The Essentials

The FreeBSD project is at www.freebsd.org.

Subscribe to FreeBSD e-mail lists at www.freebsd.org/handbook/eresources.html#ERESOURCES-MAIL . Browse the e-mail archives at http://docs.freebsd.org/mail. The definitive FreeBSD repository is at ftp://ftp.freebsd.org.

The current FreeBSD ports (applications) are found at the bottom of page www.freebsd.org/ports. Numerous simple tutorials are located at www.freebsddiary.org (see a topic index at www.freebsddiary.org/topics.php). A nice real-time presentation of changes to application sources is at http://freshports.org.

Daily notices of interest to the BSD community are posted to http://daily.daemonnews.org, and a conventional magazine catering to BSD is being published by www.daemonnews.org. Pointers to BSD-related articles and other web resources are at www.bsdtoday.com. An active open source news site is www.newsforge.com. A new BSD portal is www.maximumbsd.com, and another news site is http://bsdvault.net.

A number of introductory tutorials are at www.oreillynet.com/pub/q/FreeBSD_Basics.

An interesting browser for a database describing many of the files found on a FreeBSD system is www.cfcl.com/Meta/md_fb.html. A hypertext version of the source is at http://minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au/FreeBSD-srctree/FreeBSD.html.

The Bay Area BSD User Group is at www.bafug.net. One list of BSD user groups...

NetBSD is at www.netbsd.org and Open BSD at www.openbsd.org. Here is a good article providing an overview of the *BSDs and how they compare to Linux. See also www.windriver.com/press/html/bsdi_faq.html.

The Complete FreeBSD, by Greg Lehey, published by BSDi (earlier by Walnut Creek CDROM), with editions in 1996,1997,1999, and 2000. This is the one ``essential starter manual''. Provides detailed installation and operating instructions. See also www.freebsdmall.com/books/bsdcomp_bkx.phtml, www.bsdtoday.com/2000/November/Features330.html, and www.lemis.com/errata-2.html.

The FreeBSD Handbook Jim Mock, ed., BSDi, 1999. This is a printed version of the FreeBSD Handbook. The handbook is a compendium of documentation describing FreeBSD. A standard installation will leave an HTML version of the Handbook on your FreeBSD system, but it is often useful to have hard copy. For the online HTML version, see www.freebsd.org/handbook. See also www.freebsdmall.com/books/bsdhandbkx.phtml.

The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide, Ted Mittelstaedt, Addison Wesley, QA 76.754.M58, 2001. While aimed primarily at network sys-admins in Microsoft corporate network environments, this book is useful to anyone operating FreeBSD on the Internet. See www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com and http://cseng.aw.com/book/0,,0201704811,00.htm.

The Design and Implementation of the 4.4BSD Operating System, Marshall Kirk McKusick, Keith Bostic, Michael J. Karels, and John S. Quarterman, Addison Wesley, QA 76.76.063D4743, 1996. This is now no longer accurate with respect to the current versions of FreeBSD, but still provides an excellent conceptual starting point.

TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 2: The Implementation, Gary R. Wright and W. Richard Stevens, Addision-Wesley, TK 5105.55.S74, 1994. This book describes the 4.4BSD-Lite TCP/IP stack, as of 1994, in line-by-line detail. Much of this code is identical to the code in the FreeBSD stack.

Operating System Source Code Secrets, Volume 1: The Basic Kernel, William Frederick Jolitz and Lynne Greer Jolitz, Peer-to-Peer Communications, 1996. This book describes the source code and logic of the 386BSD kernel, in fairly low-level detail. This is the kernel from which FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD were derived.

As of this writing, SourceForge hosts over 250 FreeBSD projects, see: http://sourceforge.net/softwaremap/trove_list.php?form_cat=203