#NetBSD journey number 3:

CUPS installed like a breeze. There's a @duckdb port in pkgsrc, done. No PowerShell Core port, which makes me wonder about how .NET works on macOS.

Moving forward.... Found at ebay used Intel 8260 M2 wireless card to plug on my Thinkpad. #NetBSD.

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Laptop cover filled with stickers (GNU SOlidario, esLibre, GNU Health, LibreCan, PostgreSQL, Run BSD - Stop Fascism). In the center, a large sticker with goats "Fuerte manada de cabrones"

From EuroBSDCon 2026: "What has (can) the EU Cyber Resilience Act done (do) for you?" by Peter Hansteen - video https://exquisite.tube/w/pZuKtVxhfgGYYayG81SwVa article https://nxdomain.no/~peter/what_hascan_eu_cra_donedo_for_you.html @eurobsdcon #eurobsdcon #freebsd #netbsd #openbsd #cra #cyberresilience #softwareengineering #engineerup #softwaredevelopment #PDE #digitalelements

need to figure out how to reliably passthru most of my hardware to a qemu vm. basically, make my laptop emulate itself to test #NetBSD before going straight to bare metal. hohum. i would love to kill a day or two on this, tinkering, but i can't spare the time right now.

Taylor’s “I/O and theorems and barriers, oh my”

#NetBSD #EuroBSDCon #EuroBSDCon2026

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Taylor is showing the qr code of his slides

Day 12

Setup the wifi interface on my Thinkpad T480s. Its an Intel Dual Band Wireless AC 8265 using the iwm driver.

Wifi behaviour at boot is a bit wonky, which seems to be a known issue with this driver. Sometimes it immediately comes up, sometimes it takes a few minutes, sometimes the interface needs a "nudge" by restarting the wpa_supplicant and dhcpcd services. Appears to be stable once it gets going. I need to read the relevant manpages a bit more closely.

#40DaysOfNetBSD #NetBSD #RunBSD

@stefano I am learning more about #NetBSD everyday. 😃

Stephen presenting the Linux emulation in NetBSD, a really interesting topic!

#NetBSD #EuroBSDCon #EuroBSDCon2026 #Linux

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Stephen presenting

Now: @sborrill on Linux binary compatibility for #NetBSD

#eurobsdcon

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Speaker in front of slide

Because, hey!

#NetBSD #RunBSD #EuroBSDcon2026

manpage including PCI wireless network cards and drivers for NetBSD 👇
https://man.netbsd.org/NetBSD-11.0/pci.4
#NetBSD #BSD #OperatingSystems #Network #wireless #FreeSoftware

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Wireless network interfaces an(4) Aironet 4500/4800 and Cisco 340 series 802.11 inter- faces. atw(4) ADMtek ADM8211 IEEE 802.11b PCI/CardBus wireless net- work interfaces. ath(4) Atheros IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless network interfaces. athn(4) Atheros IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n wireless network inter- faces. bwi(4) Broadcom BCM430x/4318 IEEE 802.11b/g wireless network interfaces. bwfm(4) Broadcom and Cypress FullMAC wireless network inter- faces. ipw(4) Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 MiniPCI network interfaces. iwi(4) Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG and 2915ABG MiniPCI network interfaces. iwm(4) Intel Dual Band Wireless AC PCIe Mini Card network interfaces. iwn(4) Intel Wireless WiFi Link 4965/5000/1000 and Centrino Wireless-N 1000/2000/6000 PCIe Mini network inter- faces. malo(4) Marvell Libertas 88W8335/88W8310/88W8385 802.11b/g wireless network interfaces. ral(4) Ralink Technology RT2500/RT2600-based 802.11a/b/g wireless network interfaces. rtw(4) Realtek RTL8180L 802.11b wireless network interfaces. rtwn(4) Realtek RTL8188CE/RTL8192CE 802.11b/g/n wireless net- work interfaces. wi(4) WaveLAN/IEEE and PRISM-II 802.11 wireless interfaces. wpi(4) Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Mini PCI Express network adapters.

So I installed #NetBSD on my laptop this morning

From boot to full install and configuration, about several minutes. X11R7 is working. Networking is working. Installed XFCE4. Everything. Just. Works. No bugs so far. Why was all this so easy?

This is UNIX. I know this!

At this rate, all my computers except cell phones may be running NetBSD. I may have to make a NetBSD Toaster too, just because I can.

Day 11

NetBSD is a nice thing. I donated a bit today so we can keep having nice things.

https://www.netbsd.org/donations/

#40DaysOfNetBSD #NetBSD #RunBSD

@AnachronistJohn @robdaemon

Aha! So #netbsd works on Mango Pi?

How did I miss that? I have to give it a try.🤣

@robdaemon This reminds me that now that I’ve gotten one set of large projects done, I need to try #NetBSD on my Orange Pi RV2.

I have a Mango Pi MQ-Pro, which is perfect for my uses, and I love that it’s pink, but with a single core and very modest performance, I’d guess something like the Orange Pi RV2 would be more suitable for most people.

As always I brought some properly obsolete hardware: a 486slc2 running #NetBSD (or OS/2 on request), a Toshiba luggable 486SX2-66 with #DOS and #MonkeyIsland, #DOTT, #Larry, #SpaceQuest or whatnot, and - surprisingly - a Pentium 3-based Gericom laptop gifted to me by @outofcreativity which is now upgraded from #OpenBSD to NetBSD ;-)

#EuroBSDCon2026

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Two screens from our booth: on the left showing Netscape 2.02 on OS/2 with the floppy museum page on #RecoveryWhiskers, on the right Monkey Island 1 running on the Toshiba.

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Me on the train preparing the Toshiba. Big honkin' machine on the table, silly blue headphones on my head.

Figured out how to add windowshade (f.squeeze) and minimize (f.iconify) buttons to #ctwm on #NetBSD.

Fun stuff!

LeftTitleButton           ":xpm:dot"      = f.menu "titleops"
#RightTitleButton          ":xpm:resize"   = f.resize
RightTitleButton          ":xpm:bar"      = f.squeeze
RightTitleButton          ":xpm:iconify"  = f.iconify
RightTitleButton          ":xpm:cross"    = f.delete

#LossyPNG

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An alacritty terminal window in ctwm showing this toot being composed.

Advanced Programming in the #UNIX Environment

In this class, we use #NetBSD as our reference platform. In addition to our shared shell server, here are some ways you can install NetBSD:

- put it on e.g., your laptop: https://netbsd.org/docs/guide/en/chap-exinst.html

- use VirtualBox: https://stevens.netmeister.org/631/virtualbox/

- use UTM: https://stevens.netmeister.org/631/utm/ (Video instructions: https://youtu.be/hCqfmuG5Acc )

- use or create an AWS image: https://stevens.netmeister.org/615/netbsd-amis.html

- create your own NetBSD #Linode: https://www.netmeister.org/blog/netbsd-on-linode.html

Impromptu bonus talk! #NetBSD on Lego Mindstorms EV3!

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Präsenter Holding a Mindstorms Robot, console in the back.

#NetBSD on the Wii U is WILD.

"First you run a browser exploit, which causes it to run the Payload Loader Installer. The Payload Loader Installer replaces the Health and Safety application with the Payload Loader. The Payload Loader loads a Linux Loader, which then boots the NetBSD kernel."

#eurobsdcon

Harold presenting NetBSD on the Nintendo Wii u

#NetBSD #EuroBSDcon

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Harold is introducing his talk

And now it’s @bentsukun ‘s turn.
No slides, only terminal!

#NetBSD #RunBSD

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Benny is talking, wearing a great illumos shirt

I spent yesterday evening and this morning installing #netbsd on a spare SSD on my Thinkpad X270. Unfortunately, there are some irresolvable WiFi issues (Intel Wireless 8265/8275 (rev 78). As a workaround, I use USB tethering on my smartphone (worked instantly without any further configuration). Now I got Xfce4 up and running (using slim as a login manager). Right now, I am far away from replacing #Debian (and I am not sure if I want that, anyway). But I will keep this as an side project, its a beautiful OS and it feels like back in the 90s when installing Linux was real tinkering.

Taylor is now presenting snapshotting file systems on #NetBSD

I’ve used it a lot, so curious to hear!

#EuroBSDCon #EuroBSDCon2026

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Taylor starting his presentation

From the #NetBSD dev summit: Read NetBSD Commit Guidelines and in particular bear in mind that "Code generated by a large language model or similar technology [...] is presumed to be tainted code, and must not be committed"

“Project proposal counts very little due possible GenAI/LLM use.
Video calls with potential contributor are much better!”

#NetBSD #RunBSD #EuroBSDCon #EuroBSDCon2026

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More ™ for mentors/admins • Add and update project ideas that you are willing to mentor at https://wiki.NetBSD.org/projects/gsocg • Project proposal counts very little due possible GenAI/LLM use • Video calls with potential contributor are much better! • During community bonding and coding periods get in touch with them and request a status updates at least twice a week Persuade your contributors to share about their work, submit talks to conferences and make to feel them responsible for their work Google Summer of Code is about the journey for the contributor to get involved in open source, the coding is only the means to an end

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More™ for contributors Suggestions and project ideas at https://wiki.NetBSD.org/projects/gsoc/ Use NetBSD and/or pkgsrc and feel free to propose your ideas! • It is essential that you find a possible project you are passionate to work on • Get in touch with us early! 10 Lurk mailing lists and IRC Be candid with your mentors) 11 Read NetBSD Commit Guidelines and in particular bear in mind that "Code generated by a large language model or similar technology [...] is presumed to be tainted code, and must not be committed" 10 Yes, that means before GSoC is announced!, also right now. "E.g. If you can work on it only part-time, let them know early about that and request an extension ASAP.