Michael W. Lucas is having an “open dinner” tomorrow, in Scottsdale, AZ. That means you get to talk about his tech books and BSD and conventions and whatever else enters collectively enters everyone’s heads, I assume, over dinner. (you buy your own food; the talking’s free) It sounds like a potential little mini-convention; you should go.
BSDNow 098 is up with the normal collection of news and links, plus an interview with David Meyer of Xinous – which I infer is using FreeBSD to underpin their main project. I always find the decision/planning around major commercial open source interesting, cause the open source aspect changes the game, so to speak.
There was a newer release of OpenSSL (1.0.1p) last week, so there’s a new revision of the DragonFly release – 4.2.3. There’s little major change other than the security fix for OpenSSL.
Those readers who can count past 2 may notice that there wasn’t a 4.2.2. We went straight from 4.2.1 to 4.2.3. That’s my fault. I screwed up tagging and Git doesn’t like repeated, deleted tags.
I don’t know enough about Erlang and LFE to say much other than “Hey, look at this article about installing LFE on DragonFly!” (via)
This is Thoughtful Consideration week.
- The Anti-Mac Interface. The future of interfaces is in some ways the opposite of good interface design circa 1986. (via)
- What was the technology stack driving the original Ultima Online servers? The resemblance to a classical MUD is not a surprise when you think about it. (via)
- The Harmful Consequences of Postel’s Maxim. I see this more as the 2.0 problem, which I don’t yet have a good link to describe. (via)
- My Top 100 Programming, Computer and Science Books: Part Four
- CCCamp 2015 preordering is open. (via)
- Calvin and Markov. Markov chains are simple but fun. (via)
- On Port 80. Platforms that run on user content, but aren’t controlled by users, go downhill over time. It’s a repeating pattern. (via and via)
- A floppy drive with a survival mechanism. (via)
- keepachangelog.com. (via)
- The UNIX System: Making Computers More Productive. (via)
- Post-memes. (via)
- The 2015 Postel Network Operator’s Scholarship is open, with entertaining selection criteria.
- Warcraft 3 in a browser. (via)
- The ARMiga Project. (via)
- The minimig-mist, also a recreated Amiga. (via previous link)
- Go garbage collection. It’s humor, not real. (via profmakx on EFNet #dragonflybsd)
Your unrelated game link of the week: Compare Javascript frameworks by playing the same game (well, game mechanism) in each: Breakouts. (via)
This is a week for unexpected BSD news – OpenBSD and Microsoft, a new 4.4BSD variant, and so on.
- Running a Plan 9 network on OpenBSD. (via)
- FreeNAS 10: Early M2 Preview.
- More BSDCan trip reports, from Warren Block, Christian Brueffer, Kamil Czekirda, and Shonali Balakrishna.
- DiscoverBSD for 2015/07/06.
- Microsoft Now OpenBSD Foundation Gold Contributor. Probably related to OpenSSH-in-Powershell.
- Also, SunSSH replaced by OpenSSH.
- OPNSense 15.7.1 out. 15.7 is apparently a release branch, so this is what you follow.
- pkgsrcCon 2015: A year of pkgsrc 2014 – 2015. All the presentations are online, in fact. (via)
- EuroBSDCon 2015 Preliminary Program Published.
- A new (to me) BSD: “LiteBSD is a variant of 4.4BSD operating system adapted for microcontrollers.” It’s BSD on some super–teeny hardware. I don’t know what I’d do with it, but I’d love to get something like that working.
- OpenBSD and Valgrind, instructions.
- If you’ve got Bitcoin and an urge to donate to OpenBSD, pace yourself.
- July 20th, Calgary: OpenBSD hackathon/discussion.
- pkgsrc 2015Q2 released.
- Moving pkgsrc-wip away from Sourceforge. Turns into a long argument about CVS.
- Yay cross-pollination! (and thanks to Sascha Wildner for turning up WARNS levels and fixing things, for years.)
- FreeBSD ports is now also using a quarterly model.
- FreeBSD now has the CloudABI model, sorta like Capsicum.
- FreeBSD Vagrant images can now be automatically uploaded to Google Compute Engine, VMware, and (new to me) Hashicorp Atlas.
- Fractal cells, a new BSD-based quick startup platform. Launching at end of month. (via)
Here’s how you test the console frame buffer on DragonFly, even though X is the way to go.
BSDNow 097 has even more links in the never-ending tide of BSDCan presentation videos, more news, and an interview with Lee Sharp, of SmallWall; apparently a continuation of the original software network (and BSD) product, m0n0wall.
There’s yet another security problem with OpenSSL, and it’s been updated in DragonFly. I’ll probably roll 4.2.2 this weekend so that it’s in the release image.
Some time ago, I acquired a Chromebook with the help of all you kind readers. Here’s a mini-report on how DragonFly works as a desktop.
The hardware: what I have is an Acer c720 Chromebook. The C720p is the touchscreen model, and is equally well-supported by DragonFly. A larger-capacity M.2 SSD (which is relatively easy to install) is the only real need, as the installed one is only 16G. It’s easy enough to see what the laptops look like; it’s nothing fancy but it’s suitably light.
The software: There’s a wide-ranging and complete install/tweak guide for the c720 and c720p on the DragonFly site. Note that it goes down to the point of even changing the keymap for the special keys on the keyboard.
Things I don’t like:
- The mousepad needs a physical click, not a tap, which decreases accuracy.
- There’s only 2G of RAM, and not expandable. You will notice this if you tend to open a lot of tabs when web browsing.
- I’ve had mousepad trouble, but I’m the only one reporting it, so I think it’s just bad hardware luck on my part.
Things I do like:
- pkg is a godsend, making installation and upgrades almost effortless. I’ve gone binary-only so far.
- Many things Just Work – for example, the xfce4 battery plugin.
- xscreensaver works great; even the 3D modules. I don’t know why it entertains me so.
- I haven’t run the battery out to make sure, but it looks like it would last a few hours. Suspend/hibernate are not supported, but low power modes are.
- There’s a lot of multi-touch shortcuts built into the touchpad.
It’s an excellent BSD laptop, for light use, at low cost. The next step up would be into Thinkpad territory, which raises the cost or increases the age – and may not be as consistently supported.
Something I’ve wanted for a long time: DragonFly stickers. Or ‘decals’, if you want to sound fancier. Markus Pfeiffer has them set up on Stickermule.
I just created an account there, and apparently I can supply a referral link which gets you and me both a $10 credit, if you use that. It’ll make you sign up, then you’ll probably have to go back in with the direct link for the DragonFly sticker.
I don’t know why I’ve been finding so many roguelike links lately, but it’s to our benefit.
- The Open Container Project. No mention of a BSD. I don’t know if that’s necessarily bad.
- Random Numbers in the original Doom. Is that true? That seems a bit crazy. (via)
- The NANOG65 call for presentations is out.
- More falsehoods programmers believe about time. A followup to a previous link.
- @Play 82: The Talks of the International Roguelike Developers Conference US, 2015. Some fascinating links/talks on video there.
- Stick to 64-bit counters.
- LIFE IS TERRIBLE: LET’S TALK ABOUT THE WEB – James Mickens. I don’t think I saw/linked to this one before. Why is a Microsoft researcher one of the funniest nerd people online? (via)
- The first port of UNIX. (PDF, via)
- Vim Colors (via)
- Releasing a Commercial ASCII Roguelike, a Post-Mortem. (via)
- Cold brew tea.
- From TextMate to Vim. (via)
- Shortest network cable evar. I once had a coworker confuse inches (“) and feet (‘) when ordering, so we ended up with a box of 200 6-inch Ethernet cables. (via)
Insert fireworks graphic here.
- OpenBSD from a veteran Linux user perspective. (via)
- Call for Testing: Valgrind on OpenBSD.
- 10.2-PRE-RELEASE and 11.0-CURRENT Images Available for Testing. (PC-BSD)
- BSDCan 2015 trip reports: Zbigniew Bodek and Vsevolod Stakhov.
- DiscoverBSD for 2015/06/29.
- DistroWatch Weekly talks about running FreeBSD on a Raspberry Pi 2 computer. (via)
- BSD Magazine: “Web server security”.
- FreeNAS 10: A developer’s perspective.
- NetBSD on NVIDIA Jetson TK1 (Tegra K1)
- New binary releases for NetBSD on Raspberry Pi
- BSD dmesg collection service
- OPNSense 15.7 is released.
- finding bugs in tarsnap
- FreeBSD gets a graphical front-end for pkg-ng. (probably works for DragonFly dpkg too) (via)
- User account administration for Linux/BSD
- moving from Linux to BSD and the Acer C720. I already replied all over that.
BSDNow 096 has the usual new links, even more BSDCan 2015 video links, and an interview with Jun Ebihara about some of NetBSD’s lesser-known architectures.
(I like trying to guess the interview subject from each week’s obscure title; I was going to guess RetroBSD… which would make a good topic to explore.)
There’s a minor update for DragonFly 4.2 – this covers a problem with i915 support, so it’s worth upgrading if you have an Intel video chipset.
NYCBUG is having a chronologically appropriate speaker: Steven Kreuzer, talking about the Precision Time Protocol. It’s 6:45 PM (EDT) tonight, at the Stone Creek Bar & Lounge in New York City.
I’ll quote right from the summary for the 14-minute-long BSDTalk 254: “An interview with Ken Worster who is presenting on topics which include PFSense and FreeNAS in schools at the Technology Teacher ME conference in Bethel Maine.”
DragonFly 4.2 is officially released! You can go to the 4.2 release page for details, go to the mirrors page to download, or read my users@ post for upgrade steps.
Update: news stories and commentary seen on lobste.rs, Hacker News, and linux.fr.
I came up with a whole bunch of links at the last minute despite traveling and being sick. I’m dedicated to your idle reading!
- In defence of curl | sudo bash –. Not really in defense because nobody’s that crazy. (via)
- Leap “smearing”.
- HyperRogue – A non-Euclidean roguelike. (via)
- Hack RUN. A… greenscreenlike?
- 30 years of Amiga. Coming up in about a month. (via)
- “Why Agile, Lean and Six Sigma must die …” (via)
- You probably already saw “Inceptionism: Going Deeper into Neural Networks“, but there’s already a t-shirt. (via)
- Finding the needles.
- If We’ve Won, Why Are We Still Explaining Open Source? (via)
- hhighlighter, syntax coloring for the output of other programs.
- UNIX Recovery Legend. (via) There’s more documents of similar vintage to look at.
- “The Hacker’s Diet: How to lose weight and hair through stress and poor nutrition”. While I hadn’t read this before now, I’ve been doing a similar pattern for some months now, and I’ve lost 30 lbs/13.5 kg.
- The Curta Calculator. A neat bit of machinery that I’ve never seen.
- Retro Thinkpad idea. I would buy this, for the keyboard alone.
Your off-topic link of the week: you have about a week to pay $35 to not die when the Earth is destroyed on July 5th. It’s the 18th time the world has almost ended, so it has to work out one of these times.