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Old 14th July 2008
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I have this book, I love it
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Old 17th July 2008
agshekeloh agshekeloh is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ocicat View Post
Hopefully, Michael will migrate to this site. He had been a regular visitor over at BSDForums for the last four months or so, although he didn't post often.
Lucas would show up, if he had known about it. He doesn't care for web forums, but makes an effort to show up where his readers are.

Glad you all liked the book! I'm very happy with it myself.

And no, I don't post often. I prefer email. Sorry, I'm of an older generation. I also prefer to avoid discussing my own work. I enjoy reading good reviews, I enjoy reading that people like the book, and I appreciate every sale, but I only reply when a post asks an interesting, unusual, or unique question. Answering every post or comment in a forum discussion about my own book quickly becomes a narcissistic hole with no bottom...
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Old 17th July 2008
agshekeloh agshekeloh is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by scottro View Post
unless he's been spoiled by success
<cough><choke>

Thank you for making me spew my Pepsi all over my monitor. I needed to clean it anyway.

Believe it or not, the success you get from writing a BSD book is pretty minimal. Yes, you get warm fuzzy feelings, a small (but highly educated and very intelligent) group of people know who you are and, if the book is printed on thin enough paper, you have a nearly infinite supply of toilet tissue...
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Old 17th July 2008
ocicat ocicat is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by agshekeloh View Post
Thank you...
Welcome! It can be a bit chaotic in here at times, but most of the regulars have had their shots.

You have a very loyal following here at this site. I have recommended Absolute OpenBSD to a number of people both here & elsewhere.
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Old 17th July 2008
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Well, I'm glad to see that nothing has gone to your head hehe.


Quote:
Originally Posted by agshekeloh View Post
<cough><choke>
and, if the book is printed on thin enough paper, you have a nearly infinite supply of toilet tissue...
Thanks for my chuckle of the day :-)
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Old 17th July 2008
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I just started reading this and it's brilliant. I have so much stuff to get through though. This book, "The Debian System", "The C Programming Language" (K&R, 2nd Version), "Learning Perl", and "Advanced Bash Shell Scripting", intense stuff.
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Old 18th July 2008
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Hi everyone,
I'm new to FreeBSD (and to this forum) and I have to say this book is definitely an amazing resource for a newcomer. Everything you may want to learn about is covered in enough details to give the reader a solid understanding of how things work in FreeBSD and at the same time avoids getting confusing and boring by not digging too deep its various subjects. To me, it's both a desktop reference and a good book to read in bed, since the author even managed to slip in some humour. Like ninjatux said, it's just brilliant.
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Old 20th July 2008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kafka View Post
Hi everyone,
I'm new to FreeBSD (and to this forum) and I have to say this book is definitely an amazing resource for a newcomer. Everything you may want to learn about is covered in enough details to give the reader a solid understanding of how things work in FreeBSD and at the same time avoids getting confusing and boring by not digging too deep its various subjects. To me, it's both a desktop reference and a good book to read in bed, since the author even managed to slip in some humour. Like ninjatux said, it's just brilliant.
Must say I 100% agree with this. I simply like his style even as eng. isn't obviously my first language.

Last edited by mousesack; 20th July 2008 at 09:59 PM.
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Old 21st July 2008
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Celebrity in the house!

I read this practically cover to cover and want to say how much I enjoyed reading this and thank you.

Any plans on a new edition of Absolute OpenBSD in the future?
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Old 23rd July 2008
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I was wondering about "Absolute OpenBSD", but I'd like something on NetBSD. It seems the project doesn't have that many followers.
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Old 24th July 2008
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The author claims that 5-15 percent of machines on the internet are BSD-based. Do you buy this? The max seems a little high.
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Old 24th July 2008
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http://uptime.netcraft.com/perf/repo...e&tn=june_2008

I think it's not that implausible as one may think.
Ok, netcraft is not a "I see every machine on the whole wide world" but the diagram is nice

Last edited by tuck; 24th July 2008 at 06:52 PM.
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Old 24th July 2008
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Yeah, I guess it is plausible.
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Old 26th July 2008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ninjatux View Post
The author claims that 5-15 percent of machines on the internet are BSD-based. Do you buy this? The max seems a little high.
Don't forget Mac OS X. Also, lots of Cisco and Juniper kit has BSD under the hood. You don't have to be an open source BSD user to be a BSD user.

BSD is like morning glory; once you have a bit of it in your playground, the damn stuff spreads and spreads. Even when you think you've killed it all, it reappears. Yes, I'm putting off yard work...
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Old 26th July 2008
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One of the FreeBSD kernel developers, in a Google Talk video, said you can't throw a rock on the internet without hitting a FreeBSD server. I don't recall if it was him, too, but I read, recently, the internet still runs on FreeBSD, but I think that person was speaking of the top-level-domain servers.
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Old 29th July 2008
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I got the book but has been quite busy lately and probably gone through just a dozen of pages, so Im not qualified to give any comment on technical issues. One non-technical thing that I find quite interesting is the presentation. Its the traditional method on writing layout, identation for the first line of each paragraph (in Lucas's book, no identation in first paragraph) and no blank line between paragraphs. I havent seen this kind of method both in paper and online writing for many years.

Thank you and welcome to Daemonforums, M.Lucas

Last edited by 18Googol2; 29th July 2008 at 04:01 PM.
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Old 5th January 2009
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Bought the book for the holidays and am currently at 70%. Great stuff!

I recommend it for every FreeBSD user. It sure broadens the reader's view on FreeBSD and its possibilities. Loved the Lucas' unique humor also.

Hope to see an Absolute OpenBSD 2nd Edition and Absolute NetBSD
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Old 5th January 2009
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ninjatux View Post
I was wondering about "Absolute OpenBSD", but I'd like something on NetBSD. It seems the project doesn't have that many followers.
AbsoluteBSD is fantastic book!!!
There are essentially 9 books devoted more or less entirely to OpenBSD.
I will count them in order in which you should probably read them.


OpenBSD 4.0: A Crash Course by Jem Matzan. Very mild introduction for a complete nOObs to OpenBSD. Book is not worth of having it and definitely not worth of price.

Secure Architectures with OpenBSD by Brandon Palmer, Jose Nazario.
Do not let the title fool you. This is gentle general introduction into
OpenBSD. If you are new to OpenBSD this is the first book to read.
Covers lots of topics.


The Book of PF - A No-Nonsense Guide to the OpenBSD Firewall by Peter N. M. Hansteen is the most beautiful introductory to intermediate text to P.F.

Absolute OpenBSD by Michael Lucas is intermediate to semi-advanced text on OpenBSD. If you want really to harden your system this is the book to read. The new edition would be welcome Michael if you read this

Building Firewalls with OpenBSD and PF [2nd edition] by Jacek Artymiak is very advanced book on computer security systems geared towards computer security professionals. If you are in charge of security in a bank you probably want to know all tricks from this book. For a normal system administrator Absolute OpenBSD is sufficient.


Mastering FreeBSD and OpenBSD Security by Yanek Korff , Paco Hope , Bruce Potter
Is not really OpenBSD specific book. Lots of things like jails for instance are FreeBSD specific. It cover lots of mish-mash material. If somebody
gives you for free definitely take it but I would not rush to buy this one.

The OpenBSD PF Packet Filter Book by Jeremy C. Reed (Editor). I am not familiar with the book
but according to some reviews I read it is little bit more than PF tutorial from the OpenBSD web-site.

How To Approach OpenBSD With A Few Tips: Simple Tips For OpenBSD
by Quick Easy Guides. I am not familiar with the book but I am guessing that you can not learn much from
40 pages.

Openbsd: Implementing the Secure Unix Platform by Brian Carter. To my knowledge this book
has never been published although advertised on many web-sites. It has the most awesome blowfish on the cover.

Last edited by Oko; 8th January 2009 at 09:08 AM.
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Old 6th January 2009
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Originally Posted by agshekeloh View Post
Glad you all liked the book! I'm very happy with it myself.
Now back to Absolute FreeBSD. I have it of course I think it is a very fine book. It is in some sense complementary to Absolute OpenBSD being somewhat more elementary and easier on reader. It also covers wider variety of topics most of which are relevant to any BSD users. OpenBSD users (NetBSD as well ) would definitely benefit from reading this book in spite of the fact that is formally written for FreeBSD. Although my favorite book when it comes to FreeBSD remains Graig's Complete FreeBSD your book is definitely must have. I also like Dry's 100 BSD Hacks. I read most of other books written for FreeBSD users ( I read the one about kernel hacking as well but that is really for another audience) but I did that in bookstores and I didn't feel compel to have them on my shelf.

Last edited by Oko; 6th January 2009 at 07:00 AM.
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Old 3rd April 2009
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This book is my favorite one. I would recommend it for all the beginners.
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