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FreeBSD Handbook, 2nd Edition Available

Posted by timothy on from the happy-hallowe'en dept.

Murray Stokely writes: " The second edition hardcopy release of the FreeBSD Handbook is now available! Written by the FreeBSD Documentation Project, the FreeBSD Handbook is a comprehensive guide to installing and running FreeBSD. This book was typeset using entirely open source software. It covers the installation and day-to-day use of FreeBSD, the ports collection, kernel configuration, the X Window System, printing, FreeBSD's Linux binary compatibility support, upgrading your system from source by using the ``make world'' command, and much more. Among the many changes since the 1st edition are the inclusion of a full index, all new graphical network diagrams, several new chapters, more professional typesetting, and content that has been completely updated for FreeBSD 4.x and 5.0-CURRENT. If you are interested in purchasing a copy of the handbook, you can do so online from the FreeBSD Mall."

22 comments

  1. Good to see some BSD news! by Anton+Anatopopov · · Score: 0, Troll
    But I can't help wondering how long it will be before the morons arrive with their stupid and predictable '*BSD is dying' troll.

    I wouldn't mind the trolls so much if they were original, but cutting and pasting the same stupid rant every time an article mentions BSD is just plain unfunny.

    Anyway, its good to hear some positive news from the BSD camp. Lets hope they clear up the problems with their license so BSD can match RMS's definition of 'open source'

    1. Re:Good to see some BSD news! by flynn_nrg · · Score: 2, Informative
      "they clear up the problems with their license"

      Care to elaborate on that? What problems are those? Unless you've been living under a rock FreeBSD is released with the new BSDL, not the old one with the advertising clause, and it's perfectly compatible with the GPL and matches RMS's criteria (something 99% of BSDers couldn't care less about). If you've ever used old Linux kernels perhaps you noticed in the 2.0.x series that the NCR53C8xx driver was available both as the imported BSD driver and as one created by the Linux kernel hackers.

    2. Re:Good to see some BSD news! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But I can't help wondering how long it will be before the morons arrive with their stupid and predictable '*BSD is dying' troll.
      The fact that somebody puts effort in to post the same troll everytime is a good proof that the BSD:s are not dying. Dying pojects are the ones that nobody cares about.

      Lets hope they clear up the problems with their license so BSD can match RMS's definition of 'open source'
      That is not a problem with the BSD license, that is a problem with RMS. The BSD license is about total and unconditional freedom. The GNU license is about giving something away and then accusing people of stealing.
      Frankly, if the BSD license won't match a definition of open-source then what would?

    3. Re:Good to see some BSD news! by mezron · · Score: 1

      "Anyway, its good to hear some positive news from the BSD camp. Lets hope they clear up the problems with their license so BSD can match RMS's definition of 'open source'"

      I wouldn't look for that anytime soon. The BSD folks tend to look at the GPL as restrictive and I agree with that. The only way to make software more free than the BSD license would be to release it as public domain.

      Jim

  2. A serious question... by psxndc · · Score: 2
    but I'll get flamed/modded down anyway...

    I'm a big fan of OpenBSD, but Dead Tree documentation is minimal (I already have the Linux and OpenBSD Firewalls book, thanks - which is great btw but written for 2.5). I'm coming from a Windows world and I'm learning Linux and OpenBSD at the same time. I've never used FreeBSD, so how applicable would this book be to the other BSD's? For example, I just got a new OpenBSD install up and working beautifully. Usually I just buy the newest release CD and upgrade from there, but I've wanted to get into updating the software on a more regular basis. I thought I read somewhere that it's as easy as CVS'ing the source tree and "make world", but it doesn't mention this on the CVS page. I've poked around and couldn't find it in the first couple places I looked either (FAQ). Would documentation about this and other functions be applicable, or are the so BSD's vastly different that it's not worth getting this book as a potential reference? Thanks.

    psxndc

    P.S. Don't tell me to do a google search either. The reason I always look for books is I go for the scenario where I'm doing a fresh install and have no network connectivity

    --

    The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.

    1. Re:A serious question... by cant_get_a_good_nick · · Score: 1

      I haven't used OpenBSD much, so I'm not sure what's applicable. Good news bad news joke - FreeBSD gets a lot more documentation than Open or Net do, but it's still essentially one book. Yikes.

      Have you tried NetBSD docs? Since OpenBSD was an offshoot of NetBSD, there are probably a lot more similarities between NetBSD and OpenBSD than with FreeBSD. Of course, that brings up the question whether finding documentation for NetBSD is easier than finding them for OpenBSD.

    2. Re:A serious question... by hearingaid · · Score: 2

      You're correct. Paper docs for OpenBSD are extremely minimal; the only book that I've ever seen specific for it was the Linux/OpenBSD firewalls book you mentioned.

      OpenBSD forked off of FreeBSD a few versions back, I'm not sure exactly when. Some things are quite similar still, but of course details like driver names have changed. (I run FreeBSD 3.4 and even in FreeBSD 4, there are many, many changes to the names of common devices, even the atapi cd driver has a new name.)

      Conceptual stuff of course would be highly similar. Both are BSDs, so follow the rules of BSD operating systems. Therefore, if you buy a *nix book on a specific topic, you can usually use the examples they give for BSD (as opposed to SysV or Linux) and they'll work.

      That said, you can look at the FreeBSD handbook on the web: I think I got the url right; it'll give you an idea of what's in it and you can try stuff out, see if they apply to your OpenBSD installation. The other main ref for FreeBSD is The Complete FreeBSD, by Lehey, which I sometimes read in the bookstore. (Big-box stores, love them to death. :) Sometime I'll scrounge some money together and buy a copy.

      --

      my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore

    3. Re:A serious question... by Bishop · · Score: 2

      I would leave the FreeBSD docs alone. There are enough little differences to be really annoying for the new guy (such as yourself). It is similar to all the little differences between the different versions of windows. All the docs for OpenBSD are electronic. The FAQ will probably answer your cvs question. And don't forget the manpages. The problem with the manpages is that you don't know what you are looking for until you find it. Use 'man -k keywork' or the web interface to do searchs. Also check out OpenBSD Journal. For installation there are lots of files of interest on the CD or ftp site such as the INSTALL.* files. It may be worth your while to print some of those off.

      You are kinda screwed if you dont want online docs. At the same time *BSD is a moving target so dead tree versions tend to get out of date quickly.

    4. Re:A serious question... by Luminous+Coward · · Score: 1
      OpenBSD forked off of FreeBSD a few versions back [...]
      Bzzzt... OpenBSD forked from NetBSD back in December 1994.
  3. Questions on the book. by cant_get_a_good_nick · · Score: 1

    I like FreeBSD, it's a solid system. One of the biggest strikes against it would be the lack of 3rd party help. I can 5 different books on RedHat alone in any given bookstore, but there is essentially 1 book for FreeBSD. The other big problem being lack of device drivers, but that's a different topic.

    1) Do they comment on the kernel config file better? There are still a lot of parameters in the file that have no comments at all, and some that are commented but you're not quite sure what to setthem to (ok, this is a tuning parameter, but there's no hint at an algorithm for setting it).

    2) Are there any other books coming out? I'd say a device driver book would be nice, and just a general system book would be cool too. Anyone bug the Yahoo! folks on this? They run their business on FreeBSD, they must have a lot of experience on this.

    1. Re:Questions on the book. by Nik · · Score: 2, Informative
      there is essentially 1 book for FreeBSD.


      There's the "Complete FreeBSD" by Greg Lehey, the "FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide" by Ted Mittlestadt, and "FreeBSD: An Open Source Operating System for your PC" by Annelise Anderson at least. SAMS have a FreeBSD book coming out shortly, and O'Reilly have several FreeBSD books in the pipeline (including the "FreeBSD Network Administrator's Guide", which I'm co-authoring).

      Do they comment on the kernel config file better?


      You need to be more specific. What do you find missing from LINT?

      I'd say a device driver book would be nice


      Take a look at the FreeBSD Developer's Handbook, which has a very large section on device driver writing. And feel free to contribute.

      N
    2. Re:Questions on the book. by cant_get_a_good_nick · · Score: 1
      About the other books, I wasn't aware of them. Thnak you for showing them to me. I'm interested in the device driver one.

      Do they comment on the kernel config file better?


      You need to be more specific. What do you find missing from LINT?



      The area:

      # More undocumented options for linting.
      # Note that documenting these are not considered an affront.

      That. Though some are obvious like DEBUG_LINUX there are some I don't know about. Also, even ones that I do know what they do, like NMBCLUSTERS I know are networking control blocks, but I don't know of any tuning algorithms.

    3. Re:Questions on the book. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Try Bill Jolitz's 386BSD books for kernel commentary that is at least BSD-oriented, and then there is the 4.4BSD book, and the O'Reilly 4.4BSD books - I haven't got them yet.

      That's primarily what I know - Jolitz's books are worth every cent, etc...

  4. The FreeBSD handbook is available online. by flynn_nrg · · Score: 2, Informative

    Here you have all the info you need to learn about FreeBSD.

  5. Lack of BSD documentation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    You guys keep complaining about how few books there are for (Free)BSD.
    1. Use the man pages! They are there with you on the machine, they are correct, they get updated.
    2. Use generic O'Reilly books for programs like Sendmail, Samba, bind, NFS, NIS, Apache etc.
    3. Look at additional documentation and examples available in /usr/share/
    4. The old 4.4 BSD manual set is availabe from O'Reilly. It is still useful combined with fresh maual pages.
    5. Use websites like FreeBSD.org, freebsddiary.org, daemonnews.org, etc.
    6. Search the mailinglist archives
    7. Subscribe to the mailinglists
    Something does not get better documented just because there are 20 different books describing how to do the same thing. (mostly installing the OS)

    1. Re:Lack of BSD documentation by psxndc · · Score: 2, Insightful
      I'm not complaining, I'm asking how applicable the FreeBSD book is to OpenBSD.

      1) I HAVE used the man pages. "man make" doesn't say s#!+ about "make world". If you're a friggin' newbie, man pages won't help you find what you're looking for because you don't know what you're looking for in the first place.
      2) I do use O'Reilly books. You should see my collection. Almost at my 3rd free book from them, but that doesn't help me with things that are completely intrinsic to the operating system unless that book is about the OS
      3) Thank you. Seriously, thanks. I'll look into that. I forget that docs are there.
      4) I didn't know if the 4.4 manual would be helpful or if it even still applied. How useful is an IPChains firewall book if you're running the newer/better IPTables (in Linux)?
      5,6,7) Assume the case of no connectivity so mailing lists and websites aren't helpful in this context (though I read OpenBSD.org all the time, sometimes I _still_ can't find the answer).
      8) Books != Better Documentation? Not necessarily true. People that write books have to sell books. Having to sell books means it has to be accepted by a large audience. Usually/Hopefully this translates into going into detail about a subject while keeping it simple enough for anyone to understand and comprehend.

      --

      The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.

    2. Re:Lack of BSD documentation by RLiegh · · Score: 1
      8) Books != Better Documentation? Not necessarily true. People that write books have to sell books. Having to sell books means it has to be accepted by a large audience. Usually/Hopefully this translates into going into detail about a subject while keeping it simple enough for anyone to understand and comprehend.


      In my experience, the more books there are out there, the more variable the quality tends to be. Kinda makes sense if you think about it. The market demands detail, yes; but anyone who watched Linux from 96 to now knows that as often as not the market demands "slap a brand on it and get it out the door before the fad turns cold". Christ knows how many Linux books I bought remembering the quality of my old "Using Linux" (I don't remember the full title, but it included slackware 3.1) brought them home and got lots of hype about the "linux revolution", but nothing at all in depth (a new tip here on how to set up X, a new tip there talking about KDE).

    3. Re:Lack of BSD documentation by RLiegh · · Score: 1

      Though, I have to admit that half the time the reason I bought the books was to get the cd (and spare myself the hassle of d/l'ing); but the point remains, just because there's "large audience" doesn't always mean that what's in the books is necessarily detailed.

  6. It sucks to not use plastic by RLiegh · · Score: 1

    As that (afaik) means I don't do online shopping. Since I don't do online shopping that means I get to wait until 2003 until it shows up in our local Barnes And Nobles.