The FreeBSD Diary

Just about everything I know about FreeBSD is in this diary.  If you need more help with FreeBSD, I suggest one of the following resources.  Over the past few months, I've been getting more and more requests about what magazines do I read and what books do I use.  So I've divided up the resources into Books and Magazines and Web Resources.

This is a collection of documents which you need to read.

The handbook should be your first stop.  If you're installing or upgrading, read this first before you do anything else.

The FreeBSD Support Page lists the various mailing lists (several languages), newsgroups, mirror web-sites, a problem reporting database, the CVS (Concurrent Version System), User Groups, etc.  Go check it out.

If I can't find what I need in the Handbook, then I try the mailing list archives.   The archives are a great resource.  You can usually find something in there which relates to your problem.  Just search for it.  Remember that you can limit the number of results; if you don't find it in the first 25 (which is the default), try bumping up the number a bit.

The FreeBSD mailing lists themselves are also a great way to solve a problem.  When you post a message before to remember the following:

• Give detail.  It's hard to solve a problem if you say "My install failed".
• If replying to a message, watch for where it was sent.  If the message went you and the mailing list, then reply to both.  That way, the send gets your message quicker, and the list sees the whole thread. 

• Part of the beauty of the mailing list is the if wrong advice is given out, it can be quickly corrected by other.  Plus, it gets added to the archive so others can search for the same problem and solution.

A much better list of pointers is available from http://www.lemis.com/questions.html.

There are also newsgroups, such as comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc, which deal with FreeBSD.

A help desk run by the Tucson Free Unix Group.  They have some very good stuff on setting up FreeBSD and Linux machines.

This website is dedicated to information on FreeBSD in small and unusual places, such as a single floppy.

This site is maintained by Brian Somers.  He is the person responsible for user-ppp under FreeBSD and OpenBSD.

If you can't find what you want on my web site, try the search page and type in what you are looking for.  You just might find that elusive error message you've been trying to fix.

Setting Up a New FreeBSD System
FreeBSD Newbies Resources
FreeBSD Newbies First Aid Kit
FreeBSD Installation for Newbies
The FreeBSD Mall
FreeBSD System Administration Manager
The Linux+FreeBSD mini-HOWTO
Useful FreeBSD Links