DragonFly BSD Digest – Page 168 – A running description of activity related to DragonFly BSD.

2014/03/082014/03/08

In Other BSDs for 2014/03/08

Links everywhere this week!

ZFS 101. This might be the same material presented at NYCBSDCon; I’m not sure.
Installing FreeBSD 10 to ZFS with a script.
The DiscoverBSD summary for 2014/03/03.
PC-BSD Weekly Digest 20.
Theo De Raadt questions for a Slashdot interview.
OpenSMTPD 5.4.2 is released.
Introduction to FreeNAS development.
GhostBSD activity. (via)
FreeNAS is now 64-bit only. (via)
OpenBSD package building on larger machines.
pkgsrcCon 2014 is happening June 21-22 in London, UK.
The schedule for BSDCan 2014 is out.
Merkletrees. Don’t know what it’s for; just like the name.
NetBSD has a versioning system called ‘bikeshed’. It appears to mostly be plans at this point.
OpenBSD has added qlw(4), a driver for QLogic ISP SCSI HBAs.
Apparently some quirks from decades ago still survive.
Random is more random on BSD than on Linux. (see last paragraph) (via)
If you keep an emergency towel, you may get this joke.

2014/03/072014/03/08

Backing up Hammer to non-Hammer volumes

Hammer’s ability to stream to remote disks is great, but what if you have storage that uses some other file system? Antonio Huete Jimenez put together a shell script that will dump out the contents of a Hammer PFS, for upload to whatever. Read the README for the details.

2014/03/07

Note for docbook and upgrading

If you are upgrading packages on your DragonFly 3.6 system, and you have docbook installed, there’s an extra step needed because of the moving around of several docbook packages. If you don’t have docbook installed – nothing to see here.

2014/03/07

BSDNow vs. BSDTalk

Episode 27 of BSDNow is an interview with Will Backman of BSDTalk. It is unfortunately a straight-ahead interview, and not an Epic Rap Battle.

2014/03/06

Open source classes at RIT

Normally I’d save this for Lazy Reading, but I’m indirectly involved: the Rochester Institute of Technology now has a minor in Open Source and Free Culture. Here’s the press release. I taught one of the precursor classes, Humanitarian Free/Open Source Development (essentially open source development methods) last spring. Steve Jacobs was my advisor years ago and Remy Decausemaker was my (best) student from the HFOSS class. In any case, the courses are definitely worth it. (via)

2014/03/05

Summer of Code 2014 followup

I followed up with Google on why DragonFly isn’t in Summer of Code this year. It is exactly as I suspected: they want to get new organizations in. DragonFly’s been doing it for 6 years, so they are picking new orgs over returning ones. This is apparently the same reason NetBSD isn’t in this year, either.

(Honestly, I can use the break.)

2014/03/05

arcmsr(4) update

Sascha Wildner has updated arcmsr(4), which brings in support for the Areca ARC1214, ARC1224, ARC1264, ARC1284, and ARC1883 models, from FreeBSD. Please test if you have the appropriate hardware.

2014/03/04

Bugs site now supports OpenID

bugs.dragonflybsd.org, the bug reporting site for DragonFly, uses Redmine. It’s been updated and now can take OpenID for your login.

2014/03/04

coretemp available on DragonFly by default

Coretemp is now in the default kernel configs for DragonFly, so you can use coretemp to see your Intel CPU temperature.

2014/03/032014/03/01

BSD Magazine for 02/2014

BSD Magazine for February is out. I’m a bit late posting this since it’s now March; I assume it’s been out for a while. (via)

2014/03/032014/03/02

For Intel graphics users who can’t find a monitor

If you’re using the i915 driver for xorg, and xorg dies with a “No monitor specified for screen” error, there’s a config change to fix that, or you can just update.

2014/03/022014/03/02

Lazy Reading for 2014/03/02

A public service announcement: Check your backup power systems when the weather is bad. It has been so cold that the always-running heater blocks cooked away the coolant in my workplace’s backup generator in between the weekly inspections, and when the power died a few days ago, the generator failed to start. This led to the paradoxical sensor warning: “High coolant temperature” when the outside temperature was below freezing.

Scott Hanselman wrote “Microsoft killed my Pappy“, where he attributes dislike to Microsoft to being old anger from antitrust suits, etc. Those were more the outcome of frustration over Microsoft quality, as I recall. Microsoft is doing some things right nowadays – generally using open source techniques and sorta working with standards – but then again, so are all the other large tech silos.
Those who do not know jails are doomed to reinvent them. That’s my description of these container/docker/etc ideas floating around Linux. Yes, I know I’m oversimplifying. (via)
speaking.io, about public speaking. Posted mostly for my own future edification. (via)
UNIX: Making better use of the find command.
More history on stpcpy(3) than you ever knew.
Unix: How to get along with your coworkers.
James Iry’s History of Programming Languages. Some the jokes aren’t exactly new, but it made me laugh. (via #dragonflybsd)
The End of Facebook. I know I should have the Digest on Facebook, but I’m not sure how much of an audience I’d be able to reach without paying to play. (via)
I Still Don’t Want to Be Part of Your Fucking Ecosystem. I find the lack of adherence to standards – or even agreement on common formats – very frustrating. (via)
Twitch Plays Pokemon, the explanation.
A brief history of one-line fixes. Written in honor of Apple’s recent blunder. The conclusion is good, too.

Your unrelated link of the week: Muppets, NYC, and tea. I know it’s an ad, but it fits my interests perfectly.

2014/03/012014/02/28

In Other BSDs for 2014/03/01

Another week where I barely need to look up source code commits.

PC-BSD Weekly Digest 18 and Digest 19.
OpenBSD’s signify tool has been backported to OpenBSD versions < 5.5.
Video of an OpenBSD install.
xorg, unprivileged on OpenBSD. (via)
This is a good idea: FreeBSD 10’s release.sh mapped out.
bcrypt() updates in OpenBSD and what it means for you. (also)
iXSystem’s NYCBSDCon 2014 recap. (via nycbug-talk)
A description of those expensive/busy WhatsApp FreeBSD servers. (via)
FreeBSD and Linux, a comparative analysis. (via #nycbug)
NetBSD is bringing in BIND 9.10.0b1. (a beta?)
NetBSD is also in the process of moving from gcc 4.5 to 4.8.
Yes, You Too Can Be An Evil Network Overlord. I still haven’t set up the Netflow system that I want to set up, dangit.
pkg will require libucl. This affects FreeBSD and will affect DragonFly too.
OpenBSD has an experimental USB installer. This may be new to the upcoming release – I don’t know.

2014/02/28

BSDNow 026: Port Authority

Let’s see… 3 digits in the episode number, so they’re planning to make at least 973 more BSD-related pun titles. Anyway, BSDNow’s latest episode has an interview with Joe Marcus Clark, along with more material including this item that I missed, of getting some ancient hardware to run OpenBSD.

2014/02/27

pfi and authorized_keys support

pfi, the automated installer that nobody knows about, now supports installing an authorized_keys file as part of an install. Credit goes to Alex Hornung for adding the functionality.

2014/02/27

ACPICA 20140214 brought in

Sascha Wildner brought in ACPICA 20140214, and his commit message has a list of the updates.

2014/02/25

Spreading DMA

The DragonFly Mail Agent is being suggested as a possible sendmail replacement for FreeBSD.

2014/02/252014/02/24

BSD Events to suggest

I’m helping out at the BSD Events website. If there’s upcoming BSD-linked events, please tell me. Speaking of which: the call for papers for EuroBSDCon 2014 is out, as is the BSDCan 2014 schedule.

2014/02/242014/02/24

BSDNow 025: A Sixth pfSense

I am late posting this: the most recent episode of BSDNow has, along with the regular array of items, an interview of Chris Buechler, of the commercial support company behind pfSense.

2014/02/24

No DragonFly in Summer of Code

DragonFly wasn’t accepted for Summer of Code, which frankly I expected to have happen last year – we’ve been participating every year since 2008. However, FreeBSD and (for the first time) OpenBSD are listed as participating mentoring institutions, so you can still get your BSD/GSoC going.