Make your own Read-Only Device with NetBSD

One detail that is often overlooked when dealing with embedded (or remote) devices is a key point of vulnerability: the file system.

https://it-notes.dragas.net/2024/09/10/make-your-own-readonly-device-with-netbsd/

#NetBSD #RunBSD #EmbeddedDevices #OwnYourData #ITNotes

@cks

OpenWatcom vi is source available.

https://mastodonapp.uk/@JdeBP/116052015020764901

Ritter's Heirloom #vi is in #FreeBSD ports today, coming from the same place that it has for a long time.

https://freshports.org/editors/2bsd-vi/

It was dropped from #ArchLinux because it did not compile and hadn't changed in 20 years. Ironically, this is because the (GNU) C language had changed, and it has to nowadays be compiled forcing an older GNU C language version.

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=2285124#p2285124

Several people have independently discovered the Makefile patch that gets it to build on #Debian and the like.

https://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?p=629775

https://gist.github.com/cwfoo/01abac5c39f398b7e7b16a2b87aa518b

#elvis, the precursor to #nvi, is packaged for both #NetBSD/ #pkgsrc and #OpenBSD.

https://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/current/pkgsrc/editors/elvis/index.html

https://github.com/openbsd/ports/tree/master/editors/elvis

#retrocomputing #ComputerHistory #Watcom #OpenWatcom

NetBSD: Интервью с разработчиком

На одной истории с OpenBSD и Вячеславом Воронцовым мы конечно же не остановились, на этот раз в гостях у нас ещё один яркий и интересный представитель сообщества BSD.

https://habr.com/ru/articles/995602/

#netbsd #bsd #интервью #cheusov #pkgsrc #коммиттер #сообщество

As the @bsdcan lists of talks and tutorials have been posted, I can officially announce my presentation:

Don't Freeze in the Cloud: Reclaiming Home Control with NetBSD

In 2010, I was taking more flights than cups of coffee. After a two-week trip, I returned home to a nasty, albeit expected, surprise: an indoor temperature of 7.8°C (46 F). Possessing more time than money, I decided to solve the problem my own way. I built a custom Python-based control system, accessible only via VPN, to manage my heating.

In 2015, after moving houses, this system was demoted to a secondary role, replaced by a shiny, commercial "smart" thermostat. However, I continued to maintain and update my custom solution for fun.

Fast forward to October 2025: major cloud providers faced significant outages. My commercial thermostat became dumber than a mechanical switch. I was reduced to manual two-hour overrides, with no visibility into settings or usage. It was a wake-up call: keeping my home warm should not depend on someone else's server.

I dusted off my solution and adapted it to modern needs - powered, of course, by NetBSD, running on the very same hardware that served my previous home for years.

In this talk, I will share the journey, the technical challenges, and the architectural decisions behind the project. I will demonstrate how NetBSD’s stability and low footprint make it the ideal operating system for long-term, "set-and-forget" home automation, allowing us to reclaim control from the cloud.

#NetBSD #BSDCan #BSDCan2026 #RunBSD #OwnYourData #Presentation #Talk

System Administration: Week 3: Resizing a file system

In these two videos, we show how to resize an existing filesystem. First on #NetBSD using the resize_ffs(8) tool, where we first increase the size of a 512MB partition to 1GB, then shrink it down to 256MB. Next we repeat the same exercise on #Debian Linux, using the resize2fs(8) tool.

https://youtu.be/9l-g3keN48g

https://youtu.be/4V15y5Klo9Y

#sysadmin #devops #sre

On #Illumos, Joy vi is in /usr/src/cmd/vi:

https://github.com/illumos/illumos-gate/tree/master/usr/src/cmd/vi

On #OpenBSD, Bostic #nvi is in /usr/src/usr.bin/vi/vi; #NetBSD having it in /usr/src/external/bsd/nvi; and #FreeBSD in /usr/src/contrib/nvi:

https://cgit.freebsd.org/src/tree/contrib/nvi/

FreeBSD has an nvi2 in ports:

https://freshports.org/editors/nvi2/

OpenBSD has elvis in ports:

https://github.com/openbsd/ports/blob/master/editors/elvis/pkg/DESCR

Ritter's Heirloom vi is on SourceForge:

https://ex-vi.sourceforge.net

STEVIE was posted to comp.sources.unix in 1988:

https://sources.vsta.org/comp.sources.unix/volume15/stevie/

Unfortunately, Sven Guckes's vi Clones WWW site was never completed with some of this, notably lacking Heirloom vi, for example.

https://guckes.net/vi/clones.html

But it does mention oft-overlooked commercial clones such as Watcom's vi, a from-scratch implementation started in 1983 that is also now source-available:

https://github.com/open-watcom/owp4v1copy/tree/master/bld/vi

#vi #retrocomputing #ComputerHistory #STEVIE #elvis #VIM #NeoVIM #Watcom #OpenWatcom

People waxing lyrical about using 'original vi', both nowadays in 2026 and back in 2006, haven't a clue what that is.

There's only one family of operating systems where 'vi' will actually run the original vi program by Joy, Horton, et al.: #Illumos and its derivatives #Tribblix, #OmniOS, and #SmartOS.

*Everyone else* uses one of the ground-up clones.

On #FreeBSD, #OpenBSD, and #NetBSD, it's Bostic's early 1990s #nvi, which was derived from Kirkendall's elvis, a clone written some time around 1990.

On Linux-based operating systems, vi either is Bostic nvi, or is one of the derivatives of STEVIE (the middle-1980s vi clone for the Atari ST that inspired Kirkendall to write elvis in the first place): Moolenaar's VIM or NeoVIM.

On none of those will you get original Joy+Horton vi in base, or indeed packaged/in ports.

Yes, Heirloom vi exists, which is Ritter's 2002 fork of 1985 Joy+Horton vi. But it's not even available in Arch Linux nowadays.

#vi #retrocomputing #ComputerHistory

This is a clever use of secmodel+kauth to implement jail-like process isolation on #netbsd

https://www.petermann-digital.de/blog/netbsd-secmodel_jail/

@thedarkener
Any reason you went specifically with #NetBSD?

Amazingly, there appears to be a Rust compiler available on #NetBSD #riscv. I guess I will see tomorrow, once we have spent the night compiling LLVM.

System Administration: Week 3: Files go hier(7)

In this video, we're wrapping up our discussion of filesystems and partitions with a look at file types and partitions and filesystems mounted by default on #NetBSD, #FreeBSD, #OmniOS, and Fedora Linux. We close with a look at the filesystem hierarchy as defined in the hier(7) manual page.

https://youtu.be/J0ontdqxpUg

#sysadmin #devops #sre

@yianiris @jmcunx @jbz using zfs encrypted roots on many Alpine and Void installs. Zero issues. #alpinelinux makes it even simpler in zfs being a seperate package pre-compiled against a kernel rather than dkms (no sure why other distros do not do this).

#netbsd supports zfs but native encrypted root is not yet an option.

@yianiris @jmcunx @jbz if only #netbsd did zfs native encrypted root...

Nasledujúca verzia operačného systému #NetBSD 11 sa opäť posunula vo vývoji s vydaním inštalačných obrazov prvej release candidate verzie.

https://techsvet.eu/aktuality/netbsd-11-sa-blizi-ku-vydaniu/

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲/𝟬𝟮/𝟬𝟵 (Valuable News - 2026/02/09) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2026/02/09/valuable-news-2026-02-09/

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

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

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲/𝟬𝟮/𝟬𝟵 (Valuable News - 2026/02/09) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2026/02/09/valuable-news-2026-02-09/

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

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

Registration for BSDCan 2026 is open at https://www.bsdcan.org/2026/registration.html + tutorial schedule published.

#bsdcan #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #development #networking #devops #sysadmin #conferences

For more on BSD and the BSD conferences, see https://nxdomain.no/~peter/what_is_bsd_come_to_a_conference_to_find_out.html (or tracked https://bsdly.blogspot.com/2025/11/what-is-bsd-come-to-conference-to-find.html +
https://medium.com/@peter.hansteen/what-is-bsd-come-to-a-conference-to-find-out-06acd7d77fd8 )

(more Linux and FOSS news in previous posts of thread)

Git 2.53 Released with New Features and Performance Improvements:
https://9to5linux.com/git-2-53-released-with-new-features-and-performance-improvements

Zed Editor adds multiple edit prediction providers and pluggable architecture:
https://alternativeto.net/news/2026/2/zed-editor-adds-multiple-edit-prediction-providers-and-pluggable-architecture/

WooCommerce 10.5 boosts analytics scalability and admin performance:
https://alternativeto.net/news/2026/2/woocommerce-10-5-boosts-analytics-scalability-and-admin-performance/

Notepad++ reveals its updater was hijacked by state-sponsored hackers:
https://betanews.com/article/notepad-reveals-its-updater-was-hijacked-by-state-sponsored-hackers/

Deno Deploy reaches GA with CI/CD, observability, and Deno Sandbox beta launch:
https://alternativeto.net/news/2026/2/deno-deploy-reaches-ga-with-ci-cd-observability-and-deno-sandbox-beta-launch/

Toyota Developing A Console-Grade, Open-Source Game Engine - Using Flutter & Dart:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Fluorite-Toyota-Game-Engine
(Yeah, let's make drivers playing games when driving, so they can't pay attention to their surroundings, will cause more accidents)

NVIDIA DLSS For Blender Under Review But Licensing Concerns Persist:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/NVIDIA-DLSS-Blender

Pandoc 3.9: WebAssembly Support, PDF standards, and improved browser features:
https://alternativeto.net/news/2026/2/pandoc-3-9-webassembly-support-pdf-standards-and-improved-browser-features/

GNU Nettle 4.0 Released With SLH-DSA Support:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Nettle-4.0-Released-SLH-DSA

Latest VirtualBox Code Begins Supporting KVM Backend:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/VirtualBox-Upstream-With-KVM

Stremio for Android TV v1.9.1 updates player and user settings:
https://alternativeto.net/news/2026/2/stremio-for-android-tv-v1-9-1-adds-player-updates-and-new-user-settings/

GNU Hurd Is "Almost There" With x86_64, SMP & ~75% Of Debian Packages Building:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNU-Hurd-In-2026

NetBSD's Kernel Supports Lua Scripting But Don't Look For Rust In There Anytime Soon:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/No-Rust-In-NetBSD-Kernel

NetBSD 11.0-RC1 Available For Testing With Enhanced Linux Emulation:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/NetBSD-11.0-RC1

smolBSD Builds On The NetBSD-MicroVM Kernel For Booting To Service VMs In Milliseconds:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/smolBSD

OpenIndiana Is Porting Solaris' IPS Package Management To Rust:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/OpenIndiana-Next-Gen-IPS

#WeeklyNews #OpenSource #FOSSNews #FOSS #Zed #ZedEditor #Git #NotepadPlusPlus #WooCommerce #DenoDeploy #Deno #Toyota #GameEngine #NVIDIA #Blender #Pandoc #GNUNettle #VirtualBox #Stremio #GNUHurd #NetBSD #smolBSD #OpenIndiana #BSD #OS #Programming #Coding #Development #Dev #GameDev #GameDevelopment #FosseryTech

#NetBSD 11 RC1 released!

No official announcement yet but Phoronix has the deets: https://www.phoronix.com/news/NetBSD-11.0-RC1

Victory is mine! #NetBSD 11 RC1 is working!

Overall, pretty uneventful...

Now, I will let it rest for a little while, until qemu 9.2.4 has finished compiling.

Alt...

A white on black console whowing, in bold ASCII letters "NetBSD 11.0_RC1 amd64"

#NetBSD 11, you are doing the packages in alphabetical order, right?

RIGHT? 😂

Alt...

A qemu console showing the NetBSD sysinst trying to download the 'xbase' package. As with the previous screenshots, the sysinst is trying an IPv6 address first.

[3348/9317] Compiling C object libqemu-mipsn32el-linux-user.a.p/linux-user_signal.c.o

So, roughly 30% done. I think the #NetBSD VM will be done first!

The good side of this, is that I can keep an eye on both the #NetBSD 11 VM and the compilation of qemu on my #Slackware server! 😋

It works, but it is going to be painful: since the qemu network emulation provides the VM with an IPv6 address through DHCP, #NetBSD sysinst tries IPv6 first, times out, then tries IPv4... all of this to be redirected by the web server and go through IPv6 - timeout - IPv4 again.

In other words: it downloads, but really really slowly. ☹️

Any help getting out of that painful loop is greatly appreciated (I know how to do it on an installed machine, just not in sysinst)

Alt...

A white-on-blue NetBSD installation console showing error messages, such as: /sets/modules.tar.xz ftp: Can't connect to [2ad4:ded2:1d::262]:80: No route to host

It seems #NetBSD 'sysinst' still has issues with the 'curses' qemu console, but it remains readable, so onward!

Alt...

A qemu console showing a NetBSD installation disk selection menus. Little display bugs (strange glyphs and added blank spaces) can be seen here and there...

Well, well, well... What do we have here?

Hello #NetBSD 11!

Alt...

A qemu console showing the sysinst installation programme from NetBSD Blue background, white text

From:

https://nycdn.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/netbsd-11/20260206082425Z/amd64/INSTALL.html#Features%20to%20be%20removed%20in%20a%20later%20release

The following features are to be removed from #NetBSD in the future:

- groff(1). Man pages are now handled with mandoc(1), and groff(1) can still be found in pkgsrc as textproc/groff.

- pf(4). This packet filter is obsolete and unmaintained in NetBSD. It will be eventually removed due to possible long-standing security issues and lack of multiprocessor support. New installations should use npf(7).

No 'npf mastery' book so I really need to read that man page...

$ /usr/local/bin/qemu-img create -f qcow2 /opt/qemu/netbsd11.img 20G

20GB should be enough for most installations I suppose... #netbsd

~/files/download/ISO/NetBSD$ curl -O https://nycdn.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/netbsd-11/20260206082425Z/amd64/installation/cdrom/boot.iso

Yeah, going to test #NetBSD 11-RC1 like a savage as usual... 🤓

I had to use a breadboard to set up a serial console, but I got #NetBSD working on the VisionFive 2! 🥳

Ethernet works great, so I will mostly talk to it over SSH, I suppose.

Registration for BSDCan 2026 is now open https://www.bsdcan.org/2026/registration.html and tutorials schedule is published.

#bsdcan #openbsd #netbsd #freebsd #libresoftware #freesoftware #conference #development #networking #sysadmin #devops

So. Schon 2026. Nächsten Dienstag, 10.2.2026 wie gehabt, ab 19:00h im Fuchs im Hofmanns in #Duesseldorf #Bilk
https://www.meetup.com/de-DE/bsd-user-group-dusseldorf-bsd-nrw/events/313202068/
#runbsd #bsdnrw #bug #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd

Just a shout out to everyone directly or loosly involved in *BSD world here on fedi and elsewhere.
Thanks for having me here. It's now a couple of years now since I mograted from Linux and really enjoying it.

be safe and keep up the excellent work,

#appreciation #bsd #unix #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #dragonfly #runbsd #illumos