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NewsVac: News from around the Web
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Dragonfly BSD 2.0 released
2 weeks, 3 days ago
The Dragonfly BSD 2.0 release is available. The big change would appear to be the HAMMER filesystem, which supports snapshots, no-fsck crash recovery, mirroring, and more. -
Writing a kernel module for FreeBSD
2 months, 1 week ago
FreeBSD 7.0 has already been released. If you are a real hacker, the best way to jump in and learn it is hacking together an introductory kernel module. In this article I’ll implement a very basic module that prints a message when it is loaded, and another when it is unloaded. I’ll also cover the mechanics of compiling our module using standard tools and rebuilding the stock FreeBSD kernel. Let’s do it! -
The 25 Year Old BSD Bug
2 months, 3 weeks ago
1983. The year of the IBM PC XT, the Apple Lisa, Pioneer 10 leaving the solar system, and Hooters opening up shop in Florida. It's also the birthyear of a 25 year old BSD bug, squashed only a few days ago. -
I like my bazaar!
3 months ago
In his article "Why the Linux world should embrace the BSD's", Steve Lake proposed a closer cooperation between Linux and BSD. Although I have the utmost respect for BSD and what its developers have accomplished, I don't see what good it would do. I think his reasoning is flawed and the arguments he uses are - at least partially - invalid. -
What's New in OpenBSD 4.3
3 months ago
The OpenBSD project announced the new release, OpenBSD 4.3, on May 1st. As usual there are a lot of improvements and new tools and features, and it sounds amazing that they keep delivering these results with a six month release cycle. Federico Biancuzzi interviewed a large group of developers to talk about the new networking tools (snmpd and snmpctl), the new features and scope of relayd (previously known as hoststated), how the configuration of carp was simplified, improvements in wireless drivers, storage limits and speed-ups, SMP support in sparc64, bug fixes and audits for some tricky coding practices, and much more! -
CrossOver for BSD systems coming soon!
3 months ago
Today a discussion started about the availability of CrossOver for BSD systems on the CodeWeavers mailing list. Today a discussion started about the availability of CrossOver for BSD systems on the CodeWeavers mailing list... And most of last month I was away on vacation and somehow missed a post made by Jeremy White the founder and CEO of Codeweavers announcing the availability of CrossOver Games for BSD systems. Jeremy also let it be known that CrossOver Office 7 will be supported on BSD systems as well! Below is a quote of Jeremy's announce to the mailing list. -
Why the Linux world should embrace the BSDs
3 months ago
"There are some in this world who believe that Linux is the king of all operating systems. In some ways I agree with them because Linux certainly is a big player in the server world..." -
Puffy and the Cryptonauts: what's new in OpenBSD 4.3
3 months ago
"As usual there are a lot of improvements and new tools and features, and it sounds amazing that they keep delivering these results with a six month release cycle .... " -
Prominent FreeBSD developer arrested over bizarre revenge scheme
3 months, 2 weeks ago
From the San Francisco Chronicle article: "Software engineer Kip Macy, 33, and real estate agent Nicole Macy, 32, who have addresses in Sausalito and Incline Village, Nev., were arrested Tuesday and charged with felony stalking, felony residential burglary, conspiracy and other counts in the bizarre case of apparent landlord rage. They posted bail after their arrest and could not be reached for comment Wednesday." -
PC-BSD 1.5.1 Screenshots
3 months, 2 weeks ago
We take a look at the latest version of PC-BSD which is geared towards home users as an alternative to Linux. It is based on FreeBSD 6 and uses KDE 3.5 as its desktop environment. -
Network Configuration—Tunneling with Free BSD
3 months, 3 weeks ago
When talking about tunneling, different definitions come to people's minds. Basically, tunneling is transmitting data that is encapsulated into a pipe, over a public network (for example, the Internet). However, there are different methods to tunnel data over a public network for different approaches. For example, when security is a concern, tunnel protocols with cryptography are more favorable. But when performance has higher priority, protocols with lower packet overheads will be chosen. FreeBSD 7 has a built-in support for a number of important tunneling protocols, although there are also many third-party applications in FreeBSD packages that support more tunneling protocols. -
The NetBSD project celebrates its fifteenth anniversary
4 months, 2 weeks ago
This week marks the fifteenth anniversary of the beginning of development of the NetBSD Operating System, one of the oldest actively maintained, freely-available operating systems. NetBSD runs on everything from embedded systems to desktop workstations, from handhelds to big-iron servers, and is developed by the NetBSD Project - http://www.NetBSD.org/ - one of the first Open Source projects. -
More interviews about packaging systems
4 months, 3 weeks ago
NetBSD.org presently features a second article with interviews about pkgsrc and other interesting packaging systems. The current issue provides more talks with developers and users of pkgsrc, alternative concepts and different systems (mports, GoboLinux and Zero Install) are represented as well: -
Review of FreeBSD 7
5 months ago
The next major update of FreeBSD 7, due this December, is in the running to be one of the most impressive FreeBSD releases to date. The ULE scheduler has now reached maturity, leading to significant gains across the board (particularly in server workloads). This new scheduler brings notably impressive performance improvements to both MySQL and PostgreSQL. -
Faster Performance, Fewer Machines For FreeBSD?
5 months, 1 week ago
The need for speed in operating systems is never-ending. In the newly released FreeBSD 7.0, speed is a key improvement with gains of up to 1,500 percent at high load utilization over its predecessors in the FreeBSD 6.x branch. - More News
Linux.com : BSD
Setting up LAMP on FreeBSD
By Martin Münch on July 31, 2008 (9:00:00 AM)
Setting up a LAMP server is a common task for systems administrators, and FreeBSD is one of the most reliable and stable operating systems available. You can swap out the L in LAMP with F for FreeBSD to build a fast and reliable Web server.
Interview with organizers of the BSD certification exam
By Federico Biancuzzi on March 25, 2008 (6:00:00 PM)
The BSD Certification Group, (BSDCG) held its first in-person BSDA certification exam session for systems administrators during SCALE last month in Los Angeles. Subsequent tests were then held held during FOSDEM in Brussels, Belgium, and Linux-Tage Chemnitzer in Chemnitz, Germany. During the events, we were able to catch up with several people involved in the testing. Here's what they had to say about the exam development process, the events themselves, and reasons for becoming certified.
OpenBSD Foundation opens its doors
By Shirl Kennedy on July 26, 2007 (8:00:00 PM)
Yesterday the OpenBSD Foundation debuted as a Canadian nonprofit organization intended to serve as "a single point of contact for persons and organizations requiring a legal entity to deal with when they wish to support OpenBSD in any way."
New PC-BSD 1.4 beta includes enhanced desktop eye candy
By Shirl Kennedy on July 23, 2007 (6:50:06 PM)
The new PC-BSD 1.4 beta, released last week, offers 3-D desktop support via Beryl as well as late-model components such as KDE 3.5.7, FreeBSD 6.2, Xorg 7.2, a selection of fresh GUI tools and utilities, and a variety of optional components, as detailed in the full release notes.
BSD goes live with FreeSBIE 2.0
By Mayank Sharma on January 26, 2007 (8:00:00 AM)
Last year the Italian FreeBSD user group, GUFI, rekindled the FreeSBIE project to develop a live CD based on the FreeBSD operating system. After more than four months of development, and an equal number of beta releases, the project released FreesBIE 2.0 this month. Codenamed Clint Eastwood, the live CD is based on the recent FreeBSD 6.2 release, and is an ideal platform to experience BSD and learn how things are done in BSD land.
Why iXsystems bought PC-BSD
By Mayank Sharma on October 13, 2006 (8:00:00 AM)
PC-BSD is a desktop-oriented distribution that masks the stability of the FreeBSD kernel behind an easy-to-use package. Its graphical system installer and point-and-click PBI package management system have been drawing in users who've never tried a BSD-based operating system before. This week the project was acquired by iXsystems, a high-end enterprise hardware solution provider. While the community is expressing skepticism of the move, the developers of PC-BSD and iXsystems both say that this partnership can only take the distribution forward.
DesktopBSD 1.0: FreeBSD for the desktop
By Stefan Vrabie on September 11, 2006 (8:00:00 AM)
DesktopBSD is version of FreeBSD customized for the desktop. Building upon FreeBSD 5.5-PRERELEASE, DesktopBSD 1.0 comes packed with desktop-oriented features such as KDE 3.5.1 and the DesktopBSD Tools, which include a graphical interface to the FreeBSD ports system.
Installing OpenBSD on VMware Server
By Manolis Tzanidakis on September 07, 2006 (8:00:00 AM)
Many people collect things as a hobby. I collect computers. Over the years, as my collection grew, my living room began to look like a data center. As soon as VMware Server became freely (as in beer) available I knew I had to migrate my servers and development boxes to virtual machines (VM). The problem is that most of my servers run OpenBSD, which is not officially supported by VMware. Out of the box, VMware can't properly shut down OpenBSD VMs; it just powers VMs off, causing data corruption. With a little bit of hacking, I managed to eliminate this issue. Here's how you can install OpenBSD as a guest OS under VMware Server, and possibly other VMware products.
PC-BSD works for community center
By Henry Gillow-Wiles on July 03, 2006 (8:00:00 AM)
As the IT director for a non-profit community center, I face several challenges, the most pressing being the lack of money. This means our lab is filled with donated older equipment with limited capabilities. Given this state of affairs, I am always on the lookout for free, easy-to-use open source software. I chose PC-BSD as our standard operating system because of its exemplary performance on older equipment.
My desktop OS: FreeBSD 6.0-STABLE
By Vaida Bogdan on April 25, 2006 (8:00:00 AM)
I've been using FreeBSD since I dumped Linux six years ago at a friend's suggestion. I quickly learned to appreciate its intelligent design: a bare /etc where you can find only necessary system files, good use of /usr/local (most Linux distributions leave this empty and concentrate on filling /etc and /usr/*bin instead), an application system called Ports, which contains a set of scripts that download, install, and patch any program found in the /usr/ports directory, and a very good handbook.
Using OpenBSD on the desktop
By Manolis Tzanidakis on April 21, 2006 (8:00:00 AM)
Over the years, OpenBSD has built a reputation for integrated security and reliability, but most people think of it as an operating system suitable only for firewalls and servers. The truth is that OpenBSD also works well as a desktop system; in fact, I use it on an IBM ThinkPad R50e notebook as my main system.
Setting up Linux compatibility on FreeBSD 6
By Gordon McEwen on March 31, 2006 (9:00:00 AM)
As a FreeBSD desktop user I occasionally feel left out when it comes to the availability of applications, particularly desktop applications or binary-only browser plugins produced by commercial closed source vendors. Sometimes a good alternative lurks in the vast FreeBSD ports collection, but not always. The version available may lag a couple of revisions behind what I need, or the port might exclude my particular architecture. Fortunately, FreeBSD can run binaries and shared libraries that have been compiled for Linux and other Unix ABIs (such as SVR4 and SCO).
Interview: Theo de Raadt of OpenBSD
By Manolis Tzanidakis on March 28, 2006 (9:00:00 AM)
Theo de Raadt is the project leader for OpenBSD, a Unix-like operating system. We spoke with Theo about the upcoming release of OpenBSD, 3.9, the financial state of the project, and about companies that profit from free software without contributing back.
Software RAID on OpenBSD using RAIDframe
By Manolis Tzanidakis on March 14, 2006 (8:00:00 AM)
Software RAID provides an easy way to add redundancy or speed up a system without spending lots of money on a RAID adapter. OpenBSD includes support for software RAID using RAIDframe, which was ported from NetBSD, and supports RAID modes 0, 1, 4, 5.
Review: PC-BSD brings BSD to the desktop
By Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier on February 14, 2006 (8:00:00 AM)
The PC-BSD team recently released its second release candidate for 1.0. With the final release rapidly approaching, we thought now would be a good time to take a look at what's coming in PC-BSD, a relatively new BSD distribution based on FreeBSD. It's specifically designed for desktop users, and offers a GUI installer that makes it simple for any user to install.
Review: FreeBSD 6.0
By Mayank Sharma on January 18, 2006 (8:00:00 AM)
For software that's been around since the late '70s, before any of today's more popular operating systems, open source BSDs (in their current avatars) don't get their due share of hard disks. FreeBSD, one of the first BSD flavors to emerge from the 386BSD project, is a Unix-like free operating system based originally on the BSD branch of 386BSD and later 4.4BSD-Lite. This makes BSD's more like traditional Unixes than Linux. Late last year FreeBSD unleashed release 6.0, with better support for 64-bit and wireless hardware. Here's our review.
EuroBSDCon 2005
By Mikael Vingaard on January 06, 2006 (8:00:00 AM)
The EuroBSDCon Conference is the largest BSD event in Europe, attracting more than 220 attendees from 27 different countries. November's 2005 conference, the fourth EuroBSDCon, took place in the University of Basel, Switzerland. Here are some highlights.
FreeSBIE: A FreeBSD live CD
By Mikael Vingaard on June 28, 2005 (8:00:00 AM)
Have you ever wanted to take a look at FreeBSD without having to actually install anything on your hard disk? FreeSBIE, developed by Gruppo Utentia FreeBSD Italia, is a live CD based on the FreeBSD operating system, similar to the Knoppix and Mandriva Move Linux live CDs.
Review: FreeBSD 5.4
By Jem Matzan on May 31, 2005 (8:00:00 AM)
One of the oldest Unix-like operating systems, FreeBSD, continues its advancement with the sixth release in the FreeBSD-5 series. Its developers have added nothing major, but have made many modifications, fixing a number of problems introduced in previous releases. FreeBSD 5.4 is the best release since 5.1, but it still may not be ready for prime time.
Review: OpenBSD 3.7
By Jem Matzan on May 20, 2005 (8:00:00 AM)
The operating system world has been blessed by another regular release of OpenBSD. As usual, the developers have made many enhancements, upgraded ported applications to new versions, and added new software technologies and hardware drivers. OpenBSD is not only highly polished and easy to configure because of its documentation, it's also totally free-as-in-rights. With an obsession with security, freedom of source code, and quality of programming technique, OpenBSD 3.7 continues the legacy established by its previous releases.
