November’s PDF issue of BSD Magazine is out, with a number of articles including a hardware review of the Netgear Universal Wifi Adapter. We need more BSD-centric device testing.
On the 10th of November, I’m going to remove the binary pkgsrc packages from mirror-master.dragonflybsd.org for DragonFly 2.8 through 2.11. They are closing in on 2 years old at this point, and are from a pkgsrc branch that hasn’t been updated for that long.
If you are actually using version of DragonFly that old, you can continue building from pkgsrc normally; these are just prebuilt packages.
Today is the day that FreeBSD moves to using clang by default. This is not necessarily a surprise, but I like the finality of calling it “Clang-Day”. I think Clang will probably be the next compiler brought into DragonFly’s base system, instead of the next release of gcc. Don’t make any bets on my statement, though, cause I certainly won’t be the one doing it. (It’s hard.)
I’m glad 3.2 is out the door. I think I spent more time on release notes and watching package builds than any other release.
- This in-browser recreation of an Apple ][+ is a trip down nostalgia lane. (via)
- HappyEdit, “Vim-based” text editor. It’s actually an IndieGoGo project. (via)
- A physics paper with a description of a non-Euclidean universe, which happens to mention Cthulu. (via)
- NetBSD now supports these 100-core Tile-GX processors; I didn’t know such hardware existed. (Thanks, Tomas Bodzar)
- Active vs. Passive Benchmarking. (Tomas again.)
- The Search for the Ultimate Engineer’s Pen. I like looking at some of the pen models mentioned. The best way to find the “ultimate” pen, that nobody mentioned: go into a good art store and ask to sample a few pens. Bring the type of paper you normally use. Pens are usually out loose, and having it in your hand is the best way to tell. If there’s a college near you with a good technical art program, check the campus store. Why, yes, I did base that example on direct experience.
- The evolution of the computer keyboard. The descriptions of the various mechanisms are neat to hear about. It of course repeats the Dvorak story. (via)
- All the back issues of science fiction magazine Omni, online and free.
Your unrelated link of the day: Sir, You Are Being Hunted. I link to the Kickstarter for this game for no other reason than I think it would be fun to play.
Every year, the Chaos Communication Congress tends to gather at least a few DragonFly-using people, and this year is no different. The event is being held in a much larger arena this year, in Hamburg, Germany, so there’s a good chance a DragonFly ‘assembly‘ could be held. Speak up on the users@ mailing list, or EFNet #dragonflybsd, if you’re going too. It’s happening on the last few days of this year, December 27th through 31st.
I’ve written a release email that includes the steps for updating from source and updating pkgsrc for existing installs. This release enjoys better performance and new packages, so go, enjoy.
There was one more file to change for the bmake import, so if you are running DragonFly 3.3 and updated between the 28th and 30th of October, do a full rebuild.
Peter Avalos has updated OpenSSH in DragonFly to 6.1p1. This looks to be a bugfix release, but check the changelog for details.
I mentioned this before in the Lazy Reading from last Sunday, but it’s worth a second look: Apple’s new Fusion Drive product appears to be very much like DragonFly’s swapcache. DragonFly doesn’t have exclusive right to the idea of caching on a faster disk, clearly, so I’m not complaining that it’s “ours”. It’s frustrating to see product announcement/press releases stumbling all over this like it’s a new thing.
Then again, having new ideas about technology ideas and making sure they spread is one of the points of the BSD license, so perhaps there’s no good reason to complain at all.
(Before anyone reads too much into this: No, I don’t know of any direct relationship between swapcache and Fusion Drive; they may have no common background other than structure.)
I lost Internet access because of Hurricane Sandy, and couldn’t get my machine to recover until I power cycled. I think it’s because my external IP changed, and pf doesn’t seem to handle that well for NAT or just in general. The recommended fix, putting the interface name in parentheses, doesn’t seem to work. Anyone have advice?
John Marino’s committed bmake as the replacement to make, as mentioned previously. You should probably do a full buildworld/kernel sequence. This of course only affects you if you are on DragonFly 3.3.
Life is busy, busy, busy. But there’s always time for Lazy Reading!
- Sometimes Google searches turn up DragonFly BSD in odd places.
- Wayland reached 1.0. That’s great, except it isn’t ready for use yet, it’s just feature-stable. I’d argue that means it’s ‘beta’, not 1.0, but there’s no hard and fast rules about that. In any case, does it run on any BSD? I don’t think so.
- OpenSSH server best practices. Nothing too groundbreaking, but they include “BSD” (i.e. pf) examples. I always like articles that don’t assume Linux is the only platform. (via)
- The little SSH that (sometimes) couldn’t. A heck of a network debugging exercise. (via mat in #dragonflybsd)
- The AN/FSQ7, a computer I’m sure I’ve seen in movies a number of times. (via)
- Here’s the OpenBSD slides from EuroBSDCon 2012.
- Oh look, Apple’s got “Fusion Drive“. The cool people call it swapcache and have been using it for years, so there.
- Here’s an essay that starts out talking about Quantum Computing and moves into the ambivalence that quantum computing seems to entail instead of just noting the general scientific description and leaving it there. It’s really quite enjoyable.
- Hey, maybe this is why Facebook reported earnings are up: they’re holding your own data hostage. (via)
- Rob Pike on The Setup. He makes a very good point about how we should access computers. Also, here’s a recent, long slide show he put together about Go. It describes solving some language problems that have been around a long time. (via)
- I was halfway through reading that last slide show link and realized there’s no way I can explain how it was an worthwhile read to someone who hadn’t done some programming. No link or conclusion, just an observation of how esoteric this is. I hope you enjoy it.
- Essential Vim and Vi Skills has hit a 3rd edition. I have this as a Kindle edition, and I’m not sure how that happened.
- Zork in Duplicity, or a bizarre finding of old UNIX history in a completely unrelated place. (via)
- These OpenBSD thin clients are a neat idea.
Your unrelated link of the week: Delilah Dirk. It’s a comic, and the story available to read online is about a tea merchant, which makes it exactly right.
Matthew Dillon’s put more of his Hammer work into DragonFly, with notable parts being the creation of a ‘dmsg’ setup for advertising available block devices to share between machines using Hammer. To anticipate your next question: No, it’s not something you can run right now as a test; this is the underlying framework.
The kernel in DragonFly is now SMP by default. The “SMP” option in the kernel config is no longer needed, so it’s been turned into a no-op. You don’t have to update your custom kernel config… yet.
A thread on pkgsrc-users@ reminds me: adding a specific line for bin-install will save time when rebuilding packages; pkgsrc will use existing binary packages instead of rebuilding from source when possible, when this is set. At least, I’m pretty sure that’s what it does.
The pkgsrc packages for DragonFly 3.2 are still building… I’ve tagged the release, so it will be ready as soon as the packages are ready.
Sandip Jadhav asked if anyone was working on an I/O scheduler. Chris Turner replied with a “no”, but also with a list of places to look for details on writing one, which I’m linking here for posterity.
John Marino is working on a very good idea: bringing bmake into DragonFly as a replacement for the current ‘make’. bmake is going through more active development and apparently also in use/will be used? on FreeBSD, so syncing up with the same make flavor as FreeBSD and NetBSD will help everyone. It’ll also remove the problem where you ‘make’ everything in DragonFly, except pkgsrc packages which you ‘bmake’. It’s not changed over yet.
(What does OpenBSD use for make?)
I had some interesting home network troubleshooting over the past week…
- What’s the “scroll lock” key on my computer for? The article almost identifies it: it’s to allow scrolling up in the hardware terminal, if you’re on BSD. Or for changing how navigation via arrow keys works in Excel, on Windows, as I’ve had to show to people a few times. (via)
- “systemd requires HTTP server and serves QR codes” – not really, but it’s a long discussion of just what balance to strike between minimal and excessive for an operating system. Also, it’s Linux, so it’s messy. (via ftigeot on #dragonflybsd)
- Why I Two-Space. I thought this would be about two-space tabs, but it’s about something I care about more: space after the period at the end of the sentence. (via)
- Simplify Your Life with a ssh config file. I keep meaning to do some of these things. (via)
- 9 Enhancements to Shell and Vim Productivity. The last one, about keeping your config files in a git repo, is a good one. Read the comments for some exceptional ideas. (via)
- Huh. 42 really is the answer. (via)
- CSRG‘s SCCS history brought to svn. I like that old code can be revivified, so to speak. (via)
- Commanding Your Text Editor. Text editor tips in a ecumenical style. More specifically, Textmate, Vim, and Emacs tips side by side. (via)
- An Introduction to Graphviz via R. Kelly’s “Trapped in the Closet” Hip Hopera. That… is one of the odder tutorials I’ve ever read. (via)
Your unrelated link of the week: Terrorism as Art. An extended profile of Survival Research Laboratories at The Verge. Even if you don’t like the content, the focus of the artist is remarkable.