# FreeBSD learning path?



## sirinon (Aug 2, 2010)

Hi all 

As a junior network engineer, i am currently in the process of moving away from jobs which are windows/cisco/random cheap products, I have started to move towards Unix in the last four months and taken a liking to BSD over the other options i.e solaris/AIX/linux.
is there any recomendations that the forums can make or links to useful guides that i could use to gear myself more towards FreeBSD ??

my plan so far is something like
1. linux/unix noob book ( read )
2. plenty of virtual machines to trash / play with
3. unix bible ( almost finished )
4. freeBSD handbook ?? ? ? ? 

is there anything else the forum members  could think of or tips  that you might have used when starting out like me ?


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## SirDice (Aug 2, 2010)

sirinon said:
			
		

> is there anything else the forum members  could think of or tips  that you might have used when starting out like me ?


Yes, hands-on. 

Play with it. Break it. Learn how to fix it. Use it, break it again, learn more, fix again etc.


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## fronclynne (Aug 2, 2010)

I picked up an old copy of O'Reilly's UNIX in a Nutshell for next to nothing at a used book store.  It's actually a pretty good reference for all those legacy commands (admittedly the sexion on SCCS is a _tiny bit_ obsolete) though you do have to consult the relevant man(1) page before testing their examples.

SirDice's is also excellent advice.  I would add that learning how to use your normal tools for disk administration instead of sysinstall (gpart(8), newfs(8), bsdlabel(8), fdisk(8), tunefs(8)), & learning pw(8) in preference to the other user-administration utilities.


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## overmind (Aug 2, 2010)

- Buy all FreeBSD books and read them from cover to cover (including network/server related freebsd books)
- Read this forum on regular basis
- Join and read mailing lists
- Learn to configure FreeBSD for every purpose from web, mail, file server (nfs, samba, zfs, iscsi) to configuring services with virtual users (MySQL users, LDAP)
- read every 3 month FreeBSD Status Report

Forum is very important, browse it, you will find alot of very practical tips. 
Understand every feature of FreeBSD. At least you should know what it means, what is its purpose.

Think as a system administrator. When something will not work learn to activate logs, verbose logs. If you do network setup/diags tcpdump is your friend.

Learn FreeBSD's ports and packages system. Learn every make from ports option, learn to SVN, rebuild your sistem, recompile your kernel.

Learn UNIX Shell programming.


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## olav (Aug 2, 2010)

The FreeBSD Handbook has helped me alot, and the forum here is filled with a lot of exceptional good stuffs. Here even dumb question get good anwers!


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## SirDice (Aug 2, 2010)

olav said:
			
		

> Here even dumb question get good anwers!


A wise person learns more from asking a dumb question then a dumb person learns from a wise answer


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## UNIXgod (Aug 2, 2010)

Evi Nemeth's UNIX admin handbook is by far the best lit for anyone looking at administration.

Join us on irc ##freebsd @ irc.freenode.net

~


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## teckk (Aug 4, 2010)

Couple of hyperlinks for you.

http://elibrary.fultus.com/technica...m.fultus.freebsd.books/books/fbsdig/index.htm

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/

http://onlamp.com/pub/ct/15

http://wiki.freebsd.org/

http://www.bsdguides.org/

http://www.freshports.org/


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## vand777 (Aug 5, 2010)

I started with this book. It is the best for beginners, imho.

http://www.amazon.com/Absolute-FreeBSD-Complete-Guide-2nd/dp/1593271514

After you read the book, look at http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/


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