In the world of Unix operating systems, the various BSDs come with a long heritage of high-quality software and well-designed solutions, making them a favorite OS of a wide range of users. Among budget-minded users who adopted BSD early on to developers of some of today's largest Internet sites, the popularity of BSD systems continues to grow. If you use the BSD operating system, then you know that the secret of its success is not just in its price tag: practical, reliable, extraordinarily stable and flexible, BSD also offers plenty of fertile ground for creative, time-saving tweaks and tricks, and yes, even the chance to have some fun. "Fun?" you ask. Perhaps "fun" wasn't covered in the manual that taught you to install BSD and administer it effectively. But BSD Hacks, the latest in O'Reilly's popular Hacks series, offers a unique set of practical tips, tricks, tools--and even fun--for administrators and power users of BSD systems. BSD Hacks takes a creative approach to saving time and getting more done, with fewer resources. You'll take advantage of the tools and concepts that make the world's top Unix users more productive. Rather than spending hours with a dry technical document learning what switches go with a command, you'll learn concrete, practical uses for that command. The book begins with hacks to customize the user environment. You'll learn how to be more productive in the command line, timesaving tips for setting user-defaults, how to automate long commands, and save long sessions for later review. Other hacks in the book are grouped in the following areas:

• Customizing the User Environment

• Dealing with Files and Filesystems

• The Boot and Login Environments

• Backing Up

• Networking Hacks

• Securing the System

• Going Beyond the Basics

• Keeping Up-to-Date

• Grokking BSD

If you want more than your average BSD user--you want to explore and experiment, unearth shortcuts, create useful tools, and come up with fun things to try on your own--BSD Hacks is a must-have. This book will turn regular users into power users and system administrators into super system administrators.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 12 Ratings

Dont Bother - 2005-06-13
Reviewer Rating:
I just thought this book is not really that good. Most were not even hacks, but just basic usage. The only hacks book I really liked was by Rob - Linux Server Hacks. I would really recommend that one, even if you use bsd as it has true hacks with tar/ssh/etc. Try the Absolute OpenBSD book too. That is quite good and has a lot of info.

excellent book! - 2009-05-30
Reviewer Rating:
excellent book, lots of great commands to get you used to the command line. Only downfall is Amazon is not packaging their books well anymore, I ordered $100 worth of books that were all thrown in a box and arrived all banged up! This is the 2nd order in a row, I will think twice about ordering again as I dont care for my books being all banged up! They used to use a cellofane wrapper to hold them all together but guess it was a cost cutting measure, sad to see damaged books that could be prevented with a little care!

I'm torn with the BSD community structure... but this book ROCKS! - 2008-11-22
Reviewer Rating:
Delving into BSD, I could not find the amount of print material I was hoping for... but instead found online (internet and CDROM) materiel of man pages, command listings, etc... I hate to push against the un*x mentality, but I work better with printed books... and Dru's book of BSD Hacks helped fill a big gap of knowledge I had.

I'd seen it in a Bookstore & Neighborhood coffee shop, but didn't want to pay full price. Amazon's listing of a used copy was snatched up by me very quickly, and has a prized place in my BSD network laboratory...

Until (if ever) an O'reilly "BSD in a Nutshell" book comes out, this one will fill in the gaps of "hidden" and "prized" knowledge. Get a copy soon...

Simple, Easy and Powerful - 2007-02-06
Reviewer Rating:
Although the name is scary, the ideas inside are simple to understand and implement, yet very powerful.

I especially like their way configuring terminals and backup solutions.

Great complementary material - 2006-11-11
Reviewer Rating:
Make this the FreeBSD book you buy after you've got a basic understanding of the operating system. In other words, this is a very useful "sidekick" BSD book. It's full of creative and practical hacks, and the price is right. Highly recommended.

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