# Book: The Absolute FreeBSD, 2nd edition



## NeverSimple (May 18, 2011)

Hello,

I'm new to FreeBSD (and this forum) and looking to learn. There is a lot of excellent online documentation available, but I'm oldfashioned: I like reading a book, if possible.

I can't really find many books that are somewhat up-to-date. One that looks reasonable and is reviewed excellent on more than one occasion is "The Absolute FreeBSD, 2nd Edition" by Michael W. Lucas. 

The 2nd edition is "updated from FreeBSD 4 and 5 to reflect the usage on FreeBSD 6 and 7"

What I don't know, beeing new to FreeBSD, is how many (non trivial) changes happened to the OS since FreeBSD 6/7. If I buy this book will it help in learning, or just add to the confusion because it is outdated on important issues??

Advice would be appreciated.

Richard


----------



## gkontos (May 18, 2011)

You can't go wrong with Michael Lucas. Absolute FreeBSD might be a bit outdated but for me its still the bible.

Regards,
George


----------



## graudeejs (May 18, 2011)

Perhaps print FreeBSD handbook (ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/doc/handbook/book.pdf.bz2 << here's a pdf)
It's over 1000 pages of most useful stuff


----------



## DutchDaemon (May 18, 2011)

See also FreeBSD Development: Books, Papers, Slides.


----------



## nilsgecko (May 19, 2011)

I'm definitely more of a paper-book kind of guy.  There are excellent tutorials and resources online but having a good book to flip to has no equal in my opinion.  

One of my favorite FreeBSD books is Babak Farrokhi's Network Administration with FreeBSD 7 by Packt Publishing.

https://www.packtpub.com/network-administration-with-freebsd/book

It has more of a Networking bent, is based on FreeBSD 7, but is still incredibly useful and relevant.


----------



## NeverSimple (May 20, 2011)

Thanks to all for the suggestions.

I was sort of hoping that I missed some great book, but I didn't really expect that, because of the 'power' of Google.

I ordered 'The Absolute FreeBSD, 2nd edition'. It's on backorder so I'll have to wait a while. From the book list suggested by 'DutchDaemon' I found 'BSD UNIX Toolbox: 1000+ Commands for FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD', interesting enough to add it to the shoppingcart (it also didn't cost much, that helped  ).

So, with 2 new books (and 2 fresh FreeBSD homeservers) I'll have something to do.

I'll be back.

Richard


----------

