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Old 5th July 2009
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Oko Oko is offline
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Join Date: May 2008
Location: Kosovo, Serbia
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Quote:
Originally Posted by agshekeloh View Post
No, I'm not working on a third edition at this date. But I hope to some day, when life permits me to do more writing.

If that was to happen, what new material would people like to see added? What would you like to see cut out of it?
That is a very easy question. I would have to look the content of the 2nd edition carefully but from the top of my head I would like to see this:


Installation:
More advanced ways of installing FreeBSD including PXE, NFS, as well as something along RedHat kick start installation. Installation FreeBSD on the USB stick as well as creating LiveCD. Also creating embedded images using NanoBSD tools from the base.



There has been so many changes since the last edition. You will need to add the two new chapters on:ZFS and DTrace.

I am not sure how much there is about virtualization in the last book. You will need to wait for Xen to run as Dom0 and write the chapter about it. Also it would be good to have sections about VirtualBox. WMWare if it gets updated and similar.

To stay on the virtualization there has been significant changes in Jails. You can now run multiple IP addresses from the same Jail. I would like to see lots of space devoted to Jails including examples like running www server from the Jail.

Revision of security. Big section about encryption. Use of Geli for the things like encryption of the swap during the installation. Some description of the userland crypto programs as scrypt for instance. Encryption of /home for the laptop users.

There has been many hardware support changes. You need to address changes in USB stack for instance. New sound layer. So something about sound would be really nice. Oh I am forgetting. You need to address HAL daemon and its use. Yes, including the features like auto mounting.


Small services chapter has to be revised. It should include saned service. Scanning is now essential. Couple lines about CUPS would not hurt. Setting up point of sale. Using barcode readers.

The list goes on and on. Send me a PP email if you want to talk more about it. Essentially Absolute FreeBSD is ripe for the new edition. If somebody pays you to do it, I think it is the right time.


I am primarily OpenBSD user. Absolute OpenBSD is ripe for the second edition too. There has been so many exciting new things in the OpenBSD world.

What happen with your notes on Absolute NetBSD? There is has not been a single book written about NetBSD. The project seems invigorated and there are so many new exciting things. You can write couple chapters just about puffs, refuse, FUSE, and more. I know you have a limited time but you could share your old notes and find somebody in NetBSD tabor who will help you complete the book. NetBSD is hot for the first time in many years.

DragonFly is mature enough that it deserves Absolute DragonFly book. Probably one should wait for the native kernel support for clustering though but just a chapter about Hammer would sell probably couple thousand copies of the book.


Most Kind Regards,
OKO

P.S. The question is not if there is a need and demand for new editions of your books. The question is if you have time, energy, and if you can find somebody to pay you to do it. I could easily imagine you writing about BSDs for the next 2-3 years on the full time basis. Can you find somebody to pay you to do that?

Last edited by Oko; 5th July 2009 at 03:23 PM.
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