I've read a few FreeBSD books and coming from a background in *nix and *nix-type flavors, I've been let down before. Other books cover maybe a total of 20 commands and nothing you don't know the first day (and don't even have as much information as the man pages), but this one is different.

I wasn't on a *BSD system for a couple of years of mainly using Linux, and I wanted a refresher and for the book to cover new and familiar topics. Useful things, rather than just listing the popular software used on it and not the things you need to know about them, etc.

This book covers more than the others in regards to commands, common tasks, installs, configurations and so on. It actually covers the TOPIC (Being the FreeBSD OS). Not a quick and dirty run down of a few commands and a lot of fluff like other books. This gives you what you need to know, be it you have some experience or are new.

It doesn't skip around like the other books and only offer maybe a total of one decent chapter on the topic of the book (FreeBSD), it covers many chapters worth. I can't stand when a book only has some information about the title, as much as it does about some irrelevant third party software (and only talks about it as briefly at that).

I don't want or need information about anything other than what the book is about--and finally, a FreeBSD book that covers FreeBSD. I was impressed. It may not cover everything, but it sure gets close and is very professional, well structured and informative.

Between this book, man pages and online (and up to date) documentation, it's unlikely you will need (much) more information about how to install, configure and use FreeBSD, it's tools and programs and work in it daily and have the information you need. Trust me, this book is far better than the others (see my review on "Absolute BSD: The Ultimate Guide to FreeBSD" to see what I mean).