Please test – DragonFly BSD Digest

A new upgrade method

Justin Sherrill — Thu, 08 Aug 2019 17:33:07 +0000

Remember my post about a new upgrade script? tse, the author, has happily added in a bunch of suggestions. I’m intermittently traveling and can’t do anything to test it for days yet – but I’d love to see others try it out.

The bugs issue tracking versions is here: #3197. Can you, dear reader, try it out? Do an in-place upgrade on your version, or even a test install with a VM? I want to see what happens in the wild.

em(4)/igb(4) update for testing in DragonFly

Justin Sherrill — Tue, 30 Apr 2019 14:54:04 +0000

Sepherosa Ziehau has an update for em(4)/igb(4) network cards, for you to test if you have the matching hardware. It looks like this is an update from the vendor, Intel, going by the version numbers.

Virtual DragonFly: memory balloon

Justin Sherrill — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 22:56:58 +0000

If you are running DragonFly in a virtual environment, ‘ddegroot’ has put together a virtio_balloon driver for handling memory usage. (An explanation of the term) Try it if you can; he wants testers.

Building your own DragonFly

Justin Sherrill — Fri, 22 Jun 2018 20:14:22 +0000

Mixed in with the other documentation on the DragonFly website is a “how to build a release” explanation. I use it every time there’s a new DragonFly version. If you were wanting to build a DragonFly ISO/IMG with changes or different preinstalled dports, I’ve added some notes about what’s relevant for non-release building.

We used to have “GUI” releases of DragonFly which were based on the nrelease process installing pkgsrc packages and adding some configuration files. It doesn’t happen now mostly because nobody has had the time to reconfigure for dports; if you were looking for a project this weekend, may I suggest…?

igb, em updates

Justin Sherrill — Wed, 20 Dec 2017 22:37:07 +0000

I’m far enough backlogged that Sepherosa Ziehau’s igb(4) update is already in, but as a side effect, a PC Engines apu2b4 is a good DragonFly machine.

However, if you have em(4), here’s your chance to help test.

Go and DragonFly: builder needed

Justin Sherrill — Fri, 04 Aug 2017 20:05:24 +0000

The DragonFly Go builder needs a new maintainer, and an update to a newer builder. Are there any people out there interested in Go who want to do the work? I do not have time.

A RealTek test

Justin Sherrill — Fri, 17 Feb 2017 21:39:44 +0000

Are you on DragonFly-master? Are you using a Realtek network device? Sepherosa Ziehau has an update he would like you to test.

re(4) users, please test

Justin Sherrill — Tue, 15 Nov 2016 16:54:11 +0000

There’s a new version of re(4), the driver for Realtek network cards. Sepherosa Ziehau put it together for testing. He has it on a separate branch, so give it a try if you have appropriate hardware. This will hopefully fix some of that hardware’s quirkiness.

Hybrid graphics, switcheroo, and DragonFly

Justin Sherrill — Thu, 15 Sep 2016 16:32:03 +0000

karu.pruun has been trying to get a Macbook’s hybrid graphics card to work in DragonFly. He’s been working on a gmux driver, but it needs a framework like Linux’s switcheroo. If this topic interests you, help him out.

AMD CPU users, try this

Justin Sherrill — Fri, 09 Sep 2016 12:56:20 +0000

The’Errata 793‘ issue is apparently a bug where an AMD CPU can hang under very specific circumstances. Sepherosa Ziehau has a fix – please try it if you have the appropriate hardware.

Any Mono/DragonFly users out there?

Justin Sherrill — Mon, 11 Jul 2016 21:59:31 +0000

This is a specialized use case, but Mono 4.x has some issues on DragonFly. Some minor testing has been done, but if you are already using it, please contribute.

Old DragonFly users, please test

Justin Sherrill — Thu, 28 Apr 2016 03:43:25 +0000

Not older people that use DragonFly, but people of any age using an older release of DragonFly: Bezitopo is Pierre Abbat’s topographical program, and he needs testers on versions 4.4 of DragonFly or before. Please give his open-source program a run if you are on the appropriate versions. Trying other BSDs, even though not requested, …

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em/emx/igb users, please test

Justin Sherrill — Fri, 18 Dec 2015 03:45:26 +0000

Sepherosa Ziehau has a new version of drivers for em/emx(4) and igb(4). The initial versions had trouble, but testing is ongoing. Try it if you have the correct hardware.

Update: never mind.

DragonFly 4.4-RC image for download

Justin Sherrill — Wed, 25 Nov 2015 14:26:16 +0000

The release candidate for DragonFly 4.4 is built and available for download. The main site has it as an ISO or IMG file, and the mirrors should have it soon if not already.

Here’s a question I need feedback on: if we compressed these images using xz instead of bzip2 – would that inconvenience you?

Lazy Reading for 2015/09/13

Justin Sherrill — Sun, 13 Sep 2015 13:22:30 +0000

This week just sorta blew up with the links.

as2914.net, visualization of the Internet, seen “from the as_path of 2914”. (via)
The IPv4-pocolypse has started. (via)
Make things astronautty. (via)
Related: NASA Ames: This used to be the future. (via)
Slack, the Ultimate Workday Distractor. Repent! Oh, wait, this is a different Slack.
Endless Sky, a space exploration game similar to Escape Velocity. Cross-platform, so it miiiight work on BSD.
Naev, a similar concept.
“IT began with Ada – Women in Computer History 2 September 2015 – 10 July 2016“. You probably have to be in Europe (Paderborn) to catch this, but there’s lots of old computer hardware you can get close to. (via)
Speaking of old (and expensive)… (via)
Anderson.vim: Dark vim colorscheme based on colors from Wes Anderson films. That’s… specific. (via)
A hardware flaw in a new Cisco switch. See first comment on the source page.
When the Unix load average was added to Unix. (via)
The history of Clarus the Dogcow. (via) I have a “bootleg”? Clarus shirt I picked up at… Macworld years and years ago. I’m sorta hipster-proud of it.
Ted Unangst rants about compiler-inserted backdoors. Follow the links he helpfully supplied in an article update to show responses to his views. (Something more articles should have.)
One Weird Old Productivity Tip.
Cynical interpretations of various project milestones.
How do you get network connectivity from the worst PC in the world? Ugh. I used one of those, once.
Time Cube is gone, Thyme Cube is still alive. I’m… vaguely sad? that Time Cube doesn’t exist any longer. (verbatim via)
Computer Science Courses that Don’t Exist, But Should. Some of these ideas are actually pretty good, not just humor. (via)

Your unrelated comics link of the week: Wonderella, a consistently funny superhero parody. As an added bonus, the author apparently can’t stop making (non-comic) one-liner jokes, so he stuffs them all in his Twitter feed instead of the usual case of Twitter as promotional tool.

Accelerated video users, please try this

Justin Sherrill — Thu, 04 Jun 2015 22:22:38 +0000

If you are using a DragonFly system with accelerated video, and you have noticed that you can’t return to a text console after exiting xorg – Sascha Wildner/Imre Vadasz have a branch for you to try. Please do so if you have time and are on master; this is the last big item to fix before …

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i915 update to try

Justin Sherrill — Wed, 15 Apr 2015 01:25:01 +0000

Francois Tigeot has a new update to the drm/i915 driver for testing. It matches, feature-wise, what’s in Linux 3.12. Try it if you’ve got the hardware. (and dragonfly-master)

Video updates to test

Justin Sherrill — Tue, 17 Feb 2015 00:50:27 +0000

Do you have a DragonFly system with a Radeon or i915 video card? There’s updates for the drivers associated with either; you can help out and test them.

i915 improvements to test

Justin Sherrill — Mon, 26 Jan 2015 21:58:43 +0000

Francois Tigeot has updated the drm/i915 code again, matching Linux 3.10 for feature level… but it’s a big update. If you are

Running DragonFly-master
Using a i915 chipset
(optional) On a chipset that is not Haswell or Ivy Bridge

… He could use your testing and feedback.