Customer Reviews

The FreeBSD Handbook 3rd Edition, Vol. 1: User Guide

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Let me sum it up for you briefly.
A. Despite Amazon's printed statements to the contrary, this book is not published by Walnut Creek. Its published by FreeBSD Mall Inc.
B. Contrary to Amazon's description of the book, it doesn't ship with a FreeBSD installation CD, or any CD for that matter.
C. The book has been split into 2 volumes, and if you buy this, what you're really getting is volume one, a.k.a. The user's guide.
I suppose the Admin's guide is sold separately, though I don't know where. It certainly isn't here.
In a nutshell, what you're getting if you put this in your shopping cart is the first half of the second edition minus the operating system CD.
IMHO you should get the second edition. It may be dated, but at least it delivers as promised.

As noted by other reviews, this book is only half of the story. There is another guide titled: "The FreeBSD Handbook 3rd Edition, Volume II: Administrator's Guide" which you will also need to get all of the content available in the 2nd Edition. That said, you would do best to avoid both of these books and look to other sources of documentation. Most information can easily be found online but if you really like printed documentation (as I do), I would recommend a book like Absolute FreeBSD, 2nd Edition: The Complete Guide to FreeBSD which was just released. The FreeBSD Handbook has a number of typos, the index in back is awful, and the information is out-of-date (it is targeting FreeBSD 5.X).

The FreeBSD Handbook is an essential book to have on the shelf of any FreeBSD user, administrator, or open source developer. It has everything one would need to get their FreeBSD system up and running, with examples and informative descriptions of all the various stages of setup. Covering things like installation, network setup, package selection and installation, multimedia (DVDs, CDs, mp3s) and even a whole chapter on Unix basics, for those who are new to the Unix environment. Overall an excellent book and a great reference too!

Buy the 2nd edition this is a 2 book rip off with no CD. The 2nd edition is the whole book with the BSD CD. This is not even 1/2 of what the 2nd edition was. And you can get the 2nd edition for $5.00 today!! If you order DO NOT ORDER FROM CAMIN BOOK, I have been waiting 32 days on them. They do not answer e-mail and they have my cash, another thing is they are out of the USA, i.e. Camin Ilands so you can't do anything about the rip off..