I'm enjoying FreeBSD very much. I've been using it since January, 2004, starting with (I believe) version 4.9, continued as of June, 2006 using version 6.1, took a break after a hardware malfunction, then resumed with version 11.0 in December, 2016. I use it on my computers at home and at times at work. I've learned much about Unix by taking the time to do this. I like making all the system administration choices rather than having some install program do them for me. FreeBSD has an installation program, but it exposes a lot more of the setup details unlike other operating systems where the installation programs hide much more detail.
I finally bailed out on Windows XP after applying the then-latest security patch from Microsoft rendered my computer so that I could not log in. I resolved the problem by invoking the administrative console to replace a DLL, but after that I wanted to get out of the security nightmare I see as a Windows user/developer/administrator. I had been studying FreeBSD by reading the FreeBSD Handbook and various third-party books on FreeBSD, so I decided to put my book learning to use. So, I changed my machine at home to dual-boot XP and FreeBSD, and I hardly ever use Windows nowadays.
I still use Windows at work to develop software, and develop on whatever operating system is appropriate, but for home I prefer to use FreeBSD because I find it much less risky to update, I use software where the defaults and available settings are much more secure, and I don't have to deal with Microsoft's other security mistakes.
The list below references pages of procedures for various common system administration operations on FreeBSD. I use them when I'm setting up machines, and I fix them when I find problems as the result of my own use of the pages. The pages are biased toward my own machines and my own preferences, since I still don't have the experience to create a truly generalized resource. However, I'm trying to make these pages more generally useful as I re-use them, so you may find them useful also. I have not gotten any feedback other than my own, so these pages remain more centered toward my needs.
I stopped using FreeBSD for awhile when the disk on my FreeBSD computer failed. I switched to a Linux laptop in October, 2012. In December, 2016, I bought an Intel NUC and installed FreeBSD 11.0 on it, so I've again got a FreeBSD box.
Here's notes based on FreeBSD 11.0 and more recent versions:
Here's a set of pages that contain notes on both old (FreeBSD 4.x - 8.x) and new (11.0 and later):
Here's a set of older pages based on work I did mainly on FreeBSD 4.x and maybe some on FreeBSD 8.0.
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