BSD UNIX Toolbox: 1000+ Commands for FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD

[anomie]

BSD UNIX Toolbox: 1000+ Commands for FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD
by Christopher Negus, Francois Caen

Ready for preordering at amazon (and presumably elsewhere) for a relatively low price. Scheduled to be available May 12, 2008.

From the product description:

This handy, compact guide teaches you to use BSD UNIX systems as the experts do: from the command line. Try out more than 1,000 commands to find and get software, monitor system health and security, and access network resources. Apply the skills you learn from this book to use and administer servers and desktops running FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, or any other BSD flavor.

I realize this is jumping the gun a bit, but I have high hopes for this book and will be ordering it shortly. Should be very useful as I stumble my way around NetBSD.

[amwilli]

Amazon got the book early. I have had it about two weeks now. It looks good for someone who wants to come up to speed on the command line. I have been a user of PC-BSD for a couple of years. Now I feel ready to work on a fresh install of FreeBSD 7.0 and hold off installing the GUI stuff until I learn more on the command line. The organization in the book is by topics which helps to find specific commands. Because I haven't used the book yet, only looked through it, I won't give it any marks yet.

[TerryP]

Sounds like a useful book :-)

I do really like to have a reference available at times though, apropos is less useful if you can't remember what the hell your looking for !


I've never had a lot of problems alternating between BSDs or Linux Distros aside from a few -switches that differ.


Which is probably why my ~/.zshrc has non-portable aliases adopted to the current operating system, defines common (fairly portable) aliases, handles multiple Bourne-Compatible shells, and sources a ~/.shrc.local for site specifics.

[tuck]

There's a delay for this book on amazon.de....I hope I can hold it in my hands at the end of this month.

[dynek]

Let us know if the book is any good !

[anomie]

Finally read it. My opinion: not bad, not great. Here's why...

The book description led me to (mistakenly) believe that this would be a reference for FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD. Not so. The opening pages cover a brief history and description of each BSD, as well as pointing to resources where more info can be obtained for each. But, from there on out, the book is strictly FreeBSD-focused. That was disappointing to me, because I was hoping to pick up some handy NetBSD-specific tips.

That said, where this book shines is in its breadth and depth of command usage/application suggestions. There are plenty of examples provided for common commands, and there is exposure to a wide variety of useful third-party apps (multimedia, backup, sysutils, etc.).

Do buy this book if you are new-ish to FreeBSD and you'd like a well-rounded, inexpensive reference to supplement the FreeBSD Handbook material.

Do not buy this book if you are a hardcore FreeBSD user/sysadmin, or if you're looking for NetBSD or OpenBSD pointers.

[tuck]

I agree with anomie

I opened it for the first time a few minutes ago. The first thing you read on every chapter: "FreeBSD uses..." "In FreeBSD..." "... on FreeBSD". I think it's ok to show the examples only for FreeBSD but after all in this case the books title is not very well chosen. Even if the author states "Most of the features described in this book will work equally well in FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and other BSD Systems".

Every example console output is FreeBSD and not even the name "wd" for OpenBSD hard drives is mentioned.

There are a few nice examples and explanations of commands but the book really should be titled "FreeBSD Toolbox".

"Online Resources" Forums:
bsdforums.org
bsdnexus.com
freebsdwiki.net

[ijk]

This is a great book which basically list commands avialiable for freebsd to do the stuff you need to do.
Example

FreeBSD
# sysctl hw.model # CPU model
# sysctl hw # Gives a lot of hardware information
# sysctl vm # Memory usage
# dmesg | grep "real mem" # Hardware memory
# sysctl -a | grep mem # Kernel memory settings and info
# sysctl dev # Configured devices
# pciconf -l -cv # Show PCI devices
# usbdevs -v # Show USB devices
# atacontrol list # Show ATA devices

As you can see with the above commands you can get information of your system hardware.
For a beginner like me this is great. Did have "Essential system administration" pocket reference but the way it was written and laid out was no good.

Highly Recommended.

[ai-danno]

Originally Posted by tuck

"Online Resources" Forums:
bsdforums.org
bsdnexus.com
freebsdwiki.net

doh!