Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 18/02/2023: FreeBSD 13.2 Beta 2



  • GNU/Linux

  • Distributions and Operating Systems

    • BSD

      • FreeBSDFreeBSD 13.2-BETA2 Now Available
        The second BETA build of the 13.2-RELEASE release cycle is now available.
        
        

        Installation images are available for:

        o 13.2-BETA2 amd64 GENERIC o 13.2-BETA2 i386 GENERIC o 13.2-BETA2 powerpc GENERIC o 13.2-BETA2 powerpc64 GENERIC64 o 13.2-BETA2 powerpc64le GENERIC64LE o 13.2-BETA2 powerpcspe MPC85XXSPE o 13.2-BETA2 armv6 RPI-B o 13.2-BETA2 armv7 GENERICSD o 13.2-BETA2 aarch64 GENERIC o 13.2-BETA2 aarch64 RPI o 13.2-BETA2 aarch64 PINE64 o 13.2-BETA2 aarch64 PINE64-LTS o 13.2-BETA2 aarch64 PINEBOOK o 13.2-BETA2 aarch64 ROCK64 o 13.2-BETA2 aarch64 ROCKPRO64 o 13.2-BETA2 riscv64 GENERIC o 13.2-BETA2 riscv64 GENERICSD

        Note regarding arm SD card images: For convenience for those without console access to the system, a freebsd user with a password of freebsd is available by default for ssh(1) access. Additionally, the root user password is set to root. It is strongly recommended to change the password for both users after gaining access to the system.

        Installer images and memory stick images are available here:

        https://download.freebsd.org/releases/ISO-IMAGES/13.2/

        The image checksums follow at the end of this e-mail.

        If you notice problems you can report them through the Bugzilla PR system or on the -stable mailing list.

        If you would like to use Git to do a source based update of an existing system, use the "releng/13.2" branch.

        A summary of changes since 13.2-BETA1 includes:

        o OpenSSH has been updated to version 9.2p1.

        o The ahci(4) timeout on Marvell 88SE9230 has been increased.

        o A bug fix to [hash]sum -c.

        A list of changes since 13.1 is available in the releng/13.2 release notes:

        https://www.freebsd.org/releases/13.2R/relnotes/

        Please note, the release notes page is not yet complete, and will be updated on an ongoing basis as the 13.2-RELEASE cycle progresses.

        === Virtual Machine Disk Images ===

        VM disk images are available for the amd64, i386, and aarch64 architectures. Disk images may be downloaded from the following URL (or any of the FreeBSD download mirrors):

        https://download.freebsd.org/releases/VM-IMAGES/13.2-BETA2/

        BASIC-CI images can be found at:

        https://download.freebsd.org/releases/CI-IMAGES/13.2-BETA2/

        The partition layout is:

        ~ 16 kB - freebsd-boot GPT partition type (bootfs GPT label) ~ 1 GB - freebsd-swap GPT partition type (swapfs GPT label) ~ 20 GB - freebsd-ufs GPT partition type (rootfs GPT label)

        The disk images are available in QCOW2, VHD, VMDK, and raw disk image formats. The image download size is approximately 135 MB and 165 MB respectively (amd64/i386), decompressing to a 21 GB sparse image.

        Note regarding arm64/aarch64 virtual machine images: a modified QEMU EFI loader file is needed for qemu-system-aarch64 to be able to boot the virtual machine images. See this page for more information:

        https://wiki.freebsd.org/arm64/QEMU

        To boot the VM image, run:

        % qemu-system-aarch64 -m 4096M -cpu cortex-a57 -M virt \ -bios QEMU_EFI.fd -serial telnet::4444,server -nographic \ -drive if=none,file=VMDISK,id=hd0 \ -device virtio-blk-device,drive=hd0 \ -device virtio-net-device,netdev=net0 \ -netdev user,id=net0

        Be sure to replace "VMDISK" with the path to the virtual machine image.
    • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

      • SJVNCanonical announces the general availability of Real-Time Ubuntu Linux 22.04 LTS

        Most of you know Ubuntu as a desktop operating system; others know it as an outstanding server Linux; or as a popular cloud OS. But Canonical, Ubuntu's parent company, is also a serious Internet of Things (IoT) player. And after years of work, IoT release, Ubuntu Core 22.04, Canonical is offering a true real-time operating system.

        A real-time operating system is one that's fast enough that it can guarantee a reaction to data within a tight, real-world deadline. Typically, real-time computing delivers results from microseconds (one-millionth of a second) to milliseconds (one-thousandth of a second). Real-time applications that take things down to microsecond latency include stock market high-frequency trading (HFT) applications. The much more common millisecond real-time processing is used in banking and telecom applications, digital ad networks, and self-driving cars. Us? People? We have average reaction times of around 250 milliseconds.

        According to Mark Shuttleworth, Canonical's CEO, "The real-time Ubuntu kernel delivers industrial-grade performance and resilience for software-defined manufacturing, monitoring, and operational tech."

    • Open Hardware/Modding

      • ArduinoAll aboard the java train!

        These days, everyone seems to turn to robots for automating tasks in the physical world. But robots are often clumsy and unreliable — not to mention expensive.

      • Tom's HardwarePolish Raspberry Pi Clone Sports M.2 Socket, Real-Time Clock | Tom's Hardware

        Though the situation is improving, it can still be difficult to find a Raspberry Pi in stock. Meanwhile, companies from around the world continue to offer their own alternatives to the world's most popular single-board computer. A product of Polish Electronics Maker EVEO, the Urve Board Pi (opens in new tab) has identical dimensions and a nearly-identical layout to the Raspberry Pi 3B / 3B+ but throws in unique features such as an M.2 SSD port, a real-time clock and a power-over-Ethernet (PoE) connector.

        Available now for the equivalent of $90 (opens in new tab)on Polish web store TEM, the Urve Board Pi has an all-white PC PCB that's the same 85 x 56 mm size as the Pi 3B and it has pretty-much the same ports in the same locations so it should fit into a case that would accept a Pi 3B / 3B+.

    • Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

  • Leftovers

    • Copenhagen PostStress Wärnings: Be aware of your resources

      Stress occurs when there is a perceived imbalance between demands and resources. It is therefore important to address stressors, perception and resources when dealing with stress, as often the importance of resources is overlooked.€  Resources are keyResources are the aspects

    • Ben CongdonOn Prompt Engineering
    • teleSURStrikes Bring Air Traffic To Standstill in Germany

      Around 2,340 flights were to be canceled, affecting almost 300,000 passengers, said the German Airports Association.

    • Off GuardianParanoia: Is it Always a Bad Thing?

      Todd Hayen “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.” Kurt Cobain What is paranoia? Usually the condition is coupled with another mental malady: schizophrenia, due to the psychosis brought about by that particular mental illness.

    • Off GuardianVirtue and Terror: How the New Normal was Created

      Simon Elmer “If the mainspring of popular government in peacetime is virtue, the mainspring of popular government during a revolution is both virtue and terror; virtue, without which terror is fatal; terror, without which virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing but swift, severe, inflexible justice; it is therefore an emanation of virtue.

    • France24‘No doctors, no clinics near them’: French and Turkish medics visit Turkey’s rural areas

      Turkey's hospitals are full of€ patients€ injured in the earthquakes, and many of the millions left homeless in the cities have left for rural areas to find refuge with relatives, making it harder for sick people to find medical assistance. A group of Turkish and French paramedics has been travelling to rural areas to respond to this need. FRANCE 24's Thameen Al-Kheetan, Julien Chehida and Brice Agier-Grégoire accompanied the team on a visit to a village near Adiyaman.

    • France24Turkey-Syria death toll tops 45,000; three found alive 13 days after quakes

      More than 45,000 people have been killed in the earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria, and the toll is expected to soar with some 264,000 apartments in Turkey destroyed and many still missing in the country's worst modern disaster.

    • Tedium Old Archives, New Controversy

      The New York Times has the most robust online archives of any newspaper, but it’s proving difficult to square their handling of a recent controversy with the quality of those archives.

    • Computers Are BadSomething up there pt II

      As we discussed previously, the search for UAP is often contextualized in terms of the events of 2017: the public revelation of the AATIP and alien-hunting efforts by Robert Bigelow and Tom DeLonge. While widely publicized, these programs seem to have lead to very little. I believe the termination of the AATIP (which lead to the creation of TTSA) to be a result of the AATIP's failure to address the DoD's actual concern: that UAP represented a threat to airspace sovereignty.

      I just used a lot of four- and five-letter acronyms without explaining them. These topics were all discussed in the previous post and if you are not familiar with them I would encourage you to read it. Still, I will try to knock it off. Besides, now there is a new set of four- and five-letter acronyms. The end of the AATIP was not the end of the DoD's efforts to investigate UAP. Instead, military UAP research was reorganized, first into Naval intelligence as the UAP Task Force, and later in the cross-branch military intelligence All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO.

      It is unclear exactly what the AARO has accomplished. As a military intelligence organization, the DoD will not comment on it. Most of what we know comes from legislators briefed on the program, like Sen. Gillibrand and Sen. Rubio. In various interviews and statements, they have said that AARO's work is underway but hampered by underfunding---underfunding that is, embarrassingly, a result of some kind of technical error in defense appropriation.

  • Gemini* and Gopher

    • Personal

      • More Fountain Pens

        Well fountain pen madness continues. I have acquired another teeny tiny pen - a Kaweco Liliput. This is a similar size to the Ohto Tasche but in a more attractive package. There is some 3 to 5 mm difference. I ended up getting a black aluminium version of the Liliput, mostly down to cost and worry about how well it writes. There are lots of warnings about bad nibs. It cost around $45. The steel and brass versions are closer to $100. The design of theLiliput is essentially a tube with rounded edges.

      • SMILE: Progress and collapse

        While we are accelerating towards a crash due to unsustainable consumption, there are still believers in progress. The singularity is near, we are told. Space Migration, Intelligence Increase, and Life Extension – summarised in the catchy formula SMI€²LE – was LSD guru Timothy Leary's vision already in the early 1970's. General AI might reach a point where it becomes capable of improving itself and, at that point, we're done; the all-mighty AI will start making paper clips in enormous quantities and will be unstoppable, unless it comes up with something even worse. Already, automation and AI have seriously reshaped the labour market, increased wage gaps between skilled and unskilled workers, and is about to make some previous professions obsolete. Designers and illustrators might feel somewhat threatened by generative art, now that anyone can produce images from a text prompt. Contemporary artists hardly worry, for them generative art is just another opportunity to be explored.

    • Technical

      • Messing with pkg_info and ditching password-store

        This week has been a tinkering one where I haven't been doing anything very productive. It has been so long since I properly used C, so I am working my way through a book on C programming as a refresher. I was recommended a game, Tales of Maj'Eyal [0], on IRC [1] and I have been hooked on that most of the day! As a sidenote, I am pleasantly surprised with the games available on OpenBSD so far.

        I did notice at the beginning of the week that bash somehow ended up installed on my system, since I use ksh and never installed it directly it must be a package dependency. I managed to track it down to the password-store [2] utility.

      • Internet/Gemini

        • Gemini Capsule on Pico W

          I received my Pico W long time ago but couldn't find the time to finish this.

          I decided to do this in Python (using MicroPython) first, then translate to C and see how things can be improved.

          It's very simple and very basic, without concurrency. Like my ESP32 setup, it uses Duck DNS.


* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It's like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.



Recent Techrights' Posts

A Note on SimilarWeb
Or why SimilarWeb is meaningless for more than 99% of the sites on the Web
IBM Said to be Shutting Down Offices or Sites in the United States
the press can no longer avoid admitting that IBM moves many jobs to India
LLM Slop as Attack Vector on the Reputation of Linux
The attacks on Linux have escalated to information warfare
 
Traf-O-Data, the Company That Jeffrey Epstein's BFF (Bill Gates) (Co)Founded 53 Years and Went Out of Business Due to Heavy Losses
Who will die first, Bill or Microsoft?
Why Microsoft's Shares Sank Almost 20% in Recent Months (the Bubble is Imploding)
verified press reports from the past 24 hours
GNU/Linux Rises to Almost 5% in Algeria While Windows Sinks to All-Time Low
GNU/Linux grew tenfold
Where to Get More Gags
A valued reader recommended that to us
Links 04/04/2025: Tech Stock (Inc. GAFAM) Fall, Google Pretends to Do End-to-End Encrypted Emails (With Google in Control)
Links for the day
To Participate in Fedora Diversity You Must Use Proprietary Software
Not for the first time either
Yandex About to Be Three Times Bigger Than Microsoft (Bing) in Asia
That's about 60% of the world's population
Gemini Links 04/04/2025: Decoupling Updates, Elaho as Gemini Client
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 03, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, April 03, 2025
Microsoft's Trouble in Africa and Asia
A new all-time high for GNU/Linux
Brett Wilson LLP Reported to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)
The saddest thing in all this is that law firms can maintain high standards shall they wish to
Links 03/04/2025: Tariff Pains and C.D.C. Cuts
Links for the day
StatCounter: Microsoft is Masking a Disaster, It's Way Behind DeepSeek Already and Interest in LLMs Has Waned
it turns out the money "raised" for "Open" "AI" may not even exist at all
Links 03/04/2025: SoftBank Money for Microsoft "Open" "AI" Probably Doesn't Even Exist, Wikimedia Foundation Blasts LLM Nuisance While Microsoft Admits Demand Has Shrunk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/04/2025: Patch Panel and Pictures
Links for the day
Islamic Republic of Iran: GNU/Linux at All-time High This Month, Windows Falls to 12%
Vista 10 is up this month despite being "end of life" (EoL) soon
Indonesia: All-Time Highs for GNU/Linux
What's noteworthy right now is the growth of GNU/Linux
statCounter Says GNU/Linux Usage is Up Again (Internationally)
some preliminary April data
Only on April 1st Can the Free Software Foundation Associate With Microsoft's Open Source Initiative (OSI)
We saw some pranks that day linking the FSF to Microsoft (e.g. "endorsing" Windows)
Confirmed in the Mainstream Media: A Lot of Microsoft "Workloads" Were Just LLM Slop (Helping to Fake Growth for Years, as Microsoft Had Paid "Open" "AI" to Become a "Client") and Demand is Rapidly Waning, Datacentres Canceled and/or Shut Down
Anything to facilitate further accounting fraud
Taiwan's Media Covers Closure of Microsoft's "AI" Lab, It's Time to Talk About the Gradual Death of Windows and Implosion of the "AI" Bubble
Earlier this week we showed that mostly Asian media had the 'nerve' to mention Microsoft silently shutting down its 'AI' lab
IBM Gets Rid of Kelly Chambliss as Mass Layoffs Reported in IBM Consulting, IBM Loses Key Contracts/Graft
IBM Consulting has been in disarray lately
More Gains for GNU/Linux, Based on Web Surveys
the Steam site shows rapid growth for "Linux" this month
Slopwatch: Anti-Linux Articles, Not Even Written by Humans
Why aren't Web sites more vocal about this problem?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 02, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 02, 2025
Links 03/04/2025: Apple Fined Over Secret Surveillance, "Elegant Writer For A More Civilized Age"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 02/04/2025: Books and Cold Tea
Links for the day
Links 02/04/2025: More Layoffs, Nokia Again Takes Advantage of Illegal and Unconstitutional Patent Court With Nokia Staff as 'Judges'
Links for the day
Links 02/04/2025: Seizures and Returns to Windows of 24 Years Ago
Links for the day
LLM Slop Helps Obscure and Distort News About Layoffs (IBM, GAFAM)
It's hard to find accurate information
Links 02/04/2025: Microsoft Developers Are Threatening to Go on Strike, World Backup Day Noted
Links for the day
Gemini Protocol Has Growing Appeal (the Web Got Too Bloated and Full of LLM Slop)
For any "data plan" with bandwidth limits or "tiers" it would be cheaper to use/browse Geminispace
The Web Can Survive LLM Slop, But Only If We Collectively Shun and Discourage Serial Sloppers
Doing nothing ought not be a possibility
Amid Secret Shut-downs and Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (4 Waves of Layoffs in 3 Months of 2025) Some Microsoft Staff Expected to Go On Strike
workers going on strike
Gemini Links 02/04/2025: No more on Mastodon and Gemini Mention Script in Go
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, April 01, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, April 01, 2025
My Motion Disbarring or “Striking Off” Brett Wilson LLP for Enabling Violent Americans Who Try to Crush Microsoft Critics in the United Kingdom by Multiple SLAPPs
"Guns for hire" (for Microsoft people who received Microsoft salaries)
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Hijacked Again by Patent Litigation Industry, as President Cheeto Prioritises Aggressors
The "mafia" has taken over the "industry" and the Federal system (justice and constitutions trampled upon)
Ubuntu Slop and FUD Manufactured With LLMs and Funded (by Oneself) 'Studies'
Slop and FUD are ruining the Web