Absolute FreeBSD
by Michael W. Lucas · first published 2008
16mentions
8recommended by
16HN commenters
2010–2024first – last mentioned
50% recommend50% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Practical guide to FreeBSD covering everyday administration, ports, kernel rebuilds and jails; recommended for newcomers to BSD and for Linux users who want to learn UNIX-style systems.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…compile. It has had every piece of software I've ever needed (minus http://joey.kitenet.net/code/mr/) already in ports. I even recompiled my first kernel within three days of starting out (thanks to Absolute FreeBSD, by Michael W. Lucas), something that seemed a dark art on GNU/Linux. I've had no stability problems in the last year or so, and I just upgraded from 8.0 to 8.1 smoothly. Everything important on my laptop…
on “Ask HN: I'm a Linux guy. Tell me about all those BSDs” ↗Yes, "Absolute FreeBSD" by Michael W. Lucas: https://nostarch.com/absfreebsd3
on “FreeBSD 12.1” ↗FreeBSD was the system where I really really learned to use UNIX like systems. I had a home server and followed book "How to Build a Server with FreeBSD 7" and that was a helpful guide. Michael Lucas' "Absolute FreeBSD" and his other BSD books are amazing resources. The FreeBSD documentation is also so well written there is little room for 3rd party books. The main reason I don't use BSD (well other than mac OS and…
on “An Introduction to OpenBSD [video]” ↗…documentation available at freebsd.org, openbsd.org and netbsd.org. Not like in the Linux world where documentation is scattered all over the WWW. When it comes to books, you might want to have a look at Absolute FreeBSD by Michael W. Lucas. He’s also written books about OpenBSD, ZFS etc: https://mwl.io/nonfiction/os Other web resources: https://www.unitedbsd.com/
on “Best technical books about *BSD / macOS?” ↗…https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/pkgng-intro.html --- Process Management: Linux has recently added LXC, while FreeBSD has had Jails for a while now[0]. LXC is much better marketed than BSD Jails through Docker, but Absolute FreeBSD has an excellent section that describes how to do isolated deployments via Jails[1]. FreeBSD also has the Linuxulator[2] that emulates 32-bit Linux system calls via FreeBSD system calls, allowing users…
on “Ask HN: Can we talk about FreeBSD vs. Linux?” ↗"Absolute FreeBSD: The Complete Guide to FreeBSD" by Michael Lucas is one of the best technical books I've read: http://www.amazon.com/Absolute-FreeBSD-Complete-Guide-2nd/dp...
on “FreeBSD Quickstart Guide for Linux Users” ↗2600 and its back catalog, Hacker's Manifesto, Anarchist's Cookbook, The old philosophers (Marx, Nietzsche, etc.), The Federalist Papers, History Books, The C Programming Language by K&R, Absolute FreeBSD. Really, a blank slate and a promise to help them with whatever they want to learn.
on “What Would You Recommend to a Bright 14 Year Old?” ↗In my opinion, Michael W Lucas is one of the best tech writers working today. I have made great use of his books Absolute OpenBSD, SSH Mastery, and Httpd & Relayd Mastery. He also wrote Absolute FreeBSD and PGP & GPG: Email for the Practical Paranoid, among many others.
on “TLS Mastery” ↗I installed FreeBSD on my machine about a year ago, and went so far as to buy a copy of Absolute FreeBSD (3rd ed) by Michael Lucas. Much as I admire the FreeBSD ethos, I always end up coming back to Fedora for a very simple reason: the desktop experience on the BSD's has always been painful for me. First,…
on “FreeBSD is an amazing operating system” ↗Just getting into FreeBSD and reading through the Absolute FreeBSD book right now. Remembered that Michael states "The main use for swap on modern systems is to have a place to store a memory dump should the system panic and crash." I think this is reason enough to…
on “Exploring Swap on FreeBSD” ↗BTW, there is currently (until Nov. 18th 2019) a sale of BSD & Linux ebooks at humblebundle[0] Absolute OpenBSD and Absolute FreeBSD are in that bundle. [0] https://humblebundle.com/books/linux-bsd-bookshelf-2019-book...
on “Linux VS open source UNIX” ↗…knowledge between Linux and BSD. Nevertheless, the difference between the number of Linux guides, books, and courses and the number for BSD is striking. There is just one book on FreeBSD published in 2018 (Absolute FreeBSD). But nothing else recently. What about BSD on Udemy, Pluralsight, LinkedIn Learning (Lynda)? Nothing. Why is there so little for an OS that is well-regarded and widely respected? (Not a criticism of…
on “Tutorial sites treating FreeBSD like a Linux distro” ↗Indeed, they are crazy expensive... Will begin with Absolute FreeBSD and take a look at recent forum / blog posts for now. Maybe I will send an email to the author, asking if he plans to release the ebooks (who knows)...
on “Best technical books about *BSD / macOS?” ↗“Linux” indeed… I know for a fact that Absolute OpenBSD, The Book of PF, and Designing BSD Rootkits are great. Tempted to pick up the bundle to read FreeBSD Device Drivers, The Book of GIMP, Absolute FreeBSD, and The Book of Inkscape.
on “Linux by No Starch Press” ↗…next highest tier ($30) is cheaper than most of the books singularly from their publisher and only missing out of one (very well recommended) book. I personally already had LPI, Devops for the Desperate, Absolute FreeBSD, Absolute OpenBSD, The GNU Make book and STILL picked up the bundle at the $30 tier because it's a huge value AND some of it goes to EFF which is probably the best "charity" I could support if I had to…
on “Linux by No Starch Press” ↗