I've been reading an interesting article by Liguo Yu et. al., "Maintainability of the kernels of open-source operating systems: A comparison of Linux with FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD" (DOI: 10.1016/j.jss.2005.08.014). Keep in mind, the article is from 2005 (published in 2006), so it would be interesting to know how things have changed since then. We are talking here about #Linux 2,4,20, #FreeBSD 5.1, #NetBSD 1.6 and #OpenBSD 3.3.
The article basically explores maintainability of said OSes judging mainly by usage of global variables.
Here's some interesting takeouts.
"Unsafe definition" is in their terms a usage of global variables between kernel modules and non-kernel modules.

Alt...

Two graphs showing number of global variables and unsafe definitions in Linux and three BSDs. Linux has significantly more of both.

This is interesting: rsync pulls bash, why does it need it? I haven't noticed that, although maybe rsync has always done that. 🤣 #netbsd

Alt...

pkgin in rsync calculating dependencies...done. 6 packages to install: bash-5.2.37 lz4-1.10.0 popt-1.19 rsync-3.4.1 xxhash-0.8.3 zstd-1.5.7

Better the *daemon* you know than the *daemon* you don't

#runbsd #netbsd #freebsd #openbsd

#FreeBSD - I had to use 15-CURRENT as the video card isn't supported. Even in 15-CURRENT, trackpad doesn't seem to be working and the video performance is poor. I'll have to investigate.

#OpenBSD - better video performance, the wifi card is recognised but it seems to have some performance issues (packets lost, etc). Trackpad is not working

#NetBSD - video card is not supported, trackpad isn't working

I'll test the whole system with a Fedora, just to be sure that the hardware is ok (but a small test, yesterday, was successful).

#aceBSD

Hmm... probably it's me after all: picked up 10.1 today #netbsd installed, first two commands and I'm somewhat lost :(

I'll go read the documentation again. I'm unlucky with #netbsd - one day I put it on #orangepi zero and it turns out that networking is not supported, now I have to install the library in a special way🙂

Alt...

fresh netbsd installation, command pkg_add -v pkgin, pkgin update brings to pkgin: Shared object “libsqlite3.so.0” not found

I recently move my #GoToSocial from #NetBSD to #FreeBSD; to have a look at memory consumption when using sqlite and the wasm thing. And… well, memory usage is about the same.

NetBSD on the left. FreeBSD on the right.

Post-Quantum Cryptography on NetBSD https://lobste.rs/s/j03wkv #netbsd
https://www.netmeister.org/blog/netbsd-pqc.html

@jschauma published a nice little primer on post quantum cryptography on #NetBSD :

https://www.netmeister.org/blog/netbsd-pqc.html

I put together some notes on using post-quantum cryptography on NetBSD using Open Quantum Safe as well as using BoringSSL. It's really simple, but instructions aren't always easy to find, so here you go:

https://www.netmeister.org/blog/netbsd-pqc.html

#NetBSD #pqc

@darrenmoffat #illumos does not yet (https://www.illumos.org/issues/5386) so it doesn't even build. The issues I've heard about from #NetBSD land are problems running inside xterm and reverse characters not working anymore.

I use tmux too, this is just about providing a version of screen for my users who still wish to use it.

Yet to hear anything positive about GNU screen 5.x.

Drops support for #Solaris / #illumos (now has a hard requirement on openpty()), and breaks various use-cases on #NetBSD.

Switching all my builds back over to misc/screen4.

#pkgsrc

Congratulations to #DragonFlyBSD from #NetBSD community for 6.4.1 release!🎉 #RunBSD
https://www.dragonflybsd.org/release64/

@jfparis @stefano A full ./build.sh -D ../dest-evbarm -O ../obj-evbarm -T ../tools -R ../sets -m evbarm -a earmv6hf -x tools distribution sets takes about 4 days and 22 hours at 1 GHz on a microSD card.

The same takes 12.25 minutes on a Ryzen 7900, less time than it takes to run install=/ on the Pi Zero (17.25 minutes) :P

I just had to know!

#NetBSD

Make Your Own Internet Presence with #NetBSD and a 1 euro VPS – Part 1: Your Blog - IT Notes

https://it-notes.dragas.net/2025/04/22/make-your-own-internet-presence-with-netbsd-and-a-1-euro-vps-part-1-your-blog/

Congratulations 🎉 to #OpenBSD team from #NetBSD community for 7.7

Don't tell me you still don't have a boxyBSD VM. Request one while they lasr

Here's the status of the hypervisors running boxyBSD VMs

.🖋️ #bash #freeBSD #boxyBSD #sh #zsh #ksh #csh  #netBSD #openBSD #POSIX

i486SX_soft_FPU: Bring back FPU emulation for i486SX CPU on NetBSD via @jmmv https://lobste.rs/s/lllomq #netbsd
https://github.com/mezantrop/i486SX_soft_FPU

Revisiting #async / #await in #POSIX C, trying to "add some #security" 🙈

Recap: Consider a classic #reactor-style service in C with a #threadpool attached to run the individual request handlers. When such a handler needs to do some I/O, it'll have to wait for its completion, and doing so is kind of straight forward by just blocking the worker thread executing the job until whatever I/O was needed completes.

Now, blocking a thread is never a great thing to do and I recently tooted about an interesting alternative I found: Make use of the (unfortunately deprecated) POSIX user context switching to enable releasing the worker thread while waiting. In a nutshell, you create a context with #makecontext that has its own private #stack, and then you can use #swapcontext to get off the thread, and later again to get back on the thread. A minor issue is: It must be the *same* thread ... so you might have to wait until it completes something else before you can resume your job. But then, that's probably okayish, you can make sure in your job scheduling to only use worker threads with awaited tasks attached when no other thread is available.

In my first implementation, I just used #malloc to create a 64kiB private stack for each thread job. That's perfectly fine if you can guarantee your job will never consume more stack space, AND it won't have any vulnerabilities allowing some attacker to mess with the stack. But in practice, especially for a library offering this async/await implementation, it's nothing but a wild #CVE generator.

So, I now improved on that:

* Allocate a much larger stack of now 2MiB. That alone makes issues at least less likely. And on a sane modern OS, we can still assume pages will only be mapped "on demand".
* Only allocate the stack directly before running the thread job, and delegate allocation to some internal "stack manager" that keeps track of all allocated stacks and reuses them, only freeing them on exit. This should avoid most of the allocation overhead.
* If MAP_ANON / MAP_ANONYMOUS is available, use #mmap for allocating the stack. That at least gives a chance to stay away from other allocations ....
* But finally, if MAP_STACK is available, use this flag! From my research, #FreeBSD, #OpenBSD and #NetBSD will for example make sure there's at least one "guard page" below a stack mapped with this flag, so a stack overflow consistently takes the SIGSEGV emergency exit 😆. #Linux knows this flag as well, but doesn't seem to implement such protection at this time ... 🤔

#C #coding

This retro-computing project restores support for x87 floating-point unit (FPU) emulation in the NetBSD kernel, targeting legacy 486SX-class processors without hardware FPUs https://github.com/mezantrop/i486SX_soft_FPU?tab=readme-ov-file

#unix #netbsd #opensource

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱/𝟬𝟰/𝟮𝟴 (Valuable News - 2025/04/28) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2025/04/28/valuable-news-2025-04-28/

Past releases: https://vermaden.wordpress.com/news/

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

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱/𝟬𝟰/𝟮𝟴 (Valuable News - 2025/04/28) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2025/04/28/valuable-news-2025-04-28/

Past releases: https://vermaden.wordpress.com/news/

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

I needed to run an annoying Electron app for something, so I installed Linux on a USB stick and shoved it in an old laptop.

I noticed that it defaults to suspending when the lid is closed... which is fine, except it never wakes up. #NetBSD has no problem waking up from sleep on this ThinkPad X260 hardware...

Show HN: I486SX_soft_FPU – Software FPU Emulator for NetBSD 10 on 486SX

Link: https://github.com/mezantrop/i486SX_soft_FPU
Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43815116

#netbsd

Show HN: I486SX_soft_FPU – Software FPU Emulator for NetBSD 10 on 486SX

https://github.com/mezantrop/i486SX_soft_FPU

#github #netbsd

🤖🎩 Ah, the brave souls resurrecting FPU emulation for the fossilized #i486SX CPU on #NetBSD 10 - because who doesn't want to relive the adrenaline rush of 90s computing? ⚙️✨ In this GitHub saga, watch as developers valiantly attempt to make turtles fly, proving once again that #nostalgia is the true enemy of progress. 🐢➡️🕊️
https://github.com/mezantrop/i486SX_soft_FPU #FPUemulation #90sComputing #HackerNews #ngated

@eloy @weirdtreething @famfo @wii #NetBSD is the #Doom of operating systems...

• I'd not be surprised if someone ported @netbsd down to #i286 & #i186 and #PiPico...

Please boost for a larger each and thank you. xoxo
#FreeBSD #OpenBSD #NetBSD #RunBSD

BSDCan is in Ottawa, with tutorials June 11-12, 2025, talks & BOFs June 13-14, 2025

Registration is open - https://www.bsdcan.org/2025/registration.html

Also see https://blog.bsdcan.org/2025/03/18/bsdcan-2025-talks-tutorials-and-registration/ for descriptions and tips, contributions: https://indico.bsdcan.org/event/5/contributions/

#bsdcan #conference #bsd #unix #development #freebsd #netbsd #openbsd #sysadmin #devops #freesoftware #libresoftware

EuroBSDCon 2025, Zagreb, September 2025 -

The Call for Talk and Presentation proposals for EuroBSDCon 2025 is open.

Submit yours at https://events.eurobsdcon.org/2025/

Please also visit the main website https://2025.eurobsdcon.org/ for information about the conference.

See you in Zagreb!

#eurobsdcon #bsd #conference #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #unix #development #devops #freesoftware #libresoftware @eurobsdcon

BSDCan is in Ottawa, with tutorials June 11-12, 2025, talks & BOFs June 13-14, 2025

Registration is open - https://www.bsdcan.org/2025/registration.html

Also see https://blog.bsdcan.org/2025/03/18/bsdcan-2025-talks-tutorials-and-registration/ for descriptions and tips

#bsdcan #conference #bsd #unix #development #freebsd #netbsd #openbsd #sysadmin #devops #freesoftware #libresoftware