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In Other BSDs for 2013/10/19

I am doing this one at the last minute.  I had all the articles noted, but normally I build this post over the course of the week.

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In Other BSDs for 2013/10/12

I got some PC-BSD items this week, too.

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DragonFly pkgsrc repo is frozen

The pkgsrc repository in git for DragonFly is currently frozen.  This is because many people have switched over to dports, and also because it’s a lot of work to keep it functional.  If you do want to pull newer pkgsrc material, use cvs and grab it from a NetBSD server.

As the message notes, don’t go switching to DragonFly-current right now, cause there’s a lot of new material in there and it may not be quite safe.  (There’s an ABI change that will require all new builds of your ports, for instance.)

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Here, there, everywhere for mdocml

Franco Fichtner recently received commit rights for DragonFly.  This is so he could import mdocml, a OpenBSD-originating replacement for groff and man page display.  Mdocml has been mentioned before on the Digest, and there’s a downloadable book.  (See the more-interesting-than-it-sounds History of UNIX Manpages there too, but I digress.)

One advantage of using mdocml, as I understand it, is that groff is no longer required to view man pages.  The only thing left in DragonFly that required a C++ compiler was groff.  So, rebuilding could be a bit faster, and a bit less complicated.

Here’s the part that makes me happy: Changes made in DragonFly promptly made it back into NetBSD’s mdocml.   Other changes rolled from DragonFly back into OpenBSD, too, and mdocml is in FreeBSD 10, though I don’t have a src change to point at right now.  It all circled back around to DragonFly, too.  It’s really neat to have a BSD-grown cross-BSD product.

(Incidentally, if you have a Thinkpad and keyboard issues, Franco has a patch for you to try.)

 

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In Other BSDs for 2013/10/05

Less straight source links this week.

Related to DragonFly: Patrick Welche updated glib2 in pkgsrc, and is interested in hearing how it works for DragonFly users.  If you have pkgsrc on your system and it’s not a quarterly release, try building t.

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In Other BSDs for 2013/09/28

This week was relatively quiet, but also had the most cross-BSD work I’ve seen in a while.  Look at the links and you’ll see.

Here’s more on Unbound, since it seems to be a trend.

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In Other BSDs for 2013/09/21

Finally, a quieter week.

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In Other BSDs for 2013/09/14

Barely getting this done in time for Saturday…

 

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In Other BSDs for 2013/09/07

There’s been a lot of commit activity across the BSDs, but my list doesn’t seem to reflect that.  A lot of incremental work, I suppose.

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In Other BSDs: 2013/08/31

I need to update this post during the week as I see stuff, or else I spend an hour rushing to get it all together before Satuday.  I need to start watching PC-BSD src changes, too.

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In Other BSDs: 2013/08/24

I hope I’m catching the interesting stuff; I’m only reading the src changes.

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In Other BSDs for 2013/08/10

Definitely Saturdays for this summary.  In other BSDs this week:

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In Other BSDs for 2013/08/03

How many tags can I fit on this post?  I think I’ll aim for Saturday for these BSD catchup posts.  In theory, I can prep this and the Sunday Lazy Reading posts ahead of time, since they tend to be all-week items, and have the whole weekend covered.

 

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In Other BSDs summary

Here’s what jumped out at me from reading source change mailing lists:

I’m going to have to set a specific day of the week aside for these.

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Julio Merino and NetBSD, and volunteerism

Julio Merino is not renewing his membership of the NetBSD board of directors; he wrote an extensive post as to why.  I agree with some of the issues he raised; they are possible on any open source project.  I don’t necessarily think the solutions he proposes are correct.

I am clearly biased on this, but I think NetBSD needs a ‘NetBSD Digest’, to talk about the changes being made and the work being done.  I once asked someone experienced in dealing with volunteers how you motivate people without a paycheck, and he said “Celebrate their accomplishments”.  All the BSDs could use that.  (via EFNet #dragonflybsd)

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Some other BSDs

For once, I got to read the commit logs for other BSDs…

The OpenBSD ‘Papers’ page has some videos listed to match the OpenBSD-related presentations from EuroBSDCon 2012.

Not only does NetBSD support the BeagleBoard, but Michael Lorenz is committing from it.

FreeBSD has brought in a new version of bmake and jemalloc.  I’ve seen a number of other commits recently attributed to ‘NetApp’, which is good to see.  Also, preliminary USB support for boot loaders.

PC-BSD is looking to use pkgng, the same binary package manager used in John Marino’s DPorts.  It’s proving quite popular.