October 2010
49 posts
ral(4) support on the way →
Chris Turner is working on ral(4) support, specifically the eee901′s 2860 network chip.
Return of the JEDI^wGUI! →
The index page of the DragonFly site has been updated by Matt Dillon with some notes regarding the status of the 2.8 release. Among these, it is mentioned that the GUI image will be making a…
Google Code-In project notes →
I’ve coded some tasks on the DragonFly projects page for Google Code-In. (Application is in already.) If there’s any additional DragonFly projects appropriate for 13 to 18-year old students,…
Fix for x86_64 and non-English LANG users →
If you’re using DragonFly x86_64, and set LANG to something other than English, you will get crashes from programs using pkgsrc’s gettext-lib. Francois Tigeot has a fix which is going into pkgsrc,…
Release… soon! →
The 2.8 release hasn’t quite happened yet. But soon!
More quickstart work →
Siju George has been fleshing out his ‘afterboot’ style page, though now it’s “Environment Quick Start“. Good to look at if you are, say, installing a 2.8 DragonFly image.
2.8 release tomorrow! →
DragonFly 2.8 (technically 2.8.1; see here for the .1 changes) is due to be released tomorrow. There should be at almost the same time pkgsrc 2010Q3 packages available. There will also be a…
UP or SMP choices for booting →
DragonFly has shipped with a uniprocessor kernel by default forever. Shipping with a SMP kernel may not work as well for all possible combinations. With some recent changes by Matthew Dillon, both…
BSD Show!: Jon Hixson →
The BSD Show! has a 20-minute interview with John Hixson, known for working on pc-sysinstall. (See also)
Lazy Reading: Cute films, app stores, boom boxes →
Whoops! This should have gone up last night. I’m almost waxing nostalgic for this one.
Two words you never thought you’d see together: “heartwarming” and “single system image computing”. I think
How to run jackd →
Chris Turner posted details of how he gets jack (“a low-latency audio server”) to run on DragonFly. Your mileage may vary.
KMS and GEM work, for cash →
There’s still no support for KMS/GEM on any most BSDs, though there are people interested in it for FreeBSD. One of DragonFly’s Summer of Code projects was just that, though it’s not in a…
Another BSD? →
Scott Ullrich, who has worked on several BSD-related projects, including DragonFly, has something called vCloudBSD, about which you now know as much as me. It looks to be a FreeBSD…
HAPPY CAPS LOCK DAY →
OH CRAP I WAS JUST HOLDING SHIFT. IF YOU HAVE USED THE INTERNET FOR MORE THAN 1 YEAR OF YOUR LIFE, THIS LOOKS LIKE SHOUTING TO YOU. ENJOY CAPS LOCK DAY.
KDE4 patches to try →
Alex Hornung has some patches that allow KDE4 to build on DragonFly. They aren’t in pkgsrc and not all in KDE yet, so try them out directly if you want KDE4, for now.
Update: based on something…
Conventions conventions conventions! →
Hasso Tepper helpfully forwarded announcements for the Call for Papers for both EuroBSDCon 2011 and AsiaBSDCon 2011.
Also, there’s probably going to be DragonFly people at 27C3, and I know…
Google Code-In: maybe →
I’ve applied on behalf of DragonFly for Google Code-In. It’s similar to Google Summer of Code, but focuses on 13-18-year-olds and smaller tasks. It runs over the year-end, and we’ll know if…
Another way to edit dragonflybsd.org →
The dragonflybsd.org website is a wiki (ikiwiki, to be exact) and any page on it can be edited. You have to create an account, first, which only requires picking a username and password.
…
Another DragonFly site →
Pratyush Kshirsagar has put together a website describing his proportional RSS work for DragonFly. He may have more content in the future.
psm(4) update →
Antonio Huete updated psm(4) using code from FreeBSD; I don’t think it’s been committed yet but the patch is available. This will be especially valuable to you if you have a synaptics touchpad;…
uguru for ABIT for us →
Sascha Wildner has added uguru(4), from OpenBSD, to support the microcontroller on ABIT motherboards which report on temperature/fan speed/voltage.
DragonFly 2.8 branched: changelog →
DragonFly 2.8 has been branched, with the release anticipated for the end of this month. I’m building packages right now for it, so we should have binary packages ready at release. A convenient git-summarized changelog exists
Lazy Reading: puzzles, git, old things →
Something for everyone this week.
Via sjg/IRC: The next platforms for DragonFly: Dragon 32 and Dragon 64.
chmod -x chmod: a slideshow of possible solutions. (via) As ‘blinkkin’ pointed out…
More reading →
Venkatesh Srinivas has a large writeup describing just how the memory allocator in DragonFly changed from 2.6 to the upcoming 2.8 version. In all that text, you may notice the cheering statistic…
New starting page →
Siju George found no equivalent of OpenBSD’s ‘afterboot‘ quick-start page in DragonFly, so he went and created it himself. Go, read.
SSHGuard tool →
Found via a random Google search: SSHGuard. It’s not available in pkgsrc, but it’s in other BSD packaging systems, and it lists DragonFly on the site as a possible host. It monitors various…
ACPI and all its parts →
YONETANI Tomokazu wrote out a nice explanation of acpi(4) and the myriad ACPI subsystems which can be enabled or disabled at boot time. If you do have booting problems, it’s usually ACPI, and…
vkernels: now with less disk! →
Rumko came up with some changes for vkernel(7) that, among other things, made it possible to run them diskless; almost like booting a thin workstation.
Passport support →
If you were thinking of buying a Western Digital Passport USB drive, it’s supported on DragonFly, thanks to Dylan Reinhold and Alex Hornung.
OpenSSL and DSO support →
OpenSSL on DragonFly can now dynamically load engines (cryptographic support modules) at runtime, thanks to Peter Avalos.
Slightly less hassle for Linux support →
Something that always got with with Linux binary support was that I couldn’t get the Linux /proc filesystem to automatically mount on boot. I’d end up doing it by hand later, right after I tried to…
New loader, minus bars →
For those using the release version of DragonFly, the new C-based loader in 2.8 will look like this. Well, not exactly. This is from a proposal from Alex Hornung that removes some extra lines,…
BSD Magazines: VPNs and BSD →
The newest issue of BSD Magazine is all about VPNs and BSD. It’s free to read in PDF form.
BSDTalk 200: Kjell Wooding and mg →
The 200th (yay!) episode of BSDTalk has 14 minutes of conversation with Kjell Wooding, talking about mg, a sort of teeny emacs included with OpenBSD.
Updated index and history pages →
The DragonFly website just received a healthy update to the index and history pages. A refresh of the website, although minor, has been long overdue.
Firefox really, finally, actually fixed →
Matt Dillon and Venkatesh Srinivas conspired to fix another nmalloc issue, which should resolve any remaining problems people were having with Firefox, and possibly other applications as well. Due…
Hey, project pages do work →
Here’s something: Pratyush Kshirsagar came along, saw the proportional RSS project idea, and did it. It’s nice to have a completed project just sort of fall out of the sky.
NYCBSDCon 2010: who’s going? →
I’m going. Venkatesh Srinivas is going. Who else is interested? (See the site.)
HEADS UP: ftpd issues →
If you run any flavor of BSD, you should make sure your ftpd is off, as Maathias Schmidt points out based on this recent security advisory.
Installing a vkernel →
I’m linking to this commit message from Matthias Schmidt simply because it has the correct invocation for installing a vkernel, and I know this will come in handy, someday.
Another reminder: update configure files →
When compiling software on DragonFly but outside of pkgsrc, and you have trouble with configure, remember you can always manually pull down new versions. You’re welcome, future me.
Chroot and pkgsrc tips →
Chris Turner wrote some notes about building pkgsrc packages in a chroot, including the handy tip of using
DISPLAY=:0
to run and display a GUI-using app under the chroot.
BSDTalk 199: John Hixson and PC-Sysinstall →
The almost-to-200 expisode of BSDTalk has 14 minutes of conversation with John Hixson about PC-Sysinstall and what it could replace.
Firefox fix found →
If you’re running DragonFly 2.7 and you’ve noticed Firefox crashing on you, Matthew Dillon has some potential fixes. Update/rebuild to see if it helps.
Lazy Reading:books, talks, games, games →
This Lazy Reading post actually has some good lengthy reading in it.
Modern Perl: The Book: (actually a pre-print draft) Even if you don’t know Perl, I’ve always liked the way the author,…
x86_64 testing available →
Matthias Schmidt has set up a x86_64 DragonFly machine at uther.dragonflybsd.org. Anyone wanting to try 64-bit testing can use a vkernel on that machine. Mail him for an account.
How to arrange your vm_map →
Based on a recent project list entry for “changing the vm_map lookup” (currently last item on the page), Venkatesh Srinivas wrote up a bit more information on it, linking to different strategies…
OSBR: Sales →
The October issue of the Open Source Business Resource is out, with Sales as the theme. The very first article talks about something dangerous: turning open-source users into customers.
Open device driver development, anyone? →
Hasso Tepper posted a link to something I had only heard about when it didn’t exist in physical form: the Open Graphics Device v1. It’s possible to get one if you’re going to write support for…
