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The Complete FreeBSD 10 Years Old, Now Free
sjg writes "'The Complete FreeBSD', long regarded as one of the most valuable reference works for new and seasoned FreeBSD users alike, has recently celebrated its 10'th anniversary. To celebrate this auspicious occasion, Greg Lehey, author of The Complete FreeBSD and longtime FreeBSD contributor has released the work for download under the Creative Commons license."
since its going pretty slow, help save their bandwidth. here is a torrent: http://www.tpwch.com/temp/the_complete_freebsd.tor rent
Posted by a Debian GNU/Linux user
Specifically licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 license.
"Creative Commons" is far too vague to be meaningful.
http://www.lemis.com.nyud.net:8090/grog/Documentat ion/CFBSD/
The complete book in gzipped PostScript form (about 2.8 MB).
The complete book in gzipped PDF form (about 5 MB). This version has minor format problems with ligatures. If possible, use the PostScript version.
The complete sources for rebuilding the book (about 9.5 MB), gzipped tar.
This book is worthwhile for anyone running a server, not just *BSD users. There's plenty of specifics of running servers and configuration that makes this an invaluable aide to any sys admin. Honestly I think it gets a little slow when it walks you through the installer (!) but I guess that's why it's "complete"! Recommended.
fak3r.com
..Anyonw with a beard like that must know UNIX!
[ed. note: in the following text, former FreeBSD developer Mike Smith gives his reasons for abandoning FreeBSD]
When I stood for election to the FreeBSD core team nearly two years ago, many of you will recall that it was after a long series of debates during which I maintained that too much organisation, too many rules and too much formality would be a bad thing for the project.
Today, as I read the latest discussions on the future of the FreeBSD project, I see the same problem; a few new faces and many of the old going over the same tired arguments and suggesting variations on the same worthless schemes. Frankly I'm sick of it.
FreeBSD used to be fun. It used to be about doing things the right way. It used to be something that you could sink your teeth into when the mundane chores of programming for a living got you down. It was something cool and exciting; a way to spend your spare time on an endeavour you loved that was at the same time wholesome and worthwhile.
It's not anymore. It's about bylaws and committees and reports and milestones, telling others what to do and doing what you're told. It's about who can rant the longest or shout the loudest or mislead the most people into a bloc in order to legitimise doing what they think is best. Individuals notwithstanding, the project as a whole has lost track of where it's going, and has instead become obsessed with process and mechanics.
So I'm leaving core. I don't want to feel like I should be "doing something" about a project that has lost interest in having something done for it. I don't have the energy to fight what has clearly become a losing battle; I have a life to live and a job to keep, and I won't achieve any of the goals I personally consider worthwhile if I remain obligated to care for the project.
Discussion
I'm sure that I've offended some people already; I'm sure that by the time I'm done here, I'll have offended more. If you feel a need to play to the crowd in your replies rather than make a sincere effort to address the problems I'm discussing here, please do us the courtesy of playing your politics openly.
From a technical perspective, the project faces a set of challenges that significantly outstrips our ability to deliver. Some of the resources that we need to address these challenges are tied up in the fruitless metadiscussions that have raged since we made the mistake of electing officers. Others have left in disgust, or been driven out by the culture of abuse and distraction that has grown up since then. More may well remain available to recruitment, but while the project is busy infighting our chances for successful outreach are sorely diminished.
There's no simple solution to this. For the project to move forward, one or the other of the warring philosophies must win out; either the project returns to its laid-back roots and gets on with the work, or it transforms into a super-organised engineering project and executes a brilliant plan to deliver what, ultimately, we all know we want.
Whatever path is chosen, whatever balance is struck, the choosing and the striking are the important parts. The current indecision and endless conflict are incompatible with any sort of progress.
Trying to dissect the above is far beyond the scope of any parting shot, no matter how distended. All I can really ask of you all is to let go of the minutiae for a moment and take a look at the big picture. What is the ultimate goal here? How can we get there with as little overhead as possible? How would you like to be treated by your fellow travellers?
Shouts
To the Slashdot "BSD is dying" crowd - big deal. Death is part of the cycle; take a look at your soft, pallid bodies and consider that right this very moment, parts of you are dying. See? It's not so bad.
To the bulk of the FreeBSD committerbase and the developer community at large - keep your eyes on the real goals. I
I wouldn't use postscript files from random sources in a local viewer (but I would on a printer). PostScript is a turing-complete language with filesystem and network access.
Gzipped PDF? They do know about the Gzip compression option in the PDF standard, right? Use the PDF compression and you can open it directly in Acrobat, XPDF, kghostview, Preview, or whathaveyou.
You should make sure to check out the picture of the author. He looks like a he could be a Unix hacker!
The book is excellent too of course, which is why this is so cool.
Also, the book is truly excellent. He's got very, very useful stuff in there.
My only more favorite author on the same topic is Lucas, who has a few books out from "No Starch Press".
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
Greg Leahy writes one of the finest *IX books ever and now it's free. Highly recommended. I got my first copy with FreeBSD 2.2 in it. I learned more about UNIX in one place from the book that anywhere else.
Too lazy to create a sig...
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Hope that helps!
That green slime had it coming.
http://www.lemis.com.nyud.net:8080/grog/Documentat ion/CFBSD/
Often I encounter PDFs online which I'd like to read in/on the backyard/holiday/couch. Besides the obvious buying, does anyone have tips on specific printershops/chains that cheaply print and bind stuff like this? Prices, perhaps?
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
imho...
Which version is this?
I already have the 3rd edition that I bought a few years ago.
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be the Amazing Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save *BSD at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dying
After noticing that the author's download server had gotten SlashDotted,
...both mind-
I took the time to browse the book's History.
I was taken aback to find that he had acted (IMHO) sheepish in response
to someone else's input of the form: "It needs more pages" ('reminds me
of the Emporer's line - in Amadeus - "It needs more notes"
less comments on a work by people not interested enough to get -inside-
the heads or hearts of the creators).
For all kinds of reasons, writing bloated books (with "more pages") just
doesn't work for me:
- while carrying a ref. book to a work site: the more pp's the heavier
- when trying to find info: the more words needed to be read, the slower
- when promoting a FOSS Op Sys: the bigger their book(s), the harder the sell
- until the publishing world goes all electronic: more trees must die
- while authors get paid (or books get sold) by the word (page) counts:
* dead-tree versions will be unnecessarily more costly
* less time is available for more creative endeavors
* the signal-to-noise ratio will be lower than optimal
* the risk of authors getting RSI is higher than optimal
In sum, it just seems like we're following the commercial crowds, ie,
rather than designing elegant creations that we can be 100% proud of.
Still, I want to THANK the Author for releasing this book via the CC.
My 2.2 cents... what'cha think?
Okay. This is picky, I know. Otherwise I agree 100%. The Emperor actually told Mozart, "Too many notes." In reality, the perfect book is like a good skirt--long enough to cover the subject, yet short enough to still be interesting.
"Too many notes" is the line you're thinking of.