Rust in the NetBSD Kernel, and other odd decisions https://lobste.rs/s/4wlhhv #netbsd
https://bentsukun.ch/posts/netbsd-rust-kernel/

Rust in the Kernel, and other odd decisions
#NetBSD

https://bentsukun.ch/posts/netbsd-rust-kernel/

A quick summary of tech leadership in the #Epstein Files

#linux #bsd #freebsd #netbsd #openbsd #apple #windows #microsoft

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My BSDCan submission has been approved!

It will be wonderful to be back in Ottawa, meet again all the "old" (and new) friends from the BSD world and, this time, present something that has saved me more than once... and it’s based on NetBSD!

#BSDCan #BSDCon #NetBSD #FreeBSD #OpenBSD #DragonFlyBSD #RunBSD #BSDCan2026 #Ottawa #Canada #BSD

EDIT: more here: https://mastodon.bsd.cafe/@stefano/116000601385091531

I’ve just received a wonderful email. I’m so excited!

More about this in the coming days.

#RunBSD #NetBSD

#NetBSD peeps! There is a (mostly) working #Valgrind implementation for NetBSD at https://github.com/paulfloyd/valgrind-netbsd. It would be great if we could get a (binary) package for it!

Deadline this weekend - apply by Feb 1st, 2026!

Do you want to go to EuroBSDCon https://2026.eurobsdcon.org/ but need support to do so?

Or do you know someone in that situation? Apply for the Paul Schenkeveld Travel Grant before February 1st, 2026!

https://eurobsdconfoundation.org/travel-grant.html

#eurobsdcon #netbsd #openbsd #freebsd #conference #travelgrant

System Administration, Week 1: Warming up to EC2

In this short video, we prepare for our first homework assignment and demonstrate how to launch a #NetBSD instance in AWS EC2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA_pgRH0IDw

Note: the AMI in the video is outdated; I have up to date images listed here:
https://stevens.netmeister.org/615/netbsd-amis.html

Or you can create your own:
https://www.netmeister.org/blog/creating-netbsd-ec2-amis.html

#sysadmin #devops #sre

@pu

That's difficult to answer without a concrete idea of what a dependency is.

If it's who develops it, then #GhostBSD's major developers are in Canada, and #MirBSD's major developers are in the E.U./Switzerland.

If it's which BSDs would be unaffected if Microsoft-owned GitHub decided to pull the rug out from underneath them, then the answer is rather different.

Financial dependencies, and WWW/mail/other hosting dependencies, are different again.

#FreeBSD #OpenBSD #MidnightBSD #DragonFlyBSD #NetBSD

@nzbr @nixos_org Very cool! I’ve been wondering about how to do this for ages.

Right now, I can boot #NetBSD from a USB stick, then install NetBSD on to a completely zeroed disk with only binaries generated from source from that USB stick. I do this in part because compiling is a good stress test of a system.

Now if I could build everything on the USB stick from a small, hand-auditable (for certain values of hand) bootstrap, that’d be awesome.

Excellent work! Reading it now :)

This morning I was thinking about something: one of the reasons why every enthusiast should consider going to a BSDCon is simple.

I eat a lot and I still come back slimmer 😄

2024 - EuroBSDCon: ate twice as much as usual, came back from Dublin 1 kg lighter.
2025 - BSDCan: breakfasts that could cover a whole day’s calories, huge delicious meals... came back from Ottawa 0.5 kg lighter.
2025 - EuroBSDCon: double breakfast (sweet + savory), massive lunches, delicious dinners (including a huge pizza, as @outofcreativity, @angie and @mwl can confirm) and still came back 0.5 kg lighter.

Positive emotions burn calories.

So come to BSDCons: you’ll come back happy and slimmer!

#RunBSD #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #DragonFlyBSD #BSDCon #AsiaBSDCon #BSDCan #EuroBSDCon

Schrodinger still isn't sure if his toaster runs #NetBSD.

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲/𝟬𝟭/𝟮𝟲 (Valuable News - 2026/01/26) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2026/01/26/valuable-news-2026-01-26/

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

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

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲/𝟬𝟭/𝟮𝟲 (Valuable News - 2026/01/26) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2026/01/26/valuable-news-2026-01-26/

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

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

Does anyone know if Dasung's eink monitors work out of the box on #OpenBSD ? (or, can be gotten working with some config tweaks?)

Experiences with other BSDs or other brands of eink monitor are also welcome. I've heard enough about these being tempermental at times on other operating systems that I'm a bit wary.

#RunBSD #NetBSD #FreeBSD #BSD #eink #epaper

Provoked by a toot from @jamesoff I made the experiments with the #2k38 time boundary on #OpenBSD (bigger screendump) and #NetBSD as illustrated.
Both survived ;) of course.
NetBSD however seems to accept a date as UTC and then translates it to my local CET. OpenBSD seems to trot happily on in CET.
This means that in 12 years, when I'll be 92 years old, I won't have to worry about any time apocalypse.
I'll sleep as quietly as ever on that night. Nice to know.

James' sticker are fun anyway ;)

Alt...

Playing with y2k38 on openbsd

Alt...

Playing with y2k38 on netbsd

Testing a Chimera package update to virt-manager. Figured it was a good time to try a more modern NetBSD install. :-)

#NetBSD

Alt...

Screenshot of NetBSD with glxgears, xclock, xconsole, xeyes, xload, and xterm running.

Dipende da cosa intendi per "libera".

Un tempo ti avrei detto Debian senza indugi, ed a tutt'oggi dal punto di vista legale, tutti i software contenuti nei repository free sono distribuite con licenze libere.
Il problema di #Debian è appunto politico (e dunque tecnico): le scelte del progetto, pur attenendosi alle #DFSG si preoccupano sempre meno della effettiva libertà degli utenti, anteponendovi altri valori.

Comunque, se ci limitiamo ad una libertà minima, formale, ci sono le distro elencate dalla #FSF https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.en.html

Di queste, mi sembra promettente #Hyperbola, soprattutto per l'impegno a sostituire il kernel #Linux con un hard fork di #OpenBSD https://www.hyperbola.info/

Il problema comunque è l'effettiva esercitabilità di tutte e quattro le libertà, a fronte di una complessità insostenibile dei software distribuiti.

Avere #Firefox sotto MPL o #Chromium sotto MIT non garantisce davvero a tutti la libertà di studiarne completamente il codice: solo chi può investire mesi di studio (tipicamente pagati da qualche azienda) può veramente esercitare la libertà di studio. E ogni libertà esercitabile esclusivamente da un'élite smette di essere libertà e diventa, di fatto, privilegio.

Purtroppo Linux stesso (il kernel) ha una complessità esorbitante, misurabile in milioni di righe di codice, anche escludendo i blob non liberi.

Ne consegue che, ad oggi, chi vuole poter esercitare davvero le 4 libertà deve cercarle altrove.

I #BSD sono un po' migliori da questo punto di vista: ricordo una settimana passata a leggere il kernel di #NetBSD anni fa senza grandi problemi. Ancora meglio da questo punto di vista sono i #plan9 come #9front che in un paio di settimane può essere studiato da capo a piedi.

Il problema fondamentale però è più profondo di quanto non suggeriscano queste possibili soluzioni.

Quando #Stallman concepì il software libero, il maggior limite alle libertà degli utilizzatori (che erano anche programmatori) era di natura legale. Il #copyleft o le #DFSG erano strumenti legali (il primo) o comunitari (il secondo) progettati per evitare questo limite.

Oggi a limitare la libertà degli utenti troviamo invece vincoli tecnici (#SaaS, complessità del software) e culturali (standard intenzionalmente complicati da implementare ed una sostanziale separazione fra la figura professionale del programmatore ed il ruolo di utente).

Questi vincoli sono superabili con leggi ed investimenti in educazione e istruzione, ma difficilmente tali azioni possono essere proposte da politici ignoranti eletti cittadini mantenuti nell'ignoranza cibernetica.

D'altro canto produrre stack alternativi è difficile, non foss'altro che per l'assenza di risorse e coordinamento (nonché spesso di una visione architetturale coerente con l'obiettivo politico di massimizzare la libertà).

@dajelinux@mastodon.uno @lorenzodm@mastodon.uno

@radhitya I just wanted to try another #BSD to see how the things done in it and how much it differs from #FreeBSD

The choice was between OpenBSD and #NetBSD — the second attracted me with wide range of supported devices and processor architectures. This is rare enough in the modern IT where the words "this is obsolete" and "this project wasn't updated for N days — looks like it is abandonen" became a new norm. So I decided to invest my time in NetBSD and setup it on my home server. With idea to use it in some old laptop in the future, in my mind.

For me, it fits well — it works in machine with 2 Gb of RAM, it has all necessary things for selfhosting in the binary repositories (fail2ban, Nginx, PostgreSQL, etc) and it has the same spirit of good old Unix as FreeBSD has.

@jas

My first suspect for a #login not supporting -- would be something with a 1980s history pre-dating standard #getopt, such as Solaris, which is ironic given that #inetutils has its only -- present in conditionally compiled code targetting Solaris.

#FreeBSD, #NetBSD, and #OpenBSD login all use getopt(), pervasive in these worlds for decades, as do the util-linux login (used by Debian et al.), and the #Illumos and #BusyBox logins.

#suckless login supports -- via ARGBEGIN.

@ska @cazabon

Hot off the press, bob v0.6.0 is out.

Loads of changes and improvements over the past 12 days:

https://github.com/jperkin/bob/blob/main/CHANGES.md

There are some breaking changes to config.lua, and updates to the build scripts. I would recommend performing a fresh:

$ bob init /path/to/config/dir

and migrating any changes over manually. I will try and keep breaking changes to a minimum in the run up to version 1.0 when all will be set in stone.

Thanks for all your feedback so far, keep it coming!

#pkgsrc #bob #netbsd

I've just blocked ICMP packets from fail2banned hosts, and blocked IPv6 completely, since it doesn't used in my network, lol

Orange graph is for netstat -s | grep 'bad connection attempts' for TCP section.

Possibly, the bad bots, who are using IPv6, had access to the my box all the time and abused it violently to find the way in

#networking #NetBSD #firewall

Alt...

Netstat graph from Munin. The graph for failed connections has a lot of spikes in the left side of the graph and completely zero on the right side.

@wezm It was one of the flat panel Sun ones, I think 19"? I'm front left in this screen grab from our opscam around that time. The Sony Vaio on my right was my #NetBSD laptop.

I used to be able to read tiny fonts. Time has caught up with me... ;-)

Alt...

BBC Internet Services "OpsCam", 15th October 2001.

@wezm I love old screenshots. Nearly 25 years ago I was building NetBSD 1.5Y from my Solaris 8 desktop at the BBC. Fun times.

#solaris #netbsd #evilwm

Alt...

Screenshot of a Solaris 8 desktop running various terminals, chat programs, a very early Firefox, and compiling NetBSD.

this weekend i enabled gfortran in base netbsd for all our platforms. it had been missing since the g77 -> gfortran switch a long time ago.
#netbsd #fortran

Oh and here's a photo from 2001 showing a NetBSD crash. The first UNIX-like OS I ran on my own hardware was NetBSD in 2001 on a cobbled together PC with a Cyrix 6x86 CPU and some memory from who knows where. It would crash under heavy load, here extracting the pkgsrc tarball, due to bad RAM or the CPU getting too hot, I can't remember.

#NetBSD

Alt...

A photo of a rounded CRT screen showing a uvm_fault in green text. kernel: page fault trap, code=0 Stopped in tar at vn_stat+0x51: addb %cl,0x568ba045(%ebx)

As I continue to trawl through old backups please enjoy this screenshot of a NetBSD system dated Feb 2005. Not sure what I was up to, or what the system running it was.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt_Qube

#NetBSD #twm

Alt...

A twm desktop with several xterms, xload, and xclock.

@scribblesonnapkins It has an A2-class micro SD card, which has a write cache. I didn’t even know about that until I read @jmcwhatever@mastodon.sdf.org’s post about a good card for #NetBSD on the Nintendo Wii U. The speedy card really does make it feel like it has an SSD.

It didn’t go very far in to swap, since I had hardly anything else running on it while compiling.

@scribblesonnapkins This machine is a first generation Raspberry Pi Zero, not the Zero 2 (or is it 2 Zero?)

Its purpose is to compile #NetBSD #pkgsrc binaries for earmv4. Because there are earmv4 instructions that aren’t in earmv7 and aarch64, I need a real earmv6 CPU, which rules out running on anything newer / faster.

A chroot on a fast aarch64 system would be nice, but nobody has written instruction trap handlers for those missing earmv4 instructions.

Since it’s a single core, the temps never get anywhere close to hot. The hottest it’s ever gotten is 51.92º. I mean just look at that cool copper heat sink :)

Alt...

This is an animated GIF from Rick and Morty of the robot that Rick created that has as its only purpose to pass the butter. Here it's asking what its purpose is.

It took six days and eight hours for a #NetBSD Raspberry Pi Zero W to compile gcc 14.3.0 for earmv4.

Now I’m curious how long each version of gcc would take compared to each other…

Please don’t go down that rabbit hole, I keep telling myself.

Alt...

This is a picture of a Raspberry Pi Zero W in a jar with a battery backup and a USB-ethernet adapter.

@Em0nM4stodon It’s a PineBook - not Pro, but the original - but the one with the high res 1920x1080 screen. It’s small, runs forever on batteries, can stay charged from any USB port, and it runs #NetBSD awesomely.

@lfa No problem, I'm using even vi while tinkering something on my #NetBSD server

#vi