This week’s BSD Now is up, discussing a bunch of informational topics – including what’s happening with dsynth, how virtual memory works, streaming on NetBSD, and other links.
vBSDCon 2019 starts tonight and runs for 2 days – go if you are near.
I don’t know if it’s going to be streamed, but if tonight’s NYCBUG meeting and presentation is streamed, it’ll be visible here. (Preposting so I don’t miss it.)
Roy Marples has brought in version 8.0.4 of dhcpcd(8); it’s definitely up to date since he’s the author. It does DHCP, DHCPv6, and IPv4LL/ZeroConf, the last of which I’ve only seen on Apple machines before. Someone want to try Network Configurator with it?
Tomorrow’s NYCBUG meeting is “Setting up a convenient working environment“, with Ivan Ivanov. Go, if you are near. It will be streamed but I don’t have a link for that at the time I’m writing this.
I’ve seen a similar config other places, but it never hurts to note: scrolling in X requires just a few xorg config lines.
I am starting to think I need an Apple ][ tag.
- COLOR vs COLOUR in the Acorn.
- World’s oldest orrery. Source has pictures in the attachments.
- Vintage Tech, a series of Believer columns about older technology like ballpoint pens, and fortune cookies; enjoyable reads.
- John Cleese, advertising for Compaq. (via)
- Purposeful noise in 3D rendering.
- Black Box Record Club, Vinyl Me, and Vinyl Moon, all record delivery services. (via)
- Secretly Public Domain: Update. Further details on a significant change in knowledge.
- Mining Bitcoin on an Apple II, a highly impractical guide. (via)
- Juiced.GS, a quarterly Apple II journal.
- Chaos Communication Camp 2019 video. (via)
- No CLI Ads. (via)
- Ola Bini’s Letters from Detention. The reason I link to the commentary is the pull quote; the idea that “[C]ode and architecture are more important than laws.” Laws are public; code often isn’t. Which is an argument for open source, certainly.
- Many ways to pop balloons. Not sure if that’s the actual intent.
- ASCII-Mapper. (via)
- Bookhunter, the comic. (via)
- The Sound of D&D.
- Transporting a portable system: Unix to an IBM minicomputer (1983) [pdf]. (via)
- Turing Tumble – Build Marble-Powered Computers. Like Rocky’s Boots, but physical. (via)
- Obscure plugin game consoles. (via)
- The Hathi Trust, another source for out-of-copyright books comparable to Gutenberg. (via)
- GNOME Terminal Cursor Blinking Saga. (via)
I have a number of BSD user group notifications here – please tell me if you have a group and I’m not regularly posting about it.
- NYCBUG meeting on the 4th: Setting up a convenient working environment, with Ivan Ivanov. I’ll post a reminder.
- ChiBUG is meeting on the 17th. RSVP on the mailing list if you are going. I’ll post a reminder.
- vBSDCon 2019 is happening next weekend, on September 5-7, in Reston, VA. Go if you are near; every report I read about last year’s event said it was a rollicking good time. The schedule is up.
- FreeBSD on RISC-V as a voting machine test. BSD is common for embedded, high-security hardware – and people tend to not know because it’s embedded, high-security hardware. (via)
- What happened to Bitrig? I haven’t heard anything in some years.
- ‘Cube 2: Sauerbraten‘ on FreeBSD.
- Checking your pf.conf file without leaving the editor.
- The Sudo Mastery hardcover.
- Gcc 4.2.1 to be removed before FreeBSD 13, a firm timeline. (via)
- Add [FreeBSD] kernel-side support for in-kernel TLS. (via)
- Project Trident 12-U4 now available.
- GSoC 2019 Report: Adding NetBSD KNF to clang-format, Final.
- GSoC 2019 Report: Implementation of compat_netbsd32 DRM ioctl/Getting DRM applications running under compat-linux.
- Adapting TriforceAFL for NetBSD, Part 3.
- Enchancing [sic] Syzkaller Support for NetBSD, Part 3.
- Making sense of OpenBSD ‘
pfctl -ss‘ output for firewall state tables. - Valuable News – 2019/08/26.
- OPNsense® partners with Sunny Valley Networks.
- OPNsense 19.7.3 released.
- [ports] Datadir added to default postgres flags.
- link-local address change.
- Using FreeBSD with Ports (1/2): Classic way with tools.
Jails on DragonFly now have their own sysctl tree, inherited from defaults. And are no longer MPLOCKed.
The pleasingly-symmetrical BSD Now episode 313 is up now. If you use TLS (and you do), it may be interesting. Also, a link to a Thinkpad and BSD test – also of interest to many.
The radeon driver support on DragonFly now matches Linux 4.7.10. Update and test, especially if you have one of the chipsets mentioned.
First, history: DragonFly has had binaries of dports available for download for quite some time. These were originally built using poudriere, and then using the synth tool put together by John Marino. Synth worked both to build all software in dports, and as a way to test DragonFly’s SMP capability under extreme load.
Matthew Dillon is working on a new version, called dsynth. It is available now but not yet part of the build. He’s been working quickly on it and there’s plenty more commits than what I have linked here. It’s already led to finding more high-load fixes.
Following up on an earlier post, the new servers for DragonFly are in place. The old 40-core machine used for bulk build, monster, is being retired. The power efficiency of the new machines is startling. Incidentally, this is where donations go – infrastructure.
I’m covering all my areas of interest this week, or nearly so.
- Famous computer history quotes, some probably new to you.
- The Bit Player, a movie about Claude Shannon, and a review of it.
- A new Cyriak video, Breakfast. Another attempt to describe fractal infinity, I think. (via)
- D&D plus Shakespeare. (via)
- The Design of Dungeons and Dragons. Talking about the books themselves, not the game. (via)
- Noise Machines, including the nonrepeating sound of a data center. (via)
- Oddball analog smartphones.
- Voyager 1 and 2 are still talking, still active, and possibly the highest-latency communication problem possible. (via)
- Old video game advertisements. (via)
- Absolute scale corrupts absolutely. Lots of great pull quotes in this.
- Tumblr, the Day After. As a counterpoint to the last link, WordPress and Tumblr are two social networks that do not financially depend on either damaging privacy or encouraging outrage.
- Waldenponding, a term new to me.
- Paul Ford Uses This. I’ve linked to his excellent writing before.
- Chesses, variations on chess. Immediately understandable, and playable if you have a second player right there. (via)
Incidentally, my employer, REDCOM, uses FreeBSD as a base for its main product, is deployed in rough areas and in high-security government locations, and is one of the few electronics manufacturers still working entirely in the U.S.. REDCOM also has jobs to fill in New York, where I work. Please, apply if you see a job that interests you – and tell me.
- DistroTest.net, which happens to have runnable online versions of GhostBSD, FreeBSD, HardenedBSD, MidnightBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, OPNSense, and DragonFly. (via)
- The VBSDCon schedule (Sept 5-7, very soon!) is up.
- Update webmin/usermin if you have them installed.
- Impact of Tariff Increases. Eventually relevant even if you aren’t a U.S. reader.
- Project Trident 12-U3 and 19.08 now available.
- Valuable News for 2019/08/14 and 2019/08/19.
- Porting wine to amd64 on NetBSD, third evaluation report.
- USBNET: A story of networking and threads that won’t stop pulling.
- Getting the GNU gdbserver to work.
- Fuzzing NetBSD Filesystems via AFL. [Part 2].
- GSoC 2019 Report: Adding NetBSD KNF to clang-format, Part 2.
- Brutal Doom 64 on OpenBSD.
- OpenBSD -stable gets package updates! Release OpenBSD doesn’t normally get packages?
- Blueprint and progress status for mixed environment multilevel backup. Really, the thing to see is a spreadsheet.
- When a hacker tries to infiltrate an OpenBSD machine. Pufferfish reference.
- CFT: CBSD project switched to its own cloud images.
- Instant Workstation.
Taken from IRC: “DFBEADM(1) A Boot Environment Manager for HAMMER2“. This could be fun! Here’s the users@ post to match.
This week’s BSD Now covers a lot of topics, including linking to a gentle explanation of package management, which surely no reader here needs to have explained? Well, you are covered if so.
Here’s something I haven’t see before: at the time of me typing this, there are commits in DragonFly, FreeBSD, and I assume NetBSD (haven’t found the commit), but the 2019-5612 CVE entry is still shown as reserved and not public. This may change by the time you read this article, of course.
Update: the original source, found by an intrepid reader.
If you have an AM4 motherboard and also can’t EFI boot DragonFly on it, this recent change may fix that for you.
Also, if you are using a Corsair keyboard, this commit may be useful to you.