Right now, if you install PHP, or something dependent on PHP, from pkgsrc, you get PHP 5.3. The default for pkgsrc will move to 5.4, though I assume that’s going to be after the pkgsrc-2013Q1 release scheduled for the end of this month. I don’t know the upgrade path, but it sounds like 5.3 is on the way to retirement, in any case.
The freeze for pkgsrc-2013Q1 has started; expect the next release at the end of the month. (Ignore the subject line).
You know what stinks? I find a really cool thing online somewhere, early in the week, or even in a previous week, like today’s unrelated link. Between me finding it and this always-on-Sunday post, other people encounter it, the link gets reposted everywhere, and it’s old hat by the time you see it here. Yeah, I’m complaining like it’s hipster linking!
- Has anyone noticed how there’s been an explosion in nontraditional peripherals lately? Seriously, follow those links. I know there’s more.
- A Roguelike Primer. An excellent overview of a lot of different roguelikes. I didn’t know NetHack had an isometric view. (via)
- There’s a programming language called Quylthulg. That makes me happy, in a D&D/roguelike kind of way.
- Abandoned Apples. I feel bad about the Apple ][ units, and the fatmacs. (via I forget)
- yes `yes no`. The comments on the linking page note how the linking description is all wrong (and here’s corrections), but one comment is fun: shell Russian Roulette: [ $[ $RANDOM % 6 ] == 0 ] && rm -rf / || echo *Click* (via)
- A note about Google Reader’s demise from an interview with one of the creators. It strikes me that there aren’t more people mad that RSS feeds are hard to find. There’s lots of conversations on Twitter and Facebook and Google Plus and other places, and I can’t see them without getting an account for each, and logging in. The overall effect of this separation is that it’s hard to follow any one source.
- The Thing, an art BBS.
- Here’s a chart of possible Google Reader replacements, plus my query earlier this week let to a number of comment suggestions. tt-rss looks like a good candidate, because I don’t have to worry about someone deciding not to run it anymore. There’s also newsbeuter, though maybe that’s too minimal.
Your unrelated link of the week: I almost can’t tell this is a parody. Actually, it’s more like a double level of parody. Seen on this inexplicable, wonderful Tumblog; found via arts inscrutable.
Bonus link: Dog Snack Episode 3.
The March issue of BSD Magazine is out, with topics like handling crash dumps. Apparently April’s issue is going to be all FreeNAS.
Google Reader, which is what I use to track as much BSD stuff as possible, is being retired as of July 1. I need a new RSS reader – any recommendations? Something that I can access from multiple places (i.e. online app) is best.
Michael W. Lucas has announced his next two books are coming out in April: Absolute OpenBSD 2nd Edition, from No Starch Press, and DNSSEC Mastery, self published.
The freeze for the next quarterly release of pkgsrc – 2013Q1 – has been announced by Thomas Klausner. March 17th to start, March 31st to end.
I managed to come up with a lot of links this week, somehow, despite the start of the class I’m teaching in addition to normal work. And Summer of Code’s coming up! And we’re due for a release relatively soon! I may appear somewhat… stretched over the next few weeks.
- Hey, other people are noticing that odd linkspam email I’ve been getting. (via)
- The followup: Don’t share that infographic spam. I’m pretty sure I’m the ‘one reader’ mentioned by the author, since I mailed him about the previous story.
- I always enjoy stories about troubleshooting strange performance problems.
- We need something like this Red Book idea for pkgsrc/DPorts.
- Ode to the Semicolon. I love semicolons; I use them more than an em dash. (via)
- The Maker Map. You may find this useful for building resources. I’m gaining one near me soon. (via)
- The Book-writing Machine. Possibly the first book written with a word processor. (via)
- Vim Git Gutter. A brilliant idea: show the git diff as you work in Vim. (via)
- Add everything to Vim! Add nothing to Vim! (via a long twisty path of links)
- An HTML5 roguelike, THE ROYAL WEDDING; nicely done. (via)
- Hey, the Digest is on Google Plus, or at least the RSS feed is.
- Smallest analog computer ever made. This is what computers should look like. (via)
- List of inventors killed by their own inventions. No good reason to link this other than it’s a longer list than I thought it would be. (via)
- This PHP/MySQL assessment made me laugh. (via)
Your unrelated link of the week: I’m the Computer Man. I always thought the mid-1990s were sort of a Internet/computer teenager phase. Everything had potential but everything was also awkward. (via I forget, sorry!)
The 2013 version of pkgsrcCon is happening in a few weeks in Berlin, Germany. As announced, the presentation list is up. If you can’t make it to Berlin, there will potentially be video recordings of the event.
Cygwin is a ‘supported platform’ in pkgsrc now. This means your Microsoft Windows machine can now build packages out of pkgsrc. I have no idea how many packages actually succeed, but it’s interesting to see the same tools there as on other platforms.
Meaning, Summer of Code for the teachers, not the students. Google apparently has a grant program for academic researchers, that runs twice a year. I didn’t know this, but I bet there’s someone who is 1: in academia and 2: needs cash money that is 3: reading this.
Perhaps it’s not early morning where you are, but: if you go to Google’s 2013 Google I/O site, clicking on the I and O in particular patterns take you to various easter eggs. (see after break for spoilers).
It seems Sepherosa Ziehau won’t rest until he’s reached peak performance for every network card in DragonFly; he’s added multiple ring/MSI-X support for Broadcom 5709/5716 chipsets in DragonFly. In more concrete terms, this means better speeds when transmitting and receiving multiple streams of data.
(at least, I think so.)
Found by way of a NYCBUG newsletter: sws, a webserver written in sh. Brett Wynkoop is the author, and as he points out, sws works on any platform with “/bin/sh, dirname, cat, and date”. The author’s giving a talk at an upcoming NYCBUG meeting – tomorrow!
I wasn’t aware of this, but apparently DragonFly’s version of patch(1) comes from OpenBSD and NetBSD. FreeBSD’s old version of patch is being replaced by this and modified to match the old one’s behaviors. It would be worthwhile to bring these changes back, if possible, just to reduce the differences in a utility that’s already been around the world, so to speak.
As an aside, I always thought patch was one of Larry Wall’s unsung successes, and I’m entertained by any program that has “Hmm…” as one of its official outputs.
I am all over the place with links this week – some of them pretty far off the path. There’s a lot, too, so enjoy!
- Puctuation obscurantism, punctuation humor; I like it all. (via)
- Exporting your git repository. Found while looking for something else.
- I want CTRL-D at a terminal to make something like this to happen.
- Visual Representation of Regular Expression Character Classes. I like visual ways of classifying complex data.
- Speaking of which: Anatomy of Data. Not sure how I found it.
- Digital Files and 3D Printing – In the Renaissance? The title sounds a bit linkbaity, but the story of the 14th century map designed to be recreated with a graphing tool is pretty neat.
- Postgres: The Bits You Haven’t Found. Advanced/odd Postgres usage. (via)
- Breaking your arrow keys is the latest idea in improving Vim usage.
- PC-BSD is moving to a ‘rolling release’ format, and also using the new pkg tools that are also in DPorts. Historic details on this new setup are available.
- Fred, taking off.
- Ten hours with the most inscrutable game of all time. I like the idea of Dwarf Fortress more than I actually like playing it. I’m somewhat afraid of it. It looks like this sounds.
- That last comparison wasn’t necessarily fair, but it was fun.
- If I’m going to talk about music like that, I should link Ishkur’s Guide to Electronic Music.
- The Wizard of Pinball. I just want my own standup pinball or arcade cabinet game. Yes, yes, I know, MAME cabinet.
- Appropriately this week, “Ball Saved”, page 1 and page 2 of a 2-page comic about pinball.
- UnReal World, an Iron-Age roguelike. Apparently pretty brutal, and two decades in development. Runs on several platforms, but not BSD. (via)
- You Are Boring. Some of the ‘boring’ items made me laugh. (via)
- The first review of Michael W. Lucas’s Absolute OpenBSD, Second Edition is available.
Your unrelated link of the week: I’ve already been offbeat enough in this Lazy Reading; I don’t have anything else.
As the title says, if you install MySQL from pkgsrc-current, you’ll now get version 5.5.
Michael W. Lucas is looking for someone to improve the Extended DNSSEC Validator. Specifically, add BSD support. It’s an idea worth supporting, because the standard it works with makes self-signed certificated perfectly feasible.