absolutely secure operating system. Even OpenBSD has been accused of having backdoors (though code audits did not confirm this). Humans are unreliable, and attempting to replace machines with human effort to improve computer security is a questionable idea. The lack of cybersecurity awareness is also the theoretical justification for the big data analytics conducted by domestic enterprises that lack ethical constraints. They can collect whatever data they want — after all, users don't care. Some even claim that users are willing to sacrifice personal privacy for convenience. This is deeply disheartening. ## My Story with FreeBSD — Part Five Much later, I posted on the FreeBSD forum about the G400 screen garbling issue, and three or four people gave some replies. But they were useless — the FreeBSD official forum was the same. That was around the 10.3 version, I remember. 10.3 hadn't been released yet and was still in the testing phase. I thought it was a driver issue, but at the time I only had Baidu available, so I couldn't find any useful information — it was a complete waste of time. In the Chinese-speaking internet community, various tutorials just copy from each other — that's fine, but once one person makes a change, everything shifts. CSDN and CNBlogs are exactly this kind of circle. For example, the my.ini file for MySQL 5.7 on Windows — the data directory is user-specified, and the installation path itself doesn't have a data directory. Some tutorials tell you to manually create it, but this will actually prompt you that data already exists and cannot be initialized. This is quite interesting — A says you don't need to worry about the data directory, B says you need to create it. If someone believes B's advice and doesn't read the error output, they'll probably waste even more time. Of course, putting this stuff on Windows is a waste of time to begin with. Based on my years of experience with Linux, such articles are everywhere — I even feel like I could write an article tomorrow specifically about how to assess the credibility of online articles. FreeBSD has relatively few tutorials here, and most don't have many pitfalls — or perhaps it's a matter of base numbers, with too few users. Most of what you find through Baidu is about system installation, still using the pkg\_add command from a decade ago. Going deeper, it's all about configuring FNMP (FreeBSD, Nginx, MySQL, PHP) setups. Cloud server providers offering FreeBSD images aren't very numerous worldwide either. Alibaba Cloud's FreeBSD was at version 10.1 back then, and pkg simply didn't work — they said it was a bug and you needed to upgrade to 10.3. Following Baidu search results and reading various low-quality tutorials, I finally managed to upgrade. But then it told me pkg had a missing .so file. I couldn't find any information through Baidu. I could only reinstall the system, do nothing, and directly run the freebsd-update command — only then did it work. Now I know about the pkg-static command that can fix symlinks. I haven't tried it though. I feel very sad — using Baidu is simply a waste of my life. And there was no other choice available. It was nothing but squandered time. Since FreeBSD couldn't make the G400 work properly, I started installing virtual machines. It was in a virtual machine that I first encountered FreeBSD. The installation interface was similar to Debian's — that old blue-background style. FreeBSD's installation is extremely simple — you can just click Next all the way through without any issues. Even XP couldn't do this — XP can't be written to a USB drive, and if you use UltraISO, I still don't know how to cleanly write it. But there's no need to research this anymore — I never use XP or Win7. After installation, there wasn't much to say — I just felt that without GRUB, switching operating systems was inconvenient, which would affect future physical machine installation. The tty was just that — black background, white text. I went straight to pkg to install GNOME. The speed was very, very slow (if anyone can contact FreeBSD officials, please let them know that the University of Science and Technology of China can provide a mirror — see the historical post on "Mirror Sites"), never exceeding 20 KiB/s, and you couldn't just leave it downloading — it would timeout... I could only stare at it while it downloaded over 500 packages. I noticed something here — no matter what device, what operating system, what software, as long as you stare at it, it downloads faster and doesn't disconnect; when you look away, it slows down and disconnects. Logically, this shouldn't depend on human will, but now it feels a bit like Schrödinger's cat. Has anyone else experienced this? I don't think it's related to foreground/background services — I've even controlled for variables. To be honest, I didn't feel much difference between Linux and FreeBSD. If you install Bash, most Shell scripts are compatible. What baffled me was the absence of the free command and the lspci command. Logically, such commands are either Bash built-ins, alias variables, or provided by some software package. lspci belongs to the pciutils package — isn't it more convenient to check device information with this than dmesg? Isn't this the self-torturing suffering philosophy? I strongly oppose it. A similar package is usbutils (the lsusb command). The free command puzzled me even more, because I personally couldn't find out which type of command it belonged to. Later, someone on Tieba told me this command belongs to a package: procps (), licensed under GPL v2. The free command reads procfs information, but FreeBSD had long abandoned this pseudo-file system, so the inability to use free is precisely for this reason. I'll continue to follow this issue. Because FreeBSD's native vmstat is too hard to use. Far less intuitive than free. I firmly oppose the suffering philosophy. ## My Story with FreeBSD — Part Six — My Years in the Open Source Community The six elements of a novel: time, place, and characters. Cause, process, and result. Among these, "characters" are the core of a novel. Without characters, everything is empty — even the animals in animal novels count as characters. Speaking of my relationship with FreeBSD, I have to talk about what I've seen in the open source community over the past seven or eight years. The so-called open source community is actually a broad concept, not referring to any single community, forum, association, Tieba, or various QQ groups, Telegram groups, Weibo groups... they're countless. I mentioned before that small circles have their advantages, but the disadvantages are also obvious — outsiders can barely integrate, lacking inclusivity and openness. Among them, the ones I found hardest to integrate into were some Telegram groups represented by the USTC association and the Gentoo group. The USTC association put their group join link in the TXT record of a domain name — this wasn't hard to find; a simple web reverse lookup would reveal it. Their group names were combined with the twenty-four solar terms, like "USTC Guyu" (Grain Rain). This reminded me of traditional Chinese medicine at the time. It felt like they were selling miracle pills. The first thing I did upon joining was ask, "Is anyone using FreeBSD?" At that point, several "lords" emerged — "just say what you want directly," and a developer of an open source input method said, "He's being impolite, everyone should ignore him," "Don't respond to these kinds of questions" — making it seem like I was cursing at someone. I was simply asking if anyone used FreeBSD, and that was considered cursing? If I said "you're a big genius," wouldn't that be complimenting him? I'm going to say it now\... "You're a big genius" ×3! This group was really something. I confronted him about how I was being impolite — was it really not okay to just ask if anyone uses FreeBSD? Someone even threw *How to Ask Questions the Smart Way* at me. I left the group immediately. When I recently rejoined and asked again, "Is anyone using FreeBSD?" — no one replied. It wasn't that they were ignoring me; the group was simply dead. Nobody was talking anymore. Of course — aside from the person who originally said I was impolite, who would dare to speak? Casually slapping labels on people — who's the one being impolite? If a group like this doesn't die, there's no justice. The Gentoo Telegram group was even more interesting. Their admins addressed each other as "big shot" and "giant shot," each chatting about their own things, as if isolated from the world in a "swordsmen's summit on Mount Hua," with a sense of heroes in their twilight! This circle isn't about whether you want to integrate — they simply won't acknowledge you. Who are you? An overseas student? No? Then don't speak. Yes, I never dared to speak in that group. Someone told me that different circles shouldn't be forced. The only purpose of groups is to chat. Similar to the absurd groups above were several QQ groups under Linux China. After failing to find answers on Baidu, I joined a Linux group to ask about SSL certificate configuration. An admin immediately came at me aggressively, asking, "Do you understand what the SSL protocol is? Do you know how the underlying encryption of HTTPS is implemented?" I was so scared I left the group immediately. So apparently, configuring Nginx SSL requires studying cryptography first. I don't think I know any of what he mentioned even now, but it doesn't affect my ability to configure SSL certificates at all. You'd think he's very knowledgeable, but he actually isn't. There were also some groups called "Water Cube" or something... They say tech people become unemployable after 30... I seemed to have joined a middle-aged tech group? It was a WeChat group about an open source homemade kernel. Yes, only middle-aged people use WeChat — this is my prejudice. In my view, WeChat's anti-human design isn't much better than Unity, Ubuntu's former default desktop. They say middle-aged — do you think they'd discuss things like synchronous vs. asynchronous with you in the group? They care about world affairs! Spreading rumors in the group every day is also a common occurrence. This circle isn't about whether you can integrate — it's that you simply don't want to. Every day it's gossip about this and that. Truly sorrowful! There really aren't many FreeBSD groups. If you search on QQ, there are only about three or four that seem worth joining. But if you're heading in the wrong direction and won't turn back, are you counting on the earth being round so you can circle back? Some things about my experiences in FreeBSD groups are what I'll discuss next. ## My Story with FreeBSD — Part Seven — My Years with the Chief The Chief and I met in that FreeBSD QQ group: at that time, the sky still had some haze, and sunny days really couldn't be considered numerous. Using the poetry of the Sage of Poetry Du Fu, it was "meeting you again in the season of falling flowers." The Chief was studying at the University of Waterloo in Canada. The University of Waterloo's Co-operative program made the Chief's title well-deserved. At the time, I wasn't very envious of the Chief, and now it's too late for envy to be of any use. The Chief was a doc committer, responsible for document revision and translation work. So it was only natural that the Chief would recruit people in the QQ group to translate the Handbook. But things often don't go as planned. The Chief set up a rather complex translation workflow for translators — roughly, you first create a project on GitHub, then claim your translation section through an Issue, and finally submit the translated po file through a pull request. For an experienced programmer, this isn't difficult, but for an average person, even syncing to local is a bit challenging — because direct downloads from GitHub result in 404 errors, and in some regions, even can't be opened. Everyone knows the reason. So my friend Mao Gouzi said he didn't know Git — could he just download the po document, translate it, and send it to the Chief via QQ? The Chief immediately agreed, so Mao Gouzi began his translation journey... Similarly, I started my translation journey. I was translating what seemed to be the Xorg chapter. But the editor became a problem, so my translation progress was quite difficult. Due to changing my computer's operating system and forgetting to save, I lost my translated document. I wanted to continue translating, but the Chief's GitHub Issue had me marked as "Abandon," so I didn't continue... Mao Gouzi also sent his translation to the Chief via QQ. A long time passed... about half a year. I thought they had finished translating the FreeBSD Handbook, but the Chief had abandoned the entire project. Mao Gouzi sent a QQ message asking the Chief, who said there was no pull from Mao Gouzi on GitHub. Yes — the Chief and I both lost po files. The difference was, I lost mine, and the Chief lost Mao Gouzi's. Years later, I wanted to restart the FreeBSD Handbook translation work, but this had to start with an editor... Po had only one usable editor on Windows, called Poedit. The author is Vslavik. If I were better at arguing in English, I would definitely have had a serious debate with him. Although Poedit is open source, its basic features require payment, and it's quite expensive. I crowdfunded a premium membership in the group. I originally planned to pay with a Visa credit card, but then I saw Alipay was available... I was speechless for a long time... It took me ages to withdraw the money, and WeChat deducted a hefty handling fee. I used Poedit's pre-translation feature, which is machine translation. It wouldn't save the machine translation results, so every time I opened it, I had to pre-translate again. Over time, I suddenly couldn't pre-translate anymore. I went to find Vslavik, and he said I had already pre-translated tens of millions of characters and had made a lot of money using his software. I said this was a bug in his software, not my fault — I was translating open source software documentation with no income whatsoever. But Vslavik insisted I had violated the user agreement and refused to resolve it. This made me very dissatisfied, but since I wasn't good at expressing myself in English, I just let it go. Instead of criticizing Vslavik, the Chief came to mock me, which made me feel quite ashamed. Then I found that my translations couldn't compile with make — the po document format requirements were too strict. Fixing them one by one was impossible, so I could only `rm -rf`. In 2020, I heard that the FreeBSD Handbook had a new online translation website, . I submitted an application, and someone welcomed me in Chinese. I opened the backend and saw the translation progress was 99%. Wow — who translated all that? I don't know. If it's already 99%, what do they need me for? I emailed the person who welcomed me, and half a year has passed with no reply. Did I take their politeness too seriously? Was I being too naive? But the Handbook remains unchanged to this day... I haven't seen the Chief in a long time. Let me borrow a few lines from Mr. Du Fu again... "When will we share a cup of wine and discuss literature once more?" ## My Story with FreeBSD — Part Eight — Searching for Mr. Wang Bo The author of the first edition (ISBN 978-7-111-07482-3) and second edition (ISBN 978-7-111-10286-1) of *FreeBSD Complete Guide* is Wang Bo. Although the entire book, like *Bird Brother's Linux Private Kitchen*, is primarily about basic computer content and doesn't have much coupling with FreeBSD specifically — even if you replaced it with any Linux distribution, the methods would largely be the same. However, this is understandable — in the early days of the 21st century, people really did need this kind of book. For some reason, I wanted to find this person. Mr. Wang Bo also co-translated a book with his wife Wei Qun: *PHP3 Programming* (with CD) by David Medinets (ISBN 978-7-111-07944-6, translated by Zhao Hongwei, Liu Yan, Wei Qun, and Wang Bo, China Machine Press, 2000). The book mentioned that a doctoral student from Tsinghua University had provided suggestions for the book, so I tracked down the doctoral student from that time — now, 25 years later, already an associate researcher at Tsinghua. But neither email nor registered mail received any response. This path led nowhere. Information about Mr. Wang Bo is truly scarce, and all of it stops around 2002-2003. According to relevant information from the [Internet Archive](https://web.archive.org/web/20020121211904/http://freebsd.online.ha.cn/), it appears he voluntarily took down his own website, right before the second edition of *FreeBSD Complete Guide* was published. Based on the workplace and address Mr. Wang Bo left in journal articles from those years, they are no longer valid. For example, the Henan Long-Distance Telecommunication Lines Bureau was merged into what is now China Unicom in the early 21st century. There are also some institutions (such as the Henan Telecom Multimedia Information Bureau) that no longer exist. And Henan Information Port also has no information whatsoever. In the above archive, Mr. Wang Bo stated, "The Taiwanese version of this book is titled *FreeBSD Introduction and Usage*, published last April by Linpus Linux, but I don't really appreciate their approach." Through , I found this book's ISBN is 978-9-57305-732-1. Linpus Linux is the same Linpus Linux — familiar? It was mentioned earlier as the system pre-installed on Lenovo. But strangely, there is no information about this book anywhere on the internet. There is also no information about Wang Bo anywhere on the internet. All information ends at 2003. ## FreeBSD Has Become Blurred and Invisible I only added `--depth 1` — a modification of no more than 10 characters — to the FreeBSD documentation, yet the merge took nearly a year. Meanwhile, a similar minor fix to the Raspberry Pi documentation took less than an hour to complete the review, workflow, modification, and merge. You might say such minor fixes aren't their priority — they have few people and no one cares about these small things. But in reality, their documentation has hardly been modified by anyone and is quite stable, which is exactly why so many errors have accumulated. And I believe everyone starts with minor fixes, don't they? Moreover, this isn't an isolated incident — whether submitting large-scale documentation changes or minor fixes, it's the same. Because no one merges them, I've had to abandon many PRs that I considered very practical, such as removing dead links (hundreds of them), replacing obsolete software with the latest alternatives or names, and supplementing the available input method list. You might say perhaps only the documentation project is like this, but the Ports project is the same — every time, it's practically begging for someone to merge things in, searching everywhere for committers with the permissions to help. Even with such seemingly diligent effort, it takes at least 3 months to complete. As for FreeBSD source code, I don't have the ability to participate, so I can't comment. But I've noticed that their Wi-Fi developer seems to be just one person (actually, the Foundation has funded multiple wireless network developers since 2023, including Björn Zeeb, Cheng Cui, and others). Years ago, they said they would port wireless networking to the Raspberry Pi, but this hasn't been implemented yet. In fact, many FreeBSD plans haven't been realized. This is also within expectations. As for the Foundation, they seem completely unconcerned about their FreeBSD project. Many emails I sent didn't even receive an auto-reply. I think even if there's no staff, an auto-reply should at least be possible — I can only say it's regrettable. Even donation issues result in errors. Foundation staff members' accounts were still being used after they left — they replied to me saying they were sorry but she had already resigned. The Foundation does things every day that seem very strange to me. They fund many projects like Google Summer of Code, claiming these students make great contributions to FreeBSD, but when I checked the projects over the years, I found that while most projects were completed (with completion rates around 80%–100% in recent years), only a very few were merged into the project's mainline. The Foundation's focus isn't even in North America — they only care about Europe. Most of their events are held in Europe. They don't even seem to care about legal issues involving FreeBSD. I also understand that the Foundation wants to attract more potential contributors. But I only see that most people participate out of financial consideration and don't actually achieve anything. After becoming committers, they only submit things every few months on behalf of contributors like me who lack permissions, just to prevent their commit access from being frozen. Much of what's listed in the FreeBSD quarterly reports is actually personal projects. The vast majority also have no follow-up, but individual media outlets unaware of this create false reports. Even Foundation-sponsored projects are the same. Because FreeBSD simply has too few available hands, and each person's energy is limited. I've also translated many FreeBSD conference videos, both official and personal. Each video averages 4 to 6 hours in length. Trying to find something useful in them — I found this very difficult. I once asked a member of the FreeBSD Core Team responsible for the documentation project some questions about the documentation project's toolchain, such as whether certain files should be skipped or presented as-is during translation. Unfortunately, he also said he wasn't familiar with these things. He told me that communication in open source communities is the most difficult part — tens of times harder than writing code. I had been registered on the FreeBSD Wiki for many years without edit permissions and didn't know who to ask. It was he who helped me. Unfortunately, I didn't make any contributions as a result. Because their syntax was too difficult for me to learn — much more complex than Wikipedia's syntax. I spent several hours just to add a few lines of desired software listings. I still don't understand the structure of FreeBSD documentation. And the most baffling thing is that they put English colons in filenames (their security advisory format is AA:BB) — I can't understand which developer made such a decision, as this causes the documentation project to be unable to be pulled or cloned on Windows. This is a documentation project — I believe it should be platform-agnostic. In fact, I've reported this issue for several years now. Additionally, the FreeBSD documentation mailing list also seems to serve no purpose. FreeBSD committers neither solicit opinions on the list nor accept improvement suggestions from the mailing list. Because almost no one speaks on this mailing list. It seems only a handful of people work on the FreeBSD documentation project — I don't see anyone else. This really feels regrettable, but it's also understandable. Everyone has to live and work, and there isn't that much time and energy for open source. But honestly, I haven't felt their enthusiasm and vitality. I also have no right to blame them — they've put in far more effort than I have. FreeBSD's various forums and Discord also don't serve any function — you can't even find a single committer to help submit code (there was nothing I could do — I really couldn't find anyone anywhere, so I simply stopped looking, and the result was as shown above). Speaking of forums, it seems like only one admin is constantly replying — you don't see anyone else. However, I've noticed that some smaller BSD projects, like OpenBSD, are doing excellently. They have even fewer people, but I can see vitality and passion in them. Even though they may have no donors and once couldn't even pay their electricity bills, their development progress is very active, and their responses are very timely. Although I've done my best within my capabilities, I've gradually found that many things I love and cherish have already or are slowly fading away. The regrettable reality is that I have to comfort myself with the thought that all who meet must part. The cheapest brand-name network card that works on FreeBSD, the COMFAST CF-WU810N, has also been discontinued — it should be nearly cleared out by now. I called COMFAST company, and their customer service said they weren't responsible for this, and they weren't even willing to say the perfunctory words about forwarding my feedback. They're all wage earners — I understand. Being a customer service representative is truly a troublesome job — you have to face customers who think the monitor is the computer, or self-righteous customers who mess things up and blame you. I can understand them all. I know that everything will leave this world, including myself. But I sincerely ask them to stay by my side a little longer. You can find substitutes for everything — when a product is discontinued, you can even find cheaper alternatives on Taobao; when she doesn't love you, you can find a ChatGPT that does. But I don't want to wait that long, or perhaps in this era, I simply can't wait anymore. Or rather, for an individual, there are indeed some things that cannot be replaced. Even if the alternative is indeed cheaper, is that what you truly want? I am constantly reconciling with myself, reconciling with this world. Within our scope of understanding, everyone's perception of the world is different, but what the world truly looks like, no one knows. Even the authenticity of our existence can only be manifested through the negative things we experience. Happiness and joy are always brief and unreal. Only when enduring illness or hardship can you truly feel the reality of the world's existence and the reality of your own existence. Even if you comfort yourself that you are happy, it's hard to achieve a soul free from disturbance. What I hold is merely my own opinion. Everyone has left me — I can only keep my own memories, but even these are gradually becoming blurred. I've even forgotten their names, their appearances. The world is so large, yet I can hardly find anyone to truly talk to — even AI doesn't understand what I'm saying anymore. I just feel that some simple and beautiful things are constantly dissipating. Such is the reality of this world. The cat on the cover has also been lost for nearly half a year. FreeBSD is like a bazaar, while Linux is like a cathedral. A bazaar — all who meet must part; for most people, the first encounter may also be the last. A cathedral, on the other hand, always has people coming and going in an endless stream. I also cannot evaluate, in the realm of philosophy, whether Wikipedia — a project where anyone can participate and edit — is more excellent and contributes more, or whether the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) — a project that even requires its translators to hold doctoral degrees in philosophy — is more excellent and contributes more. I once had many criticisms of Linux, but I never targeted any developers or contributors. I know they may be just like me — unable to handle the complex relationships within the community and ensure the community operates according to its CoC. I once argued that FreeBSD was by no means a great defeat, but my abilities were limited and I couldn't change many things. I'm sorry, but compared to those people, I've done my best. I know I could try harder — study the FreeBSD kernel more diligently to directly participate in FreeBSD's improvement, or spend more time communicating with them, seek more channels, write more stories about FreeBSD to let more people know, spend more money to hire people to make contributions. I always say I could try even harder, make even greater efforts, but I'm truly sorry — I really can't do it anymore, I really can't do it anymore. I've discovered that I too am a living person, and I have feelings, even if they've become quite dulled. Aristotle also believed that the prerequisite for achieving happiness is worldly joy. Epicurus proposed that the body should be free from pain and the soul free from disturbance. This seemingly simple definition of happiness is hard to attain — even one of the two conditions may be impossible to fulfill. Reality is filled with negative content and pessimistic information everywhere. If everyone offered a little love, the world would become a beautiful place. I truly find that this world lacks love and hope far too much. But who guarantees the consistency of virtue and happiness in this world? Would Wang Ching believe it? Even taking a step back — if deities truly exist, I can only comfort myself that this is already the best of all possible worlds, but even that is merely so. Does the modernity of this world's civilization truly exist? Are we truly in a progressive, scientific, civilized, and modern era? The so-called modernity is merely an illusion — our era will appear just as backward and barbaric to future people as the Middle Ages appear to us. The concept of modernity evolves with time; there is no true modernity in the absolute sense. The reality of so-called modernity is filled with the same kinds of universal views that we today attribute to people of the Middle Ages. The science and mathematics we pride ourselves on are both underdetermined — we believe in and promote them only because we're accustomed to them, only because they're useful. So presumably FreeBSD has no necessity of existence for me either. I can only think this way — there's no alternative. My open source work toward FreeBSD also seems to have no meaning. Today, half a year after all projects came to a substantive halt, I haven't received any requests asking me to update anything. It's time to let go. I always think of myself as too important, believing I must work very hard to promote FreeBSD's development, believing many people need me, and that only by doing this can I help more people who can't even articulate what their problems are. In reality, that's not the case. My various documentation works may be full of errors and personal opinions. After all, I don't have the doctoral degree in philosophy that they require. My understanding of the world and society is also the most ordinary, the most vulgar, the most naive. It seems I may not have much talent in many areas, and even effort cannot compensate for this. I know that writing this here has no meaning either — no one in the community or the Foundation will see it, and even if they do, it'll sink like a stone. Of course, I can't blame anyone — they all have their own lives, and their work is unpaid. I have no right to judge them. Perhaps this is just how open source is. Even you probably won't read this far, and you might think I'm being bizarre or naive or you simply can't understand what I'm talking about — I understand all of that. If you feel uncomfortable after reading this, I'm very sorry for spreading negative content and pessimistic information, but that wasn't my intention — because you have no obligation to listen to my complaints. I'm truly very sorry. If you feel uncomfortable, that's my responsibility — please forget me. I'm just a stranger; I may not exist at all. I don't expect anyone to understand or comprehend. Blessing everyone — whether supporters or those I've blocked — you've finally gotten your peace. But I hope you can all find happiness. May boundless blessings be upon you. ## What We Love Reveals Who We Are Those friends I once thought I had suddenly disappeared. When I found him again, I asked him, why did you suddenly drop out? I went to that factory to look for you and there was no one there. He would only keep replying, "And then?" Back then, he asked my name, and I told him. He said our names were the same, just different surnames. I didn't believe him. He showed me his exercise book — I looked, and the pronunciation was the same, but the characters were different. And this character was very unusual — normally it wouldn't be paired that way. He told me to go to his place on Saturday. I said I was going somewhere else. He said he was there and told me to wait for him at the intersection where there was a traffic light. What a coincidence. And he was indeed there. It was a place similar to a vocational school or college, formerly a steel production factory. But there were no students. He said he would often sneak into the computer room upstairs to play on the computer. He lived with his grandparents — or was it maternal grandparents, I can't remember — in the manager's room on the first floor. They were boiling dumplings at the time, and I ate a few. I saw he had purchased one of those educational learning devices that people came to the school to sell — for me at the time, I could only look; perhaps it's the same now. I told him I wanted to take a look, and he just tossed it to me. I looked at it and didn't think much of it. I asked him if the features they advertised were real. He said they were all scams — he went to the teachers about it but they didn't care, saying they weren't the ones selling it. But when they were promoting it, the teachers had helped them advertise. Less than half a year later, he was gone. I asked someone who knew him and was told he had dropped out — where he went, nobody knew. At that time, there was a yellow warning sign on the south side of that intersection, saying something about an accident-prone area. That sign is gone now. On the north side of the intersection was a shop where the apples were very expensive, my mom said. Now that place has been converted into a police station. The former community hospital, the bank — they're all gone too. The shop selling authentic Anhui beef noodle soup is gone, everything is gone. The telephone booths on the road — you can still see the fixed concrete bases. Now I can't find anywhere to eat authentic Anhui beef noodle soup either, and even the stir-fried noodle cakes are worse one than the other. Back then, kids from other villages would often come to play with me. His family ran a barbershop. His mom was selling some health products at the time. When she couldn't sell them anymore, she went back to cutting hair. I don't know what we were playing — I don't know what it was called or how to search for it. Let me describe it: there were two funnel-shaped structures about ten-plus meters long and one or two meters deep, with a conveyor belt in the middle, powered by an electric motor that you could turn by hand. Underneath was a supporting iron frame, and the whole thing was painted yellow. Various scaffolding, steel formwork, and some things I can't describe. Friends in construction would be very familiar with these — they probably still use the same equipment today. Later, I couldn't see them anymore. It wasn't until seven or eight years later that I learned he had found surfing the internet at cybercafes and playing Dungeon & Fighter more interesting. I saw him when he was playing. Long ago, I heard he was attending a technical school, but the school had closed down and the doors were shut. Now that barbershop can't be found either. Back then, there was another one. He said his whole family was moving back to their hometown in Shanxi because the place where they lived was going to be demolished. I asked what they were building after demolition, and he said a rubber ball factory. I said there are rubber ball factories? He said it was a beer factory — for drinking beer. Over twenty years have passed. That land is overgrown with weeds, completely barren. No beer factory in sight. I don't even know why it was demolished in the first place. They also tricked me back then, saying there was an airport at the north end of the village and inviting me to go see it with them. It wasn't until over ten years later that I made it to the north end of the village and found nothing — just an underpass that led to a wide asphalt road. Very wide, with neither people nor cars. Perhaps I never truly fit in with them. I still remember there was a very large cactus by the roadside at the time. It seemed bigger than the sun. Around that time, my teacher's child was five or six years younger than me. The teacher, to prevent him from playing games at home — he was playing Seer and similar games at the time — I didn't even know where to click and always lost to him. So every weekend, he was placed where I was. Why don't I say "my home"? Because it's hard to call this a home — it was too large. I believe anyone reading this far would have difficulty imagining how large it was. This isn't to say I lived in a villa — that was impossible. This place barely exists anymore. The place I lived in was divided into 3 areas. There were 3 large gates. Every day I went with my parents to lock the doors. When it rained, the disposable raincoats that appeared from who-knows-where were of such poor quality that wearing them was like not wearing anything at all. One area was for growing vegetables or flowers, another was for storing construction materials, and another was rented out to others. I lived in that place, which in a sense was also rented — just without paying. Once someone stole steel formwork and was caught by the police. The formwork was recovered, but the villagers' vegetable fields were trampled. If you wanted the formwork back, you had to compensate for the vegetables. Actually, I was completely unfamiliar with this village too. It wasn't until over a decade later that I could see the whole picture. So I had no connections in the village either, except for my teacher. After coordination, they paid 50 yuan in compensation. At the time, an egg-filled pancake cost 1 yuan. Much later, after I moved away from that place, I saw the teacher's child once at my new residence. My mom gave me 10 yuan and told me to buy some snacks. The adults all left. After the teacher came back and took his child away, my mom asked if I had spent all 10 yuan. I said yes — that doesn't buy much, and the supply and marketing cooperative sold expired products anyway. I didn't check the production date or shelf life — I should have gone to the shop next door. To this day, I haven't seen the teacher's child again. I heard he retook the exams and got into university. I realize I don't really understand them. I may never have entered their world at all. Or they may have already forgotten that someone like me existed. It's as if I've always been an outsider. Someone told me that when his friend disappeared, he immediately took a thirty-plus hour slow train to his friend's home to find out why. Whether in the past or now, I would never do such a thing. I would think that he was very busy with his studies, that maybe if I waited a bit longer he would come. That his mother didn't let him play with me anymore. That he had moved away. I would find many reasons that, in retrospect, don't hold up at all. I had already assumed by default that he was a child who knew his textbook material inside out. Because we never discussed anything related to studying when we were together. He never asked me, and I never needed to ask him. In fact, he wasn't very good at those things. Back then, we would light a fire on an abandoned iron wok using branches and paint thinner, and that would keep us entertained for an entire afternoon. He played hide-and-seek with me — after I finished counting, he was gone. I said I gave up, and if he didn't come out, I'd leave. I called out three times and left. And he had already left long before. Neither of us waited for the other. I have never voluntarily given up on any existence. Clearly, I can't let go — it's just that these existences have gradually drifted away from me on their own. People think I'm worse than I am, or better than I am. This doesn't affect anything. I've always been doing things that the vast majority of people consider meaningless. I know what society is, I know what relationships are, and I know even better what the current situation is, what is fantasy — but I've always hated these people. I don't like these people. People always treat what society lacks or what would cause you to suffer losses as something naturally unnecessary. They tell young people how they should be worldly. They tell you your eyes are filled with clear stupidity, that your thinking is stuck at the student stage... Nowadays, society defines the above as stupidity or naivety, telling you how to take shortcuts, build connections, and how to be more of a "social person." I can only say this: no matter where you are, I will be here. I will do my best to patch the things I love, until the day they can no longer be patched. Actually, nothing has meaning — as long as you think about it, you'll realize this. Some people like to find a proper Linux operations job, some like to develop their own operating system, and others like to play with Raspberry Pi, Orange Pi, RISC-V boards, and such. There are also people delivering food or feeding pigs at a pig farm. All these people are connected through FreeBSD or BSD. This is precisely the purpose of the UNIX BSD open source philosophy — allowing everyone to benefit equally. Even the word Ubuntu, from the distant wisdom of Africa, means exactly this. I see that many people are still limited by language and cannot directly use computers. Some people comment that they can't even install it in a virtual machine. But I've already done my best to record related videos. Perhaps we should start from zero — from what electricity is, then desktop computers, mice, keyboards, and so on... Actually, that's what I've been doing (but it also seems like no one watches — is it as futile as asking who bought a ticket on a high-speed train that you're already on?). This isn't about reaching remote mountains and seas — because many university graduates around me still can't distinguish which is the monitor and which is the computer. They can't even install and uninstall software through the control panel. Under these circumstances, imparting BSD knowledge is ineffective — those who can understand will only criticize your translations for being all wrong, and even the English original isn't useful enough, not deep enough, just superficial. Those who can't understand — you recorded videos showing them how, told them where to download the virtual machine, and they still won't use it, and they'll criticize your tutorials for being too fast-paced. But the player speed is adjustable — do I need to record a video explaining how to adjust the playback speed? I could do that, but I haven't yet. You're already on the high-speed train, and you're asking me how to buy a ticket? How do I explain that? Should I tell you to find the conductor and pay for a supplementary ticket? Would you even know how? It seems we still need to start from distinguishing the left and right mouse buttons. I've currently completed: 1. Electricity, 2. Desktop computers. I probably can't teach anyone, nor can I convince anyone. This is truly regrettable. I'm willing to start from what electricity is, but the most regrettable thing is that no one wants to listen. Or from where to download this virtual machine, from where to click the mouse — I even used to help people remotely install systems for free, whether BSD, Linux, or Windows. It's been too long — thinking about what I've gained, but what did I want to gain? I seem to need nothing, yet need everything. I once set up many C language courses, even though I didn't know C myself at the time. They strongly requested me to do it, saying they wanted to learn. The first class — 4 people came in, 3 were playing PUBG or some other Tencent game. 1 didn't speak. I spent a long time making the PPT. The second class — no one showed up at all. In retrospect, that's fine — at least I avoided misleading them. Some people were very grateful and sent me red packets that I didn't accept, because I felt it was simple and not worth their money — I was just copying and pasting. He sent a voice message enthusiastically in a northern dialect, saying he was a construction foreman on a job site, and their construction team's building quality was very good — when I needed to build a house, I could call him, guaranteed good and cheap. Others questioned me, asking why installing Windows required their Lenovo laptop serial number — was I trying to steal it and sell it? I asked for the model because you didn't know it, and I don't have X-ray vision — what can I do? Would you be satisfied if I downloaded Driver Genius for you, which doesn't ask for your serial number? Explaining to him is also meaningless. I can explain from the beginning, but no one wants to listen. You say explanations are just made up. Well, according to you, I must be trying to sell your serial number no matter what. Is your serial number very valuable? Is it like Apple's three codes that can be sold? I'm really not sure — maybe it can be. Whether others are using me to achieve their purposes — I don't care. You want to know how to do something, I'll tell you; if I don't know, I'll tell you where to find it, what to read. If you don't believe me, or don't want to listen, then that's the end of it. Your SN code — I don't know who buys them. Whoever's recycling them, let me know. If a Lenovo SN code could earn 1 yuan each, I could at least make a few thousand — I'd be losing out big time. It's been too long, too far away. Actually, there are no principles or bottom lines to speak of — it's nothing more than how high or low this person stands in your heart. That's all. "What we love reveals who we are." ## References * Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Editorial Information\[EB/OL]. \[2026-04-18]. . SEP requires entry authors to hold a doctoral degree in philosophy or a related discipline and to have published peer-reviewed work on the relevant topic. * Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics\[M]. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009: 14. Bekker 1099a31–33. Aristotle believed that the realization of happiness requires external goods as necessary conditions: "Clearly, as we said, happiness also needs external goods; for it is impossible, or not easy, to perform noble acts without the proper equipment." * Epicurus. Letter to Menoeceus\[A]//Diogenes Laertius. Lives of Eminent Philosophers: Book X. Epicurus's definition of happiness: "By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul." See Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Epicurus\[EB/OL]. \[2026-04-18]. . * FreeBSD Project. FreeBSD Security Advisory FreeBSD-SA-20:16.cryptodev\[EB/OL]. (2020-05-12)\[2026-04-18]. . FreeBSD security advisory naming format is FreeBSD-SA-XX:YY, which includes English colons, causing documents with filenames containing this format to be unable to be pulled via Git on Windows. * Gade C B N. The historical development of the written discourses on Ubuntu\[J]. South African Journal of Philosophy, 2011, 30(3): 303-330. Ubuntu originates from Zulu and Xhosa in the Nguni language group, an African philosophy emphasizing humanity, social solidarity, and generosity. * FreeBSD Foundation. FreeBSD and Google Summer of Code 2025\[EB/OL]. (2025-10)\[2026-04-18]. . GSoC project completion rates have been high over the years (9/11 completed in 2024, 12/12 all completed in 2025), but the proportion merged into mainline has been low. * Qiu Feng, Changsun Haotian. Lunheng\[M]. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 2024. Wang Chong proposed that "nature has its good and evil, fate has its fortune and misfortune," believing there is no necessary causal relationship between virtue and reward — that is, "inconsistency between virtue and happiness." * Raymond E S. The Cathedral & the Bazaar\[M]. Translated by Wei Jianfan. Beijing: China Machine Press, 2014: 1-194. Raymond uses Linux as the "bazaar" model (open, decentralized) and closed-development open source software like GNU Emacs and GCC as the "cathedral" model (closed, centralized), which is the opposite direction of the analogy made by the author of this text regarding community personnel mobility. * FreeBSD Foundation. The Road to Better Wi-Fi on FreeBSD\[EB/OL]. (2025-06-05)\[2026-04-18]. . The FreeBSD Foundation has funded multiple wireless network developers since 2023, including Björn Zeeb, Cheng Cui, Tom Jones, and others. * FreeBSD Project. About the FreeBSD Project\[EB/OL]. \[2026-04-17]. . The FreeBSD project originated in early 1993, with the first official version released on November 1, 1993. * Canonical. Canonical and Chinese standards body announce Ubuntu collaboration\[EB/OL]. (2013-03-21)\[2026-04-17]. . The CCN Joint Laboratory was established by CSIP, NUDT, and Canonical. * Ubuntu Kylin Team. Ubuntu Kylin News — Learn about the latest Ubuntu Kylin updates, follow community and product developments\[EB/OL]. (2014-12-26)\[2026-04-18]. . The official name of the CCN Open Source Software Innovation Joint Laboratory. * The New York Times. Dennis Ritchie, C Programming Language Creator, Dies at 70\[EB/OL]. (2011-10-13)\[2026-04-17]. . Ritchie passed away on October 12, 2011; Jobs passed away on October 5 of the same year. * Bird Brother. Bird Brother's Linux Private Kitchen: Basic Learning Edition\[M]. 4th Edition. Beijing: Posts & Telecom Press, 2018. ISBN: 978-7-115-47258-8. This book was written based on CentOS 7.x; the first printing of the first edition's cover was labeled "Based on Linux 7.x." * InfoQ. Allegations of a Backdoor in OpenBSD Are Not Confirmed\[EB/OL]. (2010-12-17)\[2026-04-18]. . Former NETSEC CTO Gregory Perry alleged in 2010 that the FBI had funded developers to insert backdoors into the OpenBSD IPSec protocol stack, but code audits did not confirm this. --- # Agent Instructions This documentation is published with GitBook. GitBook is the documentation platform designed so that both humans and AI agents can read, navigate, and reason over technical content effectively. Learn more at gitbook.com. ## Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://book.bsdcn.org/ask/flat/afterword/wo-yu-freebsd-de-gu-shi.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.