The emx(4) driver now has support for multiple TX queues, but it’s not on by default. There’s scenarios where multiple queues work out with that hardware, but you have to be sure you are actually in the right setup for that first. Check Sepherosa Ziehau’s commit message for the details.
Sepherosa Ziehau has merged the hardware abstraction layer (HAL) for em(4) and igb(4), along with updating em(4)/emx(4) to version 7.3.4 and igb(4) to version 2.3.7.
It was planned some time ago, but versions of Samba older than 3.5 are now out of pkgsrc, and version 3.5 will hopefully be replaced by 4.0 soon. Ruby 3.0 and 3.1 will also be going soon.
DragonFly didn’t participate this year, but it’s worth looking at the winners of the Google Code-In work for 2012 – there’s two people that were working on NetBSD in there.
John Marino has set gcc 4.7 as the default compiler in DragonFly. This replaces the previous default of gcc 4.4. The 4.4 version is still available, and while you can set NO_GCC44 to keep it from being built, John’s commit message notes that it’s still useful especially for some ports that don’t work with gcc 4.7.
Remember I mentioned FOSDEM a few days ago? The X.Org presentation slides are up, and the mostly-about-BSD “The future of X.org on non-Linux systems” presentation slides are included.
If you have git installed, and you are trying to upgrade it, you may have problems. The scmgit-docs package dependency requires some DocBook files that aren’t always accessible. If you do run into this problem, there’s 3 separate options:
- You can just install scmgit-base and ignore scmgit-docs. The program ‘git’ still runs.
- You can download the prebuilt DocBook files separately.
- You can rebuild some XML-related dependent files and then rebuild without issue.
Hubert Feyrer wrote a review of Ansible 0.9, a management tool for multiple systems, similar to Puppet or maybe Chef. Just after doing that, Ansible 1.0 came out, with support for pkgsrc via pkgin-installed packages. This is the first solution (that I know of) that supports pkgsrc package management for multiple systems.
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.
Sepherosa Ziehau has posted a detailed message showing the speeds he gets with multiple transmission queues, using igb(4). The short version:
Quick summary, the multiple TX queue support gives me: +200Kpps for 2 bidirectional normal IP forwarding (now 4.40Mpps) +160Kpps for 2 bidirectional fast IP forwarding (now 5.23Mpps)
No theme evolved this week, but that’s OK.
- Here’s a good coincidence: I already had a link to post from Ycombinator about the rather scary Ken Thompson compiler hack. Note that the Ycombinator answers are generally, “Nah, this hack is extremely unlikely to happen.” Except Christian Neukirchen happened to note separately that this really happened as recently as 2009, with Delphi.
- This poster doesn’t understand that “removing the license” is not a legitimate use of BSD-licensed code.
- That crazy anti-BSD ranter on phoronix is getting a fan club – just what every troll desires, unfortunately.
- OpenBSD is actually looking at paring down ports, which makes sense when you read why.
- LearnYouAHaskell.com – a free tutorial on the programming language Haskell. It’s entertainingly written. (via EFNet #dragonflybsd)
- Javascript is the new Perl. I can see that. (via)
- Courier Prime, a new version of the ‘traditional’ Courier monospace font. (via) Reading about Courier Prime to the end leads to a mention of Inconsolata as a good ‘coding’ font. Anyone tried it? Sans-serif monospace fonts are the most subtle way you can make your xterm look modern, I think. Update: Thomas Klausner just added courier-prime to pkgsrc, so you can try it now. Inconsolata is already there.
- Who hasn’t thought about doing this with the computers in their house, really?
- “Storyboard was born of my insane desire to consume videos without actually having to watch them.“
- A modem from the 1960s, communicating. I’d like this even if it didn’t work; the box is nice. I remember watching text scroll on screen like that with a 1200-baud unit. (via aggelos on EFNet #dragonflybsd)
- Related to that: The sound of the dialup, pictured. (via)
Your unrelated link of the week: MeTube: August sings Carmen ‘Habanera’. Might be NSFW, probably will make you mildly confused or uncomfortable. Here’s the ‘making of’ video which is all in German, I think. If that’s too much, try a recent Cyriak-animated video. I never thought I’d recommend a Cyriak video as the less disturbing thing to watch.
GCC version 4.7 is already available now in DragonFly 3.2, but it’s not the default compiler. John Marino intends to make it default for the next release. What’s that mean for us? Nothing other than a new compiler, since he’s already fixing related issues.
The Phoronix benchmark has been pretty Linux-specific over recent history. However, whatever your feelings about benchmarks in general, it looks like there’s a distinct effort to improve BSD support.
FOSDEM is happening this weekend in Brussels, Belgium. Among the other talks there, OpenBSD developer Matthieu Herrb will be talking about X.org on non-Linux systems. That’s I think meaning “BSD”. (via)
Michael W. Lucas is working on a DNSSEC book that he’s self-publishing, similar to SSH Mastery. He’s making an early draft available for purchase, at a discount. You get access to the updates, so you effectively get the book for less, plus you can offer feedback before the publishing date.
This is a familiar concept for software, where early purchasers get access to a ‘beta’ version of software for testing… It’ll be interesting to see how it works for a book.
Will Backman has a new BSDTalk episode up, with a bit of Peter Salus from BSDCan 2011 and a bit of Raspberry Pi on FreeBSD.
We need more fiddling-with-BSD-on-hardware stuff out there. That would be a good thing for Youtube – hint, hint.
Markus Pfeiffer reports success using Xen HVM to run DragonFly, which may be useful for any of you Xen users. He reports not being able to use more than 2 virtual CPUs, though Scott Tincman reports successfully using 4 (with qemu), so your mileage may vary.
Updated: noting qemu usage as Markus pointed out in comments.
Here’s an unsolicited testimonial for a BSD-based company. My employer recently bought some of the assets of another company, in another state. I showed up not sure exactly what I’d encounter, since the facility had never had anything better than out-of-state IT support via phone, and there had been very little time to plan.
The facility had 3 different network gateway devices from varying manufacturers, all old, and mostly dead. The one working ancient Linksys small business gateway wasn’t physically able to work the way I wanted for extending our corporate network. So, in a mild panic, I grabbed one of the defunct machines there and installed pfSense – a FreeBSD-based firewall/gateway solution, for those who aren’t familiar with it. This is not unlike Michael W. Lucas’s BSD Origin Story.
It worked wonderfully. It was very easy to configure. I had exactly one problem: certain protocols like RDP would drop every few minutes. I bought the basic support tier for pfSense – and had a working answer immediately. Even with the support purchase, this has been cheaper and less work than purchasing the Cisco equipment my workplace normally uses.
Whee!
- This is a good thing.
- This is a (description of) a bad thing. (via)
- Linux is becoming the opposite of UNIX. (via makx on EFNet #dragonflybsd)
- Found via the previous article: “It’s a UNIX system. I know this.“
- Arch/FreeBSD. This mixing is still weird. Don’t take this stuff seriously, yet. (via)
- Gygax Magazine, a reinvention of gaming magazines that no longer exist. It’ll apparently include What’s New with Phil and Dixie, from the original Dragon magazine.
- What does the middle initial “B” stand for in “Benoit B. Mandlebrot”? Benoit B. Mandelbrot.
- So that’s where Markov chains came from.
- The first computer image of a person, and of course it’s porn. (via)
- Hey, that’s my haiku!
Your unrelated comics link of the week: Kyle Baker comics, available as PDFs for free. Go, read.
If you’ve been feeling the need for reading about filesystems, Daniel Phillips has posted more notes about his Tux3 filesystem design, which can be contrasted with HAMMER. (thanks, Venkatesh Srinivas)