It's alive! SMP kernel up and running on #NetBSD Wii U.

Let it build
Let it build
Let it buiiiiiiild
#NetBSD

This evening in "cli snippets for things I learned":
To more easily upgrade to #NetBSD -current, you can

1) build and install sysupgrade:

# cd /usr/pkgsrc/sysutils/sysupgrade
# make && make install

2) Then point it to the daily snapshots at:

# sysupgrade fetch https://nycdn.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/HEAD/latest/$(sysctl kern.machine_arch)

3) Follow the rest of the sysupgrade steps found at
https://www.netbsd.org/docs/guide/en/chap-upgrading.html

Be warned that sysupgrade etcupdate is long, boring, but important.

#RunBSD

#NetBSD 11 getting closer: "Timeout for showstoppers (before they will be downgraded) december 28, trying to move on to RC1 before the end of december."
https://wiki.netbsd.org/releng/netbsd-11/

Dit you spot it? @vermaden has released a LVN. It could be the last one of 2025, so go read learn

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2025/12/29/valuable-news-2025-12-29/

#Technology #news #BSD #freeBSD #OpenBSD #netBSD #linux #unix #ZFS #opnSense #ghostBSD #solaris #vermadenday

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱/𝟭𝟮/𝟮𝟵 (Valuable News - 2025/12/29) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2025/12/29/valuable-news-2025-12-29/

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

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

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱/𝟭𝟮/𝟮𝟵 (Valuable News - 2025/12/29) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2025/12/29/valuable-news-2025-12-29/

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

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

@joany If he leaves it with you, you just install #netbsd or #openbsd on it, and return it to him. Given that he doesn't do his own maintenance, he might not notice :-)

Been experimenting with turning off the video drivers in #NetBSD (i915, seems to have issued all over), enabled wsfb, set vesa modes on boot... Still no joy with running things like midor again.

Tried reinstalling OpenBSD but since installing the hacked BIOS to remove the PCI whitelist OpenBSD refuses to boot. So no joy there.

Now it just hangs randomly and I have to force reboot. No idea why.

Hints?

Console works on the Wii U gamepad too, although it doesn’t quite fit with the default font size. #netbsd

Here's #NetBSD booting on a Nintendo Wii U (natively, not vWii!) https://youtu.be/ZLPe5g9j_Ss

はてなブログに投稿しました
おどる初音ミクGB feat. PC-6001 プログラム - tsutsuiの作業記録置き場 https://tsutsui.hatenablog.com/entry/p6-odorumiku
#はてなブログ #PC-6001 #NetBSD

Any collectable #BSD stickers at the #39c3?

#openbsd #FreeBSD #netbsd

The BSDCan Call For Papers (CFP) is open until January 17th, see https://www.bsdcan.org/2026/papers.html

If you tried to sign up as a new indico user and did not get the confirmation mail in time, please try again. The problem has been fixed.

The holidays can be a great time to get that submission done! #bsdcan #openbsd #netbsd #freebsd #freesoftware #libresoftware

Want to know more about #bsd and the conferences? See https://nxdomain.no/~peter/what_is_bsd_come_to_a_conference_to_find_out.html (and links therein) @bsdcan

Arcan 0.7.1 – Minutes To Midnight

https://arcan-fe.com/2025/12/27/arcan-0-7-1-minutes-to-midnight/

#FreeBSD #OpenBSD #NetBSD

Huh, cleared the / from unwanted files pretty well

Just removed a lot of ~/.cache/go-build/ from sandboxes, wrote about forgotten log files in the /etc/newsyslog.conf, cleared pkgin caches in the host and sandboxes, and removed GBs of old RRD files from /var/munin/

#NetBSD

Alt...

Munin graph with percentage of disk usage. The green line (displays / usage) drops from 50% to near 30%.

RE: https://hsnl.social/@eloy/115788206478725364

#NetBSD

Of course I also tried #NetBSD. It also hangs while reading the boot device.

Ok, I got back to this, and I got the eMMC working by adding a build config to limit it to 52Mhz (and now the note at the end of the README for the quartz64_uefi makes more sense, I must have been bumping up against that :-).

This did allow me to try installing #NetBSD to the eMMC, and that worked! But broke booting ubuntu... welp.

Ethernet is still not working.

@resuna @GrantMeStrength Pity that was lost! What language did you use?

Apologies for the ESR references in this link, but it includes many stories of Trek code bases:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/super-star-trek/sst-doc.html

And there's still a #Trek in the #NetBSD source tree, under /usr/src/games/trek .

The @bsdcan Call For Papers (CFP) is open until January 17th, see https://www.bsdcan.org/2026/papers.html

The holidays can be a great time to get that submission done! #bsdcan #openbsd #netbsd #freebsd #freesoftware #libresoftware #ottawa

Want to know more about #bsd and the conferences? See https://nxdomain.no/~peter/what_is_bsd_come_to_a_conference_to_find_out.html (and links therein)

I think I will probably end my NetBSD journey at this point.

#FOSS #Unix #BSD #RunBSD

There we go. Have a modern web browser (midori) working on a 2008 netbook, with an 1.6GHz Atom processor and 1Gbyte of RAM, all thanks to the magic of BSD. First page to fire up is of course @exquisite

#RunBSD #NetBSD

Alt...

A netbook displaying the exquisite.social "About" page

@rqm TIL!

```
vsis$ which tetris
/usr/games/tetris
```

wow #NetBSD *rules*!

It turns out my mysterious app crashes on #NetBSD i386 were in fact due to a bug in the i915 driver. I can disable it on boot and the programs work, but of course screen resolution is off this way. Any known workarounds?

@rqm tetris(6) is also part of rescue(8) so you may be able to use it even in a machine that is not so OK! :)

There is also this PR that is probably one of the nicest ones: PR misc/31370 https://gnats.NetBSD.org/cgi-bin/query-pr-single.pl?number=31370

#netbsd

#netbsd

I like #NetBSD so far. Even despite my stupid mistakes with pkgsrc. And not only because THERE IS TETRIS BUNDLED

Ooooh, cross-platform-actions on #Github now supports #NetBSD, #IllumOS (I asked for this a long time ago) and #Haiku! So that's three more things added to my to-do list for 2026.

I already use it for auto-testing my terrible code on #FreeBSD and #OpenBSD.

https://github.com/cross-platform-actions

@vermaden Huh, interesting read about #ZFS — I thought that ZFS on e.g. #NetBSD or #Illumos is compatible with #FreeBSD ZFS. But, according to this forum topic (https://illumos.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/Ta2162fbb2358fa0e-M33e5f65a2831f11c3a277afa/zfs-native-encryption-status) the encrypted disk with ZFS from FreeBSD could not be used with NetBSD and vice versa.

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱/𝟭𝟮/𝟮𝟮 (Valuable News - 2025/12/22) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2025/12/22/valuable-news-2025-12-22/

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

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

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱/𝟭𝟮/𝟮𝟮 (Valuable News - 2025/12/22) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2025/12/22/valuable-news-2025-12-22/

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

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

The #NetBSD pkgsrc system for building packages is pretty neat. Took me about 30 minutes to figure it all out and I never really used NetBSD before.

Still the official docs could be improved upon but #OpenBSD set the bar pretty high for user-friendliness.

@johndoe99077

Aficionados will remember /vmunix for #Unix with demand paged virtual memory.

To this day, the #OpenBSD and #NetBSD kernels likewise live in single files in the root directory.

https://man.netbsd.org/boot.8#FILES

@me_ @flexion

@subnetspider The #NetBSD equivalent is the rather verbose atactl <dev> identify

Alt...

# atactl wd0 identify Model: ST16000NM002H-3KW133, Rev: RE03, Serial #: ZYD078A8 World Wide Name: 5000C500E81DDD6D Device type: ATA, fixed Capacity 16 Tbytes, 31251759104 sectors, 512 bytes/sector Cylinders: 16383, heads: 16, sec/track: 63 Physical sector size: 4096 bytes First physically aligned sector: 8

All of those things are absolutely wonderful and make many of todays software developers look ... spoiled? What I want, however - and what I love doing - is making this old hardware do stuff its makers never dreamt of, things that are as far removed from their time as possible. That's why I will, if #NetBSD permits, run bleeding edge BSD on a 286-on-486steroids, and why I run web+ftp+irc servers (yes, multitaskign) on one 286 and multiple BBS nodes on a 386 - like one used to do, of course.

I cannot state often enough how amazing it is that there's still software developed today that will work under such constraints.

#RunBSD #EndOfRant

The BSD, illumos, bhyve, OpenZFS devroom schedule at Fosdem 2026 is online !

https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/track/bsd-illumos-bhyve-openzfs/

#Fosdem #zfs #bsd #OpenBSD #NetBSD #FreeBSD #illumos

The scariest boot loader code https://lobste.rs/s/s5zoaj #hardware #netbsd #openbsd
http://miod.online.fr/software/openbsd/stories/boot_hppa.html

The #NetBSD 🚩community is amazing! 🔥
Let's come together to reach the foundation's $50,000 year-end goal. Your contribution directly drives the project's future and innovation. Every donation helps!
https://netbsd.org/donations/
#NetBSD #OpenSource #FOSS #Donate
#outreach

Eight hours into my #NetBSD adventure and I have just had to read the kernel source code. Yay! The bit I looked at was distressingly clean and even had *comments*. Eeuuww!

Also, it is still building all the software I need. That's not the OS's fault, I didn't expect an emulated #Pentium to be speedy.