Absolute FreeBSD: The Complete Guide to FreeBSD, 2nd Edition 2nd Edition

Lucas has a distinct writing style and geek sense of humor that make this computer book actually readable. He explains complex matters in such a way with a touch of humor that keep you interested and in the process makes you informed. Many users have reviewed the content, so I don't feel the need to dive into a full review of what is covered. However, the topics covered in this book are very relevant to the day to day tasks of a full time administrator. I administer a network with many users, and have administered smaller networks, and the topics apply equally. Very good read.

My organization has been incorporating FreeBSD into our most critical infrastructure pieces. Linux has become an ever-changing, evolving puzzle and, at least for our organization, they've had enough.This is easily the best BSD book I've read. It's not for everyone, though. FreeBSD is solid, professional-grade Unix, and Lucas is a professional administrator. You should expect to use the command line, but Lucas explains the most accepted way to do things so you don't waste time. BSD is very Pythonic in that there is often only one or two ways to do something, which makes it a pleasure to follow along with his examples.His book is not going to baby you, but it also won't talk down to you or be pedantic, either. Anyone who reads it wants to know practical things such as how to install, maintain, and service FreeBSD. They want to know how it works and how to install and use applcations.FreeBSD works as a united and organized whole, which makes the easy things easy and the difficult things possible. Michael Lucas will help you get started on that journey.

I'm relatively new to *BSDs though I've used Linux since the early 1990s so I read the author reviews extensively before purchasing this book. Michael Lucas writes just like everyone says and make the topic easy to understand. I've purchased two other books written by the author on ZFS and Network Flow Analysis and he is consistent in style with each of these books. This is a large book and I'm only 25% through it though I must admit that I hop around a lot reading all the interesting topics so I might be half way. I will keep it as a reference and use the ZFS book for the software installation portion that this book covers which is to say the 3rd edition will be welcomed when published.

Too much information that is useless to someone who just wants to get running. If you're an expert at FreeBSD, then this book is for you...Edit:I was harsh in my first reviewing. This is a good book written by a knowledgeable author but I am still cutting my teeth on FreeBSD and this is not a beginner's book. It has a lot of information but does require some intermediate knowledge of what is being discussed to get the most out of the book.

This book had a lot of what I already knew but it was a great add to my collection of books for BSD. It had some interesting things in it to help harden the server more than I already had it. It also gave me some tips of things I could do or add to the server to help me with some other htings I wanted to do, but couldn't remember the commands to get it done. Great Book

I've read a few UNIX/freeBSD books and this one was the best. It had much more than just information about freeBSD however. There was good descriptions on how many basic computer services work.Many of the books I've read had more quantity than quality, but this is definitely the opposite. It has everything you need to get a basic server up and running, along with a few other things.

In general, I found this book to be redundant with a combination of the online FreeBSD Handbook and man pages. In some cases, the information provided is inaccurate, inappropriate, or just (already) outdated. If you like printed texts, this may be for you. Otherwise, I'd stick with the online content.I was hoping to find some pointers on some of the less-common facets of FreeBSD (as compared to Linux or Sun), such as ipfw2, netgraph, mpd for VPN, service jails, running dhcpd in a jail, ZFS, and management of updates through freebsd-update and portsnap. In general, I didn't find much that wasn't more easily available and complete on the FreeBSD site.Looking at a couple of the 7.x features I was hoping to get some extended insights into, but was bothered by the results:jails -- Suggests that you "look around for the Secret Ninja Jail Techniques" and doesn't even mention the ezjail port (which goes back to 2005). Come on, at least give me something I can put into Google! Already out of date with the changes in 7.2 which allow named jails and multiple IPs.ZFS -- Suggests that 64-bit processors are required. Reality is that its not the instruction set, but that 1 GB or more memory is recommended, and can be run on less (768 MB as been shown possible). "ZFS's license is not suitable for making it the primary FreeBSD filesystem" seems out of sync with the efforts going into making ZFS pools bootable in -CURRENT.If you don't have any familiarity with `nix and are diving into FreeBSD first, this might be a good book to read. Personally, I'll stick with the updated information on the FreeBSD website.As a side note, if you're in that category, take a look at the more general UNIX System Administration Handbook (3rd Edition), which served me well in one of its earlier editions.