Great news! My presentation for #EuroBSDCon has been accepted!

Expect a mix of disasters, horror stories, recoveries, BSDs, and one very, very long day.

Stay tuned!

#EuroBSDCon2026 #BSD #RunBSD #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #Linux

So I wanted to share with you this little project of mine. I delved into "retro-necromancy" and reanimated one very old UNIX utility called ile written by Robert Pendleton in 1988. I found it on one of the Walnut Creek source code CDs from 1994.
What it does is simply works like an input line editor (hence ile) for shells and programs that do not support interactive line editing. To put it simply, it adds Emacs-style keybindings like ^A, ^E, ^K, ^U and so on and command history that you can easily navigate.
Of course, these days it's hard to find a shell that doesn't support line editing.
But this little tool can still be usable, for example, with ed. It's nice to have Emacs-style editing in ed.
It can work like shell replacement or just run like a "middleman" between any given program. It respects terminal settings and doesn't get in a way. Keybindings are configurable.
Needless to say, the code from 1988 wouldn't run on any modern system. It was written in K&R style because there was no ANSI C standard yet! And #UNIX was quite a different beast back then.
So I ported it to modern systems, rewrote outdated bits (like sgttyb ioctls and brutal utmp handling).
Currently it builds and runs on #Linux, #OpenBSD, #FreeBSD and #NetBSD. Hopefully without too much bugs.
You can find it on Codeberg:
https://codeberg.org/chesheer/ile

@aaribaud Kudos to reinoud@n.o for his UDF work #NetBSD

✅ Successful gotosocial-0.22.0 (new stable major release) build and package available here https://pepperm.int.eu.org/pkgsrc/packages/All
From now on, this GTS version is stable: further upgrades will only be available from pkgsrc repository and GTS Codeberg repository (no need for me building -rc packages anymore, that's a good thing).

✅ Submitted a package update to pkgsrc-WIP for v0.22.0, with help of wiz it should be good.
One may use pkgin or NetBSD pkg_add tools to upgrade GoToSocial from now on.
Careful about releases notes and configuration or database breaking changes.

Build platform: NetBSD 10.1 amd64 / pkgsrc trunk
Compilation and linker flags aligned with GTS binary release on Codeberg

#pkgsrc #pkgsrc-wip #gotosocial #netbsd #instanceadmin

@nuintari Isn't this some kind of Unix heritage? I see that for packages in my #NetBSD box it is a common thing: all rc scripts installed to somewhere like /usr/pkg/share/examples/… and package installation script suggests to copy them to the /etc/rc.d/ if I want to start them with /etc/rc.conf

I suppose, this is for package reinstallation without removing the rc scripts for them? I have some modifications in some scripts and they aren't lost after package reinstallation.

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#verblog #vernews #news #bsd #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #linux #unix #zfs #opnsense #ghostbsd #solaris #vermadenday

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲/𝟬𝟲/𝟮𝟵 (Valuable News - 2026/06/29) available.

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#verblog #vernews #news #bsd #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #linux #unix #zfs #opnsense #ghostbsd #solaris #vermadenday

@ryoon I will update my #netbsd 10.1 to 11 when we're done with the #RCs

Edit: Soon I hope

✅ Successful gotosocial-0.21.3 (current stable) build and package available here http://pepperm.int.eu.org/pkgsrc/packages/All/

✅ Submitted a package update to pkgsrc-WIP for v0.21.3, with help of wiz it should be good

Build platform: NetBSD 10.1 amd64 / pkgsrc trunk
Compilation and linker flags aligned with GTS binary release on Codeberg

#pkgsrc #pkgsrc-wip #gotosocial #netbsd #instanceadmin

My home server is upgraded to #NetBSD/amd64 11 RC5.

#NetBSD #pkgsrc 2026Q2 is now fully underway.

There’s no easy way to move a kernel from NetBSD to an AmigaOS partition, so I had to xz it, split it, copy it over using MS-DOS disk images using a Gotek with FlashFloppy, then join and xz -d on the Amiga side.

#m68k is really taking off! The virt68k port that @thorpej has made is nothing short of amazing. It can now compile practically anything in a VM with 3 gigs of memory and 4 gigs of swap, faster than a real m68060.

This lets us compile large packages that weren’t previously possible or that required a lot of manual tweaking, like llvm-21.1.8, clang-21.1.8, webkit-gtk-2.36.8nb29.

More to come!

Just made a small donation to The NetBSD Foundation ... as usual it is not much but this is what I can do to help.

Once in a while one can do it there:
https://www.netbsd.org/donations/#how-to-donate

#sponsoring #donate #donation #netbsd #foundation #bsd #thatthinghasbuilttheinternet

@sylvie this one is a tough call! See, the "weakest" machines I've ever ran #NetBSD on were a RPi Model B (the original 2012 one) and a Dell Latitude D620 from 2006.

In both cases, the overall conclusion is that the system is actually incredibly useful - until you try opening a regular web browser. So ditch Firefox - minimalist browsers like #Dillo are your buddy there!

(OK, so the D620 *can* run Firefox in a "barely making it" manner. But even it's super slow even with 2 or 3 tabs. But you have a separate (?) GPU, maybe you'll fare better)

At any rate, yes, I think NetBSD is a great choice to keep that machine alive. Performance is better than Alpine Linux, for example. Just embrace the minimalism and enjoy the ride!

Finally: yes, you can "startx" your way from a fresh install in there as a regular user, so I guess you did get it right.

Kudos to Greg T for fixing whatever was not working with gdal on #NetBSD, so now I can generate geo-referenced (or GeoSpatial) PDFs from #QGIS
The pkgsrc 2026 Q2 has the code; waiting for packages to be built but meanwhile I compiled QGIS locally.

The wrong answer (old issue):
$ gdalinfo --formats | grep -i PDF
PDF -raster,vector- (w+): Geospatial PDF (*.pdf)

The correct answer:
$ gdalinfo --formats | grep -i PDF
PDF -raster,vector- (rw+uvs): Geospatial PDF (*.pdf)

Pics!

Alt...

Geo-PDF of Manhattan with a few points of interest. PDF displaying latitude / longitude in lower right corner (Grand Central Terminal).

Alt...

Viking app with Manhattan in the middle. App displaying latitude / longitude in bottom margin (for Grand Central Terminal)

@gotosocial @netbsd ✅ Successful gotosocial-0.22.0-rc3 build and package available here https://pepperm.int.eu.org/pkgsrc/packages/All/

Build platform: NetBSD 10.1 amd64 / pkgsrc trunk
Compilation and linker flags aligned with GTS binary release on Codeberg

Will submit a package update to pkgsrc-WIP when GTS reaches 0.22.0-GA 😊

#pkgsrc #gotosocial #netbsd #instanceadmin

@netbsd @jmcunx @restorante @ruri @jaypatelani

True. Multiple CPUs can make for challenging maintenance, but then that is #NetBSD's strength "It runs NetBSD". Its just frustrating when you want to build your own code with the latest so that you can address all those warnings and errors gcc is so found of complaining about.

@restorante @ruri @jaypatelani

#NetBSD Cons: keeps using gcc 10 instead of 14+ (pain when trying to install ADA (GNATS); no easy to upgrade the system compiler. Fiights between Curses and NCurses. ...

@restorante @ruri

Bostic's nvi!; small install; support for a huge variety of systems (I had need for a Cobalt box long ago). Its BSD, not SysV (clone); classic rc init; kqueue when I used to play with that stuff. It just easier to install, configure, and use. Odds are if it works on #NetBSD it will work any where (Linux still misses core POSIX.1 stuff). It runs forever without need of an upgrade every few months.

@ruri @restorante Linux emulation on #NetBSD isn't quite what you'd normally think of as emulation. It's more of a shim translation layer with no overhead.

Following on from a recent conversation with @rl_dane about running Joy+Horton #vi in one of its three (sic!) 'open' modes on a paper terminal:

I decided to see whether any modern #termcap or #terminfo database actually had any settings anywhere for switching dot matrix printers between near-letter, draft, and letter quality modes.

#Illumos, #OpenBSD, #Debian, and #NetBSD all use the Dickey terminfo.src. #FreeBSD is the only one maintaining a different database. It is still maintaining the old BSD termcap file, in 2026.

Neither of the databases have sdrfq/snlq/snrmq or ZG/ZL/ZK capabilities in any record.

This stuff exists solely as words on a manual page (and reprints of the same in various books) and a single Usenet post by Oliver Okrongli in 1994. It's not even in the O'Reilly termcap+terminfo book.

We should prune such stuff that apparently has never really existed.

#retrocomputing #Unix

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#verblog #vernews #news #bsd #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #linux #unix #zfs #opnsense #ghostbsd #solaris #vermadenday

https://www.netbsd.org/docs/guide/en/chap-build.html

Apparently it's actually quite straightforward to cross-compile #NetBSD (kernel and userspace) from another OS and/or architecture. Like building aarch64 NetBSD on x86_64 Linux.

@jspath55 That's encouraging. For a while I've heard that the #RaspberryPi 3B+ worked well with #NetBSD but the 4B offers more RAM, USB 3 and faster Ethernet. I may have to invest in one.

Current status: upgrading to #NetBSD 11 RC5 with "sysupgrade auto".