Absolute BSD
	by Michael Lucas
	Paperback: 565 pages
	(July 2002)
	No Starch Press; ISBN: 1886411743
	List Price: $39.95
	Target Audience: System Administrators, no BSD experience required. Also, anyone interested in Linux/Unix.
	Book Reviewer: E. Jonathan Hardy
	Book Rating (1-10): 9
	Likes: Great content. Easy to understand. This is a great first book on Free BSD
	Dislikes:$40.00 with no CD (though, this is increasingly popular nowadays).

OK, Let me get on my soapbox here for a second. I like BSD. Though, I must confess, I don't have it on any of my machines. When I've used it at work, it's worked great - and it was stable and cheap (can't get much cheaper than free). Free BSD is essentially a distribution of Unix, but free. Developed by the good folks at the University of California at Berkley.

This author has a vast knowledge of this subject. He is a SysAdmin, journalist (O'Reilly network, SysAdmin magazine) and an engineer. It is refreshing to see someone with his knowledge writing a book on BSD (no surprise that No Starch Press took on this topic!).

This book gives a general description on what Free BSD is and what it's about. You will go over many of the basic facets of the operating system - especially as it pertains to web servers. There's some great information on web serving in this book that I haven't found elsewhere. You'll learn how to build a BSD server and how to make it interract with other servers on your network.

There is also some great, useful information for using BSD on laptops and as workstations - as much of the information works equally well in a workstation /server environment. Here is a listing of the content in this book.

• Chapter 0: Introduction
• Chapter 1: Installation
• Chapter 2: Getting More Help
• Chapter 3: Read this before you break something else!
• Chapter 4: Kernel Games
• Chapter 5: Networking
• Chapter 6: Upgrading FreeBSD
• Chapter 7: Securing Your System
• Chapter 8: Advanced Security Features
• Chapter 9: Too Much Information About /etc
• Chapter 10: Making Your System Useful
• Chapter 11: Advanced Software Management
• Chapter 12: Finding Hosts
• Chapter 13: Managing Small Network Services
• Chapter 14: Email Services
• Chapter 15: Web and FTP Services
• Chapter 16: File Systems
• Chapter 17: RAID
• Chapter 18: System Performance
• Chapter 19: Now what's it doing?
• Chapter 20: System (and Administrator) Crashes and Panics
• Chapter 21: Desktop FreeBSD
• Afterword
• Appendix A: Some Useful Sysctl MIBs

It is refreshing to see No Starch Press bring us another book that many publishers seem not to have an interest in. This book is useful for anyone wanting to learn more about BSD and put it into action. Packed with plenty of information (300 pages), you can't go wrong with Absolute BSD.

......Hmmmmm, now, if we get a book on Net BSD (hint, hint)