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Old 23rd January 2012
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jggimi jggimi is offline
More noise than signal
 
Join Date: May 2008
Location: USA
Posts: 7,977
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@daemonfowl, I have some general recommendations for those new to OpenBSD:
  1. There are only two official "How to" resources -- the INSTALL.<arch> documents packaged with each release, and the FAQ. Any other "How to" documentation you find on the Internet is likely to be out of date, or incorrect, or misleading... or all three. Please, don't blindly follow any third party "how to" docs. You can read them, but never trust them.
    • I left the "How to" docs published as articles in the OpenBSD Journal (http://undeadly.org) off the list of approved documentation. That is because while they were vetted by a group of editors before publication, and were valid when published, they are not maintained and may be out of date.
  2. Please see www.openbsd.org/books.html -- there are some terrific resources mentioned there. From that list I wish to make special mention of Michael Lucas's Absolute OpenBSD. It is out-of-print, though the publisher still sells a PDF version of it; and there is a sample chapter available for download. Michael's most recent publication on OpenSSH, mentioned here in the forum this week, germinated from his work developing a second edition, still in progress. While this first edition is sometimes technically out of date due to the many changes to OpenBSD since it was written, it is still a terrific resource and I still refer to my dog-eared-falling-apart copy from time to time. I have recommended this book to all and sundry, because it was written for an audience that could be brand new to Unix-like systems or have more than 30 years experience with them.
  3. Follow the misc@ mailing list. You'll need a mail client that displays threaded discussions and has (unfortunately) killfile capabilities. The misc@ list requires some getting used to, it is always a shock to newcomers -- and often shocks those who have long been participants. Even though the noise to signal ratio can sometimes be very bad, this is a great place to get an understanding of the culture of the "OpenBSD Community" -- two words which together are often considered an oxymoron. You will also have a feel for common issues and problems, and how they are managed (or not managed). Lastly, should you ever find the need to post to misc@ for assistance, you will have learned what is considered acceptable, and what is not, enabling you to better craft your request.
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