I have a huge backlog of things to post, so this is originating from the 17th: Matthew Dillon has been working for some time on hardlinks and Hammer 2.  Hardlinks are the same file, presented in multiple places.  This can be a problem when your filesystem keeps infinite, writable snapshots.  The solution he just commited is called 'xlink' and the commit message has details.
I am all over the map this week. Your unrelated comics link of the week: Sunday Comics Kickstarter. Your unrelated open source game of the week: 0 A.D.  Works on FreeBSD and OpenBSD and can run on DragonFly if you can fix gloox.  (via)
I informally grouped by topic, cause it has proved an exceptionally rich week for BSD links.
Since DragonFly 4.4 has been branched, bleeding-edge DragonFly is now at version 4.5.  As John Marino detailed in his post, that means pkg on 4.5 systems will look in a new place for downloads.  ("dragonfly:4.6:x86:64", since it always uses even numbers)   To cover for this, set ABI to point at DragonFly 4.4 packages in pkg.conf for now.  They're freshly built and functionally the same, anyway.  Once there's a 4.6 download path, that ABI setting can be removed.  Packages for DragonFly-current are available now and probably at the mirrors by the time this posts. Update: as John Marino pointed out to me, anyone on DragonFly-master who upgrades now will be at version 4.5.  This means pkg will get the new (4.5) packages on the next pkg upgrade.  That means a mix of old and new packages unless you either reinstall anything (pkg update -f) or hardcode the 4.4 download path until you are ready to switch everything. So: DragonFly-current users should either hardcode the 4.4 path for now or force an pkg upgrade for everything.  DragonFly 4.2-release users are unaffected.  
Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S. isn't slowing down BSDNow, cause there's a new episode up with Bryan Cantrill talking about the awfulness that is Linux interfaces, along with a bunch of summary news items written out on the page.
The release candidate for DragonFly 4.4 is built and available for download.  The main site has it as an ISO or IMG file, and the mirrors should have it soon if not already. Here's a question I need feedback on: if we compressed these images using xz instead of bzip2 - would that inconvenience you?
The default linker in DragonFly has been switched to gold, the newer version of ld.  (get it, go-ld?)  It's faster, cleaner, going by the commit message.  It's possible to switch back to the old one if needed.  This predates the recent branch for 4.4, so it will be default in the release, too.
The next release of DragonFly is coming due, since it's been 6 months.  I just tagged 4.4RC, and I'll have an image built soon.  Current estimate is that we'll have the 4.4-RELEASE at the end of the month.
This is one of those weeks where everything gets covered.  Settle in, there's lots to click. Your eighties video link for the week: The 80s.mp4.  (via) Your unrelated browser toy of the week: A browser-based optics sandbox.  (via)
Another week where there's so much to link to, it overflows into next week.
This week's BSDNow has the usual news, plus an interview of George Wilson talking about ZFS.  There's a new Beastie Bits section that contains a bunch of short links to BSD material... Hey!  That's my niche!
Reminder: Stephen Bourne, known for the Bourne Shell, among many other things, will be talking at NYCBUG this Thursday.  Plan to get there early, cause it'll be busy.
If you are anywhere near Detroit, the inaugural SEMIBUG meeting is the night of the 17th - that's tomorrow, as of this posting.  Go, visit, and I'll be jealous since there's no BSD user groups near me.
It might snow around here today, and I am looking forward to it.