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 LoginEnvironments

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.

This book is the ultimate reference for both beginners and power users to PC-BSDthe free, easy-to-use operating system based on FreeBSD. Existing power users will learn how to look under the hood and contribute to the global PC-BSD community. PC-BSD is turning into a hassle-free alternative to Linux on the desktop.Enjoy secure, virus-free computing Quickly become a power user What you'll learn How to completely customize your desktop to suit your personality and quickly access your favorite applications How to find and install quality, no-cost software How to keep your system secure, virus-free, and up to date How to perform common tasks such as playing music and video, sharing files, and gaming How to integrate the PC-BSD desktop into your network How to become part of the PC-BSD community Who this book is for

You don't have to be a Unix user to enjoy the PC-BSD operating system. Even if you're fairly new to computers, this book will quickly get you started using and enjoying PC-BSD. Existing power users will discover new usage tricks and learn how to advance their PC-BSD skills. Table of Contents Introducing PC-BSD Installing PC-BSD Customizing the Desktop Getting Around Performing Common Tasks User System Settings Administrative System Settings Push Button Installer System FreeBSD Packages FreeBSD Ports Getting Help Getting Involved Advanced Tasks Becoming a Developer

For over seven years, computer networking and security instructor and consultant, Dru Lavigne, meticulously documented her learning experiences with FreeBSD administration and open source software usage in a series of over 110 articles. Many readers praised and recommended the author's informative tutorials. The Best of FreeBSD Basics book contains most of these articles - many updated from FreeBSD 4 and 5 to reflect the usage on FreeBSD 6 and 7. The Best of FreeBSD Basics provides practical advice for completing common tasks on FreeBSD and is a great way to get to know FreeBSD - and Unix in general. Darwin, DragonFly, Linux, Mac OS X, NetBSD, and OpenBSD fans will also find a lot of the book invaluable and useful. Covering a huge range of FreeBSD and open source topics, The Best of FreeBSD Basics includes step-by-step directions, things to watch out for, and hints for success. A sampling of the book's topics include installing an X11 server and setting up an desktop environment, comparing common tasks with Linux, playing audio and video files, user administration, system startup, finding and using documentation, managing backups, networking basics, IPsec, setting up several servers, filtering spam, improving security, enabling firewalls, and a lot more.