Comment by codetrotter | Hacker News Reader

Comment by codetrotter | Hacker News Reader

I love the books that Michael W Lucas has written.

I bought physical copies of several of them (the “FreeBSD Mastery: Jails” book, “FreeBSD Mastery: Specialty Filesystems”, “FreeBSD Mastery: ZFS” and “FreeBSD Mastery: Advanced ZFS”) on FreeBSD Mall.

I finished reading the “FreeBSD Mastery: Jails” book, and am currently reading the “FreeBSD Mastery: Specialty Filesystems” book.

I also recently bought the Total Mastery eBook bundle of his from his Tilted Windmill website. It includes eBook versions of the above books that I already have in physical copies, along with a bunch of other eBooks.

In the future I might buy physical copies of more of his books. There is something special about physical books that makes them far more comfortable to read for me than to read eBooks even though I have a eBook reader with eInk. The ability to flip through a physical book, and to feel the physical dimensions of the book adds something for me that eBook readers cannot.

I also want to investigate whether it is possible to donate books to some libraries. I think as a community we could buy IT books that we particularly like, and donate them to libraries, to make them available to more people. It would be especially nice to help books about FreeBSD and OpenBSD reach more people.

Michael is indeed a gem and I am happy to hear that his writing is equally strong on the FreeBSD side of things. Absolute OpenBSD was my introduction to OpenBSD in the mid-00s and I just recently re-read the latest edition (a new one is rumoured to be in the works) now that I am looking to go back to OpenBSD. Yes, you can absolutely just go with the manuals and FAQ with the amount of Unix-like experience I have at this point, but Michael frequently notes clever tricks and confers the different mentality on things that exists in the OpenBSD community. This, in short, is priceless.

I have worked through Httpd and Relayd Mastery as well and I am eyeing up SNMP Mastery, Ed Mastery (I expect Michael to make me laugh a good few times), and SSH Mastery after I am done with OpenBSD Mastery: Filesystems and (not by Michael though) The book of PF. Keeping Michael fed seems like a great way to bring more BSD knowledge out there and hopefully keep an alternative to the now so very corporate (and much larger) Linux sphere going.

I genuinely enjoyed SNMP Mastery, much to my surprise. The Networknomicon edition treats the subject with the perfect measure of contempt.

Lucas is my favorite tech author and I plagiarize him every time a text editor discussion breaks out:

"Let me be perfectly clear: ed is the standard Unix text editor. If you don't know ed, you're not a real sysadmin."

https://shop.aer.io/mwl/p/Ed_Mastery_The_Standard_Unix_Text_...

Do you use FreeBSD regularly? Are these books useful reading for somebody who doesn't use FreeBSD?

The ZFS books are pretty useful for Linux users as well. The rest I haven't read.

I’ve been a longtime FreeBSD user. For a while I was even running FreeBSD on my main laptop and my main desktop. These days I run FreeBSD on servers and also on a Raspberry Pi.

If you are familiar with other Unix-like operating systems such as Linux, and you would like to use FreeBSD, then I think the FreeBSD Mastery books that I mentioned which I have physical copies of are useful also.

If you are not familiar with Unix-like systems at all then the FreeBSD Mastery books are probably not yet so useful for you.

The FreeBSD Mastery books are the most useful to someone who is already using FreeBSD in my opinion.

I have the exact opposite opinion (about the OpenBSD book). I used basic ls, dd, tar, ps, cat, etc. Did not know (still do not) Unix systems beyond configuring a basic "how to" driven webservers, DNS servers, etc.

Michael Lucas can delve into depths without making it sound too technical IMO. Sure, you can skip chapters too (ktrace in my case) and continue with the next one if it gets heavy.

His books can be read by newbies and seasoned pros alike.

> Are these books useful reading for somebody who doesn't use FreeBSD?

Yes. They'll prepare you to switch over to FreeBSD. ;P

In all seriousness, the ZFS books would be helpful if you use ZFS on Linux. The FreeBSD-specific books probably not so much. Those are the only ones I've read.

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