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.

Oggi mi è venuta voglia di promuovere NetBSD dal muletto al laptop.
La mancanza di tempo un po' mi frega (oggi più la voglia in realtà)

Ale ❤️ NetBSD
(puro amore dalla 1.6 🤣)

#netbsd #pkgsrc #passioneestiva

@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.

@bpl

Never heard of xbatt, will need to check it out. I usually use xbattbar but what you have looks nice.

And yes, you can do a lot on #NetBSD with little memory. I have 2 long running analysis background processed on a #NetBSD i386 system w/2G memory. It does not interfere with my normal usages when I am on that machine.

FWIW, I think the desktop looks nice, ctwm does a lot with the small amount of memory it needs.

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

What has (can) the EU Cyber Resilience Act done (do) for you?
also at https://bsdly.blogspot.com/2026/06/what-has-can-eu-cyber-resilience-act.html (with trackers)
TL;DR: It's *not* the end of Free and Open Source software (or the world as we know it). It's time to engineer up!
#CRA #cyberresilience #resilience #cybersecurity #eu #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #engineerup #development #softwareenginering

What has (can) the EU Cyber Resilience Act done (do) for you?
https://nxdomain.no/~peter/what_hascan_eu_cra_donedo_for_you.html
TL;DR: It's *not* the end of Free and Open Source software (or the world as we know it). It's time to engineer up!
#CRA #cyberresilience #resilience #cybersecurity #eu #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #engineerup #development #softwareenginering

@DianeBruce Sounds like a good project for GSoC 2027 on @netbsd #NetBSD

@stsp Reminds me of 'random' panics when trying to install #NetBSD acorn32 last year. It turns out that the beep device, spkr(4), panicked the kernel when used and I was a bad enough typist that I was triggering it.

@jbz

I think #linux was already heading in that direction, but I guess with #ai it will speed it up. From my perspective #linux is owned by large corporations and regular users are a very low priority.

There is always #NetBSD :) I am on 11.0 RC5 on a #T430 and it is working great, granted you have to pay attention to the hardware you use/find/but. Plus #NetBSD seems to be dedicated to keeping old hardware out of landfills.

#opensource #cybersecurity #retrocomputing #retrogaming

@oclsc

Arch has #OpenBSD #nc twice in the AUR. One package applies all of the Debian patches. One does not.

But they won't have noticed this difference, since they added these to the AUR around the time that Debian stopped patching the if test.

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/openbsd-netcat-tls

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/openbsd-netcat-git

#NetBSD, #FreeBSD, and #DragonFlyBSD all use the Jackson netcat.c with the if statement as in the original, so their ncs will all do this too.

https://gitweb.dragonflybsd.org/?p=dragonfly.git;a=blob;f=crypto/libressl/apps/nc/netcat.c;hb=HEAD#l718

@cks
#netcat

Silly question of the #NetBSD folk… I know some of the BSD kernels (notably #FreeBSD, and once upon a time, #OpenBSD) were capable of Linux syscall emulation, meaning they could run Linux applications.

Is this still the case, and if so, does it extend to containerisation like #Docker? Platforms of interest would be `x86-64` and `aarch64`.

https://kb.shells.com/tutorials/NetBSD/Docker/ seems to suggest it was at least at one point, a thing, but the link to the Docker download site is a 404.

#NetBSD 11.0 RC5 is released! Hopefully this means the actual release isn’t too far off!

https://www.netbsd.org/releases/formal-11/NetBSD-11.0.html

Live Stream of the NetBSD dev summit at BSDcan 2026, day 1

https://www.youtube.com/live/GLBcjfTXpJA

#NetBSD #bsdcan

#NetBSD booting on the ACube Systems Sam460ex!

https://dmesgd.nycbug.org/dmesgd?do=view&id=9016

#powerpc

@bpl

I'll look into it, thanks.

I don't care so much about the janky third-party external battery, but I'd like to keep the original internal battery in good condition. If it doesn't look like I can do that with NetBSD, I might go to OpenBSD instead.

I still want to try and #NetBSD on some hardware though.

Preparing a patch NetBSD userland tools to accept long options if, and only if, preceded by an emdash. If we're going to do it, we do it properly.

#NetBSD

Final week for submitting to #eurobsdcon 2026!

https://2026.eurobsdcon.org/cfp/

Submit by June 20th, come to Brussels September 9-13 and mingle with #BSD people!

We also offer pre-submission guidance/mentoring, see the CFP text.

Wonder what BSD and the conferences are about? See https://nxdomain.no/~peter/what_is_bsd_come_to_a_conference_to_find_out.html

@EuroBSDCon #freebsd #netbsd #openbsd #freesoftware #libresoftware #brussels #bruxelles

I brought the RasPi 1 running #NetBSD 11 along to mess with while catsitting, but I forgot to switch it back to accepting network config via DHCP, and though I can ping it across a direct connection, sshd doesn't start accepting connections. and there isn't a spare display here I can use to debug it.

not a huge deal, I'll just bike back to my usual house in a couple days and fix it there, but I wonder what its problem is. lack of DNS? lack of the gateway it's expecting?

@governa

"Nuanced" debate over LLM bug discovery aside, this just makes it feel like even more of a good time to try #NetBSD, to me.

@nixCraft

No hate towards my BTW brethren, but this is why I bounced from CachyOS to #Devuan on my laptop last night.

Planning on switching this laptop from #FreeBSD to #NetBSD soon.

portability(TM) #netbsd #pkgsrc #tigersrc

* alix3d3 (i586) - it finds out what uses SSE2 when it shouldn't
* er4 (evbmips64n64eb) - it finds out when things hardcode a list of supported archs
* mac mini (powerpc; usually runs darwin) - it finds out when things don't specify a c/c++ lang std
* olimex a64 (aarch64) - it finds out when the arm drivers get too piney.
* banana pi (earmv7hfeb) - ugh.
* blade 150 (sparc64, bottom) - it finds out EVERYTHING.

100% not running 24/7.

Alt...

some smaller computers that run netbsd piled on top of a larger one that runs netbsd. see post body for descriptions of computers in this image.

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@WastelandWandrr I recently installed #NetBSD onto my laptop just for the experience. Also, for fun. Because if it isn’t fun, why bother. Loving it so far.