Press Release
June 3, 2004
"BSD Hacks": Productive, Time-Saving, and Fun Hacks for BSD Users
Sebastopol, CA--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. From
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, 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 (O'Reilly,
US $24.95), by Dru Lavigne and a contributing team of trainers,
developers, hobbyists, and administrators, 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
accomplished with fewer resources. BSD users learn to take advantage of
the tools and concepts that make the world's top Unix users more
productive, with each hack offering the chance to peek inside the mind of
another Unix fan. And it makes no difference whether you're a new BSD user
or a power hacker wanting to increase your arsenal of tools. As Lavigne
notes, there's an unspoken commonality between the novice Unix user and
the seasoned guru. "It doesn't matter whether you've just survived your
first successful installation or you've just executed a complex script
that will save you time and money, the feeling is the same," she says.
"It's the excitement of venturing into unknown territory and discovering
something new and wonderful. It's that sense of accomplishment that comes
with figuring something out for yourself, with finding your own solution
to the problem at hand."
The book begins with hacks to customize the user environment. Readers will
learn how to be more productive in the command line, implement timesaving
tips for setting user-defaults, automate long commands, and save long
sessions for later review. Other hacks in the book show how to:
Customize and install software exactly as you want it on one or dozens of
machines
Be a good network neighbor, even to other operating systems
Make the most of the copious documentation or find (and document) answers
when there's no documentation
Allocate bandwidth by time, department, or use
Secure your system with good passwords, intelligent firewall rules,
proper logging, and a little foresight
Plan for and recover from disaster, including catastrophic Internet loss
and hardware failures
Automate your backups, safely and securely
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. Written for anyone
using FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Darwin (under or alongside Mac OS X), or
any other BSD flavor, this book will turn regular users into power users
and system administrators into super system administrators.
Additional Resources:
BSD Hacks
Dru Lavigne
ISBN 0-596-00679-9, 427 pages, $24.95 US, $36.95 CA
order@oreilly.com
1-800-998-9938; 1-707-827-7000
About O'Reilly
O'Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, and conferences. Since 1978, O'Reilly Media has been a chronicler and catalyst of cutting-edge development, homing in on the technology trends that really matter and spurring their adoption by amplifying "faint signals" from the alpha geeks who are creating the future. An active participant in the technology community, the company has a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism.
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