A running description of activity related to DragonFly BSD.
Astute reader “Yair K.” sent along links to two things:
There is work being done on a “user-mode NetBSD“, which sounds quite similar to DragonFly’s vkernel(7) system.
4Front Technologies has placed their Open Sound System (discussed previously) under a BSD license, removing what I think was the only obstacle to using it in DragonFly and other BSDs. A press release is out, too.
I didn’t know this existed: there’s an official OpenBSD non-profit that’s been created to handle donations. (via) There’s one for FreeBSD and NetBSD, so perhaps DragonFly should follow suit?
The first BSDTalk of the new year is here, with Marten Vijn about Open Community Camp, a camping/geekout event in the Netherlands being held August 2008.
The call for papers for CONFidence 2008 is out, with papers due February 1st. (via undeadly)
FOSDEM 2008, the “Free and Open Source software Developers’ European Meeting”, is happening February 23-24th, in Brussels, Belgium. There will be a BSD-specific room, for which we could use a DragonFly presence. Also: beer. (via FreeBSD-announce)
The Best of FreeBSD Basics is out now on Amazon and perhaps elsewhere, containing much (all?) of Dru Lavigne’s column of the same name from OnLAMP.com. It says ‘FreeBSD’ in the title, but I’d expect everything that isn’t ports-specific will apply to every BSD. Her columns are clear and to the point.
Other factoids:
Matthew Dillon wrote an update for the state of HAMMER, the new file system for DragonFly. It’s at the point where historical data can retrieved even after data is deleted, though it’s not stable yet. The most recent commit notes an interesting upcoming feature idea: historical atime and mtime tracking.
Dru Lavigne has posted a pile of links to various things – click through and eat up an hour or two.
Joerg Anslik posted his setup to blacklist IPs which repeatedly scan via FTP or SSH. Some discussion ensued.
Long-time readers will remember a previous discussion like this.
DragonFly has two new committers, as an end-of-year treat: Matthias Schmidt and Nicolas Thery. Welcome, both of you. (Also, don’t forget ‘walt‘ earlier this month.)
Matthias Schmidt has tried synchronizing with FreeBSD’s /etc/periodic; he reports no issues on his DragonFly system. He also helpfully summarizes all the improvements in his post.
The latest BSDTalk has a16-minute interview with Peter N. M. Hansteen, who recently wrote The Book of PF, and apparently possesses a lot of middle names.
It’s also the 2-year anniversary of BSDTalk – Congratulations to Will Backman.
Chris Turner posted his thoughts on improving vn(4).
The December issue of the Open Source Business Resource is out.
Also, Cisco is looking for some FreeBSD developers. Given Cisco’s recent announcement that they were moving to an open source operating system for their equipment, and that Juniper’s system is already BSD-based…Â Hmm.
I group these together because they were both found by Dru Lavigne at AYitLoaBG.
BSDCan 2008, held in May, in Ottowa, has the initial call for papers out. They have space for informal talks and presentations too.
Matthew Dillon chimed in with his description of how a binary update system for DragonFly could work, with an emphasis on using existing tools.
Perl’s 20 years old today, and a new release of 5.10 is out, along with a new version of Parrot, which includes the nascent Perl 6. (Via OnLAMP)
I’d be happy to note other major programming language changes – I don’t follow, say, Ruby as closely. Please tell me if there’s something of note.
An oldie but goodie: don’t forget that it’s possible to set up multiple virtual sound channels in DragonFly.
Matthias Schmidt has put together what I think is A Good Thing: a binary updates system for DragonFly. There’s still some details to work on, but he has working code already.
Welcome Thomas Nikolajsen, newest DragonFly committer. (Or at least I missed mentioning him before.)
Thanks, anonymous commenter! Not only do I lack reliable short-term memory, but I can’t even use a search function.