gnulib adding bogus "Solaris 12" code that breaks illumos, which gets embedded into loads of upstream releases, which all require manual patching.

Happy Thursday.

Well, at least I get to fully exercise bob development sandboxes...

#pkgsrc #illumos #solaris

bob v0.99.x now available, as well as a wip/bob package for testing.

These are release candidates in preparation for v1.0 which will be considered fully production ready.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, then now is the time to raise them as once v1.0 lands I will not be allowing any incompatible changes.

https://mail-index.netbsd.org/pkgsrc-users/2026/04/08/msg042818.html

Happy building!

#pkgsrc #bob

Now that I've switched the daily SmartOS pkgsrc bulk builds fully over to bob, I figured it might be interesting to also publish the exact config file I'm using to do so.

https://github.com/jperkin/bob/blob/main/examples/smartos-trunk.lua

No more complicated and fragile sandbox scripts, patches to pbulk, convoluted build infrastructure, etc.

Just a single binary installed using cargo, and a single configuration file.

Next release will be 0.99.0, we're almost ready for v1.0.

#pkgsrc #bob

I wish I could find a time to commit my changes to #pkgsrc tonight...

First full pkgsrc build completed with bob using the new publishing feature. All looking good!

https://mail-index.netbsd.org/pkgsrc-bulk/2026/04/02/msg028397.html

#pkgsrc #bob

And I am busy with household things too. I should find a time to commit my changes for #pkgsrc. I have too many changes in my local tree...

Finally managed to get a good setup for #pkgsrc updates with @jperkin's "bob" instead of using pkgrrxx or pkg_rolling-replace.

What is nice about this is that builds are in a sandbox, and build failures do not leave the system in an inconsistent state.

Alt...

bob building the clang package for pkgsrc, then installing it with pkgin.

TIL making .app wrappers on macOS for GUI apps distributed as simple binaries, such as those from pkgsrc, is piss easy.

Step 1: Create a directory named <App Name>.app
Step 2: Symlink the binary into the root directory of the .app directory with the same name as the directory but without the .app

That's literally it. You don't need to do anything else, it just works. Incredible.

#macOS #pkgsrc

bob v0.9.0 now available!

https://mail-index.netbsd.org/pkgsrc-users/2026/03/25/msg042765.html

I'm really proud of this one. Dynamic MAKE_JOBS and WRKOBJDIR in particular will save me a significant amount of time, and ensure my builds automatically stay optimal.

As always please let me know if you run into any issues or have suggestions for the next release.

#pkgsrc #bob #rustlang

Toot from #pkgsrc/www/firefox-149.0b10 in my local pkgsrc tree on #NetBSD/amd64-current...

Found a fun way to confuse #pkgsrc: set it up on a 64-bit Pi with a 32-bit OS. The kernel will be 64-bit still, causing search path confusion in check_shlibs.

The workaround, pending a better solution: bootstrap --machine-arch arm

installing #pkgsrc

exciting Sunday 🤣

Anyway I should commit some changes to #pkgsrc this weekend...

Hey! I will speak at #OpenTofuDay Europe in Amsterdam on March 23!

In my talk, we will see how to package OpenTofu and its providers, and we will exercise that to migrate from Terraform 0.12.x to OpenTofu 1.11.x.

Talk schedule link: https://sched.co/2DY5x

For more info about OpenTofu Day Europe: https://bit.ly/41RUALZ

#CloudNativeCon #KubeCon #opentofu #pkgsrc #netbsd

Alt...

OpenTofu Day Europe 2026 logo, Amsterdam, The Netherlands 23 March 2026 #OpenTofu

I realise the "blazing fast" meme is getting very old at this point, but it's genuinely so much fun making Rust code even faster. You often end up with simpler, cleaner, more idiomatic code too.

The original C pbulk presolve code takes:

real 0m35.686s
user 0m35.229s
sys 0m0.163s

Bob was already much faster:

real 0m2.115s
user 0m1.677s
sys 0m0.174s

But the new code is ridiculously (some might say blazing) fast:

real 0m0.506s
user 0m0.396s
sys 0m0.106s

#pkgsrc

The NetBSD Foundation will participate to Google Summer of Code 2026!

Google Summer of Code is a great opportunity to contribute to NetBSD and/or pkgsrc!

To learn more please give a look to NetBSD Blog post: https://blog.NetBSD.org/tnf/entry/gsoc2026_tnf

#netbsd #pkgsrc

Mid February #NetBSD #pkgsrc package counts for 2025Q4:

10.0: earmv4 12805 (didn’t have it listed before) 10.0: m68k 9622 (+1394) 10.0: powerpc 20711 (+2833) 10.0: sparc64 16866 (+1635) 10.0: vax 7495 (+748)

11.0: aarch64eb 24042 (+4001) 11.0: earmv4 4362 (+612) 11.0: m68k 8132 (+1271) 11.0: mips64eb 3852 (+363) 11.0: mipsel 440 (+449 - needs a new power supply) 11.0: powerpc 4552 (unchanged - needs space and power) 11.0: riscv64 18616 (+3233) 11.0: sh3el 7809 (+2239) 11.0: vax 5245 (+1879)

@jperkin Any chance of getting it moved from wip into pkgsrc before the 2026Q1 branch, please? 🙏😎#pkgsrc #prettyplease 😁

System Administration: Week 4: Package Management

In this video, we continue our discussion of the difference and relationship between the operating system and so-called "add-on software". We conclude that in order to install and maintain all such software, we want to use a package manager, and illustrate common features by example of the 'dpkg', 'rpm', and #NetBSD's #pkgsrc tools.

https://youtu.be/dU66_sPjnXg

#sysadmin #devops #sre

Alt...

A diagram illustrating the relationship between OS, Package Management, and the different components: Add-on software, System Software, Applications/Utitlities/ Kernel/Firmware / Hardware

I am testing the new GNU m4 package in my local #pkgsrc tree...

Celebrating #WorldRadioDay with the most portable OS on the planet. 🌍

Whether it's the embedded controller inside a vintage radio or the legendary NetBSD Toaster 🍞, the ham/ 📻category in #pkgsrc has you covered.

Why just make toast when you can transmit packets over the airwaves at the same time?
#NetBSD #SDR #PacketRadio #HamRadio #VintageComputing #Linux #unix

@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

Toot from pkgsrc/www/firefox-148.0b9 in my local #pkgsrc tree...

Ok quick "screenshot" before bed.

[ 0: 3m 3s ] libunistring-1.2 (build -j6)
[ 1: 2m 18s ] libgcrypt-1.11.2 (build -j5)
[ 2: 3m 40s ] python313-3.13.11nb1 (build -j2)
[ 3: 5m 0s ] gettext-lib-0.22.5 (configure -j3)

There is now support in main for dynamic MAKE_JOBS, designed to ensure that build throughput is as optimal as possible. To enable, all you need to do is set:

options = {
dynamic_jobs = { max = 16, min = 2 },
}

and bob will figure out the rest.

#pkgsrc #bob

The problem with releasing bob v0.8.1 with a bunch of great features (available now!) is that I just now thought of an absolutely killer feature.

v0.9.0 may be out sooner rather than later... This is something I've wanted from pbulk forever.

#pkgsrc #bob

netbsd.org down for everyone else or just me?

(ignore www, that's on fastly)

#netbsd #pkgsrc

This also provides a significant performance boost. In pbulk, every build requires a full setup/teardown of the environment just to check the status of the package.

On most platforms this means unpacking the bootstrap kit and any other setup, before forking the tools to check various things, then wiping everything at the end.

Now that all of this is in native Rust, bob simply checks all at the start, and saves a huge amount of time by skipping all up-to-date packages.

Rust FTW

#pkgsrc #bob

Playing around with a cool new bob feature. One of the most opaque parts of pbulk is that you never really know WHY a particular package is being rebuilt.

Bob's up-to-date checker is now written in native Rust (no need to fork pkg_info and pkg_admin), records the reasons, and provides a new status command:

$ bob list status rust
PKGNAME STATUS REASON
rust-bin-1.91.1 pending package not found
rust-1.91.1 pending deps changed: +digest-20220214, ...

#pkgsrc #bob

I just released bob v0.7.0.

https://github.com/jperkin/bob/blob/main/CHANGES.md#version-070-2026-01-30

This version now supports macOS sandboxes. I figured out how to avoid SIGBUS when re-using chroots, but unfortunately it means waiting for 2 minutes for 'diskutil unmount' to unmount /System read-only loopback mounts. No, I don't know why it takes that long for a read-only mount either!

Also a new "bob list" command, so you can do things like:

$ bob list failed | xargs bob rebuild

plus loads of other improvements.

#pkgsrc #bob #rustlang

Lol, the Mattermost version in #pkgsrc has 132 vulnerabilities according to govulncheck.

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

@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.

Published a new version of the pkgsrc crate. Amongst many other improvements, this adds support for handling binary packages.

Using the example pkg_info program it shows a nice performance boost over the native pkg_install tooling, especially when using threads, to generate a pkg_summary file.

pkg_install: 21.9s
pkgsrc-rs: 17.0s
pkgsrc-rs (-j12): 2.8s

One step closer towards a fully Rust package manager for pkgsrc.

https://docs.rs/pkgsrc/latest/pkgsrc/

#pkgsrc #rustlang

@drixter on that particular VM there are only 8, but I spawned 18 build processes anyway just to show what the output looks like. tuning #pkgsrc builds is significantly more involved in that, and the sweet spot is usually fewer sandboxes than cores and then MAKE_JOBS tweaks on a per-PKGPATH basis.

In case users aren't aware, if you extend your terminal width then bob will dynamically make use of it to show more panels side by side. Watching 18 concurrent pkgsrc builds can get quite mesmerising!

(Any perceived slowness in the video can be attributed to this SSH session going across the Atlantic and back).

The next release will improve the refresh handling even further, as well as a bunch of other improvements.

#pkgsrc #bob #ratatui

Just wanted to install an #XMPP client to create an account to test something. I moved away to #Matrix years ago because I had no hope anymore for #XMPP, but now that I wanted to create an account, I am just shocked at how dead it is: #Fedora still has Gajim 1.7.3, when the last release is 2.4.1. #pkgsrc is a bit but noch much better with 2.1.1. #Tkabber is even worse: pkgsrc has 0.11.1, when 1.1.2 is the latest release that was released in 2015(!). It seems distributions keep XMPP clients around, but don’t update them because nobody is using them anymore. I had not expected for XMPP to be that dead. That’s shocking.

I also think if distributions cannot be bothered to update a package in over 10 years, they should just remove it…

A nice performance win in bob v0.5.0 that was just released. Time required to perform a full pkgsrc tree scan resolve.

pbulk-presolve:

real 1m1.647s
user 1m1.140s
sys 0m0.410s

bob:

real 0m2.129s
user 0m1.934s
sys 0m0.183s

Also the usual selection of bugfixes and improvements.

#pkgsrc #bob

Finally:

===> Installing binary package of qgis-3.44.5

#NetBSD
#PkgSrc

I released bob v0.4.0 last night.

This version is significantly more robust. I've been testing with hitting ctrl-c during scans and builds a lot, and a subsequent run quickly picks up from where it left off.

Also a new "rebuild" command so you can easily retry a failed build, and build commands now accept arguments so you can do this:

$ bob build mail/mutt

to build arbitrary packages.

Lots of other fixes and improvements. Get it while it's hot.

https://docs.rs/pkgbob/latest/bob/

#pkgsrc #bob

#introduction ― I decided to create an alt account here to allow me
to connect more easily with SDF community.

My primary focus will be on tech-related things I like:
#pkgsrc on #netbsd #illumos and #slackware
#unix #sdf #gopher #smolnet #usenet #dos #c #lisp
#selfhosting #homeserver #permacomputing #lowtech
#hamradio #progrock #progmetal #ambient #postrock
#90s #scifi #cyberpunk #novels #seinen #manga

Fresh pkgsrc 2025Q4 packages for Slackware 15.0 now available.

Thunderbird 145, Libreoffice 25.8, XFCE 4.20, and much more.

https://retrobsd.ddns.net/pub/packages/All/
rsync://retrobsd.ddns.net

#pkgsrc #slackware

Alt...

Fvwm3 desktop on Slackware 15.0 (dark theme with motif decorations), displaying some software compiled through pkgsrc (thunderbird, libreoffice, a matrix client named iamb).

Bob v0.3.0 released. 'cargo install pkgbob' to update.

We're still in beta mode and things may change, but it's coming along nicely, and should already be a very usable alternative to pkg_chk / pkg_rr.

This version is now 100% bug-for-bug compatible with pbulk for scanning the full pkgsrc tree, and supports resuming interrupted builds with new database support.

Plus a bunch of other fixes.

https://github.com/jperkin/bob/blob/main/CHANGES.md#version-030-2026-01-01

If you have any issues no matter how small please let me know!

#pkgsrc #bob