Books about BSD

We are now associated with Amazon.com so that you can order some of these books directly from them. Ordering from these "Order from Amazon" links is a way of helping to fund the OpenBSD project.

User Guides

"Berkeley UNIX" (now known as "BSD", for Berkeley Software Distribution) is so widely known that there is no need to list the basic "how-to" books about it here - there are too many to list! Some of the user guides cover exclusively the System V version, or some specific implementation such as Solaris, Linux, or whatever, while others try to be general. There are some that cover Berkeley UNIX.

UNIX Made Easy is one general book that is said to be good, though we've not tested it. Order from Amazon.

Two BSD-specific UNIX user's guides still in print are:

• Berkeley Unix: A Simple and Comprehensive Guide. Order from Amazon
• The more ambitious An Introduction to Berkeley Unix and ANSI C Order from Amazon

Every advanced UNIX user will probably want a copy of UNIX Power Tools, now in its second edition. Order from Amazon

You may see reference to the 4.4 BSD User's Reference Manual (URM), O'Reilly, 1994

This is just a reprint of the man pages for users. Your OpenBSD distribution includes the online man pages, which are specific to OpenBSD, and more up-to-date. So you don't need this one: use the man command instead.

Administering the OpenBSD System

4.4 BSD System Manager's Manual (SMM) O'Reilly, 1994

Details on what you need to run a BSD system. Quite a bit of this material is relevant to OpenBSD. Unfortunately it is currently out of print. Worse, Due to licensing restrictions from AT&T, the electronic editions of these were not included in the 4.4BSD distributions, so most of them are not included with OpenBSD. The few that are can be found via the Documents page.

Avoid books on installing/configuration particular "other" distributions of BSD, as the installation procedures for each are wildly different.

Books on Programming Under the BSD System

4.4 BSD Programmer's Reference Manual (PRM) O'Reilly, 1994

This is a printed version of the Programmer's Manual. You have the online man pages, which are specific to OpenBSD, instead. Use the man command to read these!

BSD-Lite 4.4 CD-ROM Companion: International Edition UC Berkeley Staff, Computer Systems Research Group; O'Reilly, 1994 This neat little package contains a CD-ROM with just the unbundled portions of 4.4BSD-Lite-1, which not only is obsolete, but is not a complete, bootable system. Also a small booklet listing contributors, and the index to the printed man pages. Overall, not very useful. Buy an OpenBSD CD-ROM instead!

An older book which still sheds much light on the philosophy of programming UNIX is The UNIX Programming Environment, by Kernighan and Pike. It is not specific to BSD, but most of it applies. Order from Amazon.

Another older book which Brian Kernighan had a hand in, and which we recommend even though it's not UNIX specific, is The Elements of Programming Style. This book contains more common sense than many books triple or quadruple its weight. Order from Amazon.

Books about how the System works, for those wanting to modifying it

The Design and Implementation of the 4.4 BSD Operating System Marshal Kirk McKusick, Keith Bostic, Michael J. Karels, John S. Quarterman Addison-Wesley: 1996. ISBN 0-201-54979-4.

At 549 pages plus index. this must be considered comprehensive. McKusick, Bostic and Karels are well known as prime movers at Berkeley CSRG (Computer Systems Research Group) during the 4.3/4.4BSD period. This book covers the 4.4 and 4.4-Lite releases, and discusses everything you wanted to know about how the system operates. Not 100% applicable, but probably the closest there is to an overall system internals manual for OpenBSD. Order from Amazon

The Design and Implementation of the 4.3 BSD Unix Operating System Samuel J. Leffler, Marshall Kirk McKusick

An earlier book from many of the same good folk at CSRG. Slightly dated, but gives an overall feel for the beast if you can find it real cheap at a garage sale.

The Design and Implementation of the 4.3 BSD Unix Operating System : Answer Book Samuel J. Leffler, Marshall Kirk McKusick 1991

Answers to the "exercises for the reader" in the 4.3 version of the book.

Source Code Secrets: The Basic 386BSD Operating System Reference (Volume 1 of Operating System Source Code Secrets) L. W. Jolitz, William Jolitz 1997

The Jolitzes built the first port of BSD to the PC-386 architecture, and deserve a lot of credit for making BSD portable to this low-cost architecture. The earliest versions, called "386bsd", were described in articles in Dr. Dobbs Journal. This book goes beyond the articles, and provides a comprehensive annotated collection of source code. Not all of it applies to modern versions of OpenBSD, of course, but you can still learn a lot from it. Order from Amazon

Lions' Commentary on UNIX 6th Edition with Source Code, Peer-to-Peer ommunications, 1996. ISBN 1-57398-013-7. Although the UNIX described in this book is to BSD as a Model T Ford is to a 70's Mustang or Thunderbird, UNIX inventor Ken Thompson claims that "After 20 years, this is still the best exposition of the workings of a 'real' operating system." Originally circulated in illicit photocopies, this is the book that most first- and second-generation UNIX hackers cut their code-teeth on. Recommended as a good introduction to how a timesharing OS works, if you've not been inside one before. Substantially shorter than the McKusick book above. Order from Amazon