BSD Update: OpenBSD Saved, PC-BSD 10.0 is Coming, and FreeBSD 10.0 is Released
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-01-21 10:19:46 UTC
- Modified: 2014-01-21 10:32:23 UTC
Summary: News about the world of BSD, led by a generous donation to OpenBSD and a major new release of FreeBSD
OpenBSD
-
OpenBSD is important because it’s widely used in firewalls, other edge servers, email, DNS and intrusion detection servers for its security. It’s also included in a number of popular third-party packages that include SQL Lite, BIND, Sendmail and the Lynx web browser. €®
-
OpenBSD supports a wide range of hardware architectures, and for practical and logistical reasons there are few places in the world that have them all in one place except OpenBSD headquarters, see eg this picture, which shows a subset of the machines involved in building OpenBSD releases.
PC-BSD
-
PC-BSD 10.0 RC3 for this week pulls in the latest upstream FreeBSD 10 changes. As noted in their weekly digest is also improved detection of AMD Hybrid Graphics systems. With the FreeBSD/PC-BSD open-source graphics drivers being ported from the Linux kernel, their hybrid (dual) GPU graphics support isn't any better than Linux, and these improvements is just better detection if trying to load the X Server off the first GPU fails. Improved NVIDIA Hybrid/Optimus support for PC-BSD/FreeBSD support still needs to be investigated.
FreeBSD
-
FreeBSD 10.0 uses Clang as the default compiler in place of GCC, TRIM support is available for SSDs with ZFS as are other ZFS file-system improvements, AMD Radeon KMS driver support, and a wide-range of packages have been updated. I have already written at length about the best FreeBSD 10 features and other interesting features so check out the dozens of FreeBSD 10.0 articles on Phoronix for more information.
-
The problem has been corrected within FreeBSD HEAD, which is aligned for FreeBSD 11-CURRENT. The problem was fixed by writing a new VT console driver (the "Newcons" project). However, this won't benefit users of FreeBSD 10.0 and can only hope that it will be back-ported to a FreeBSD 10.x point release rather than waiting some years for FreeBSD 11.0.
-
The third and final FreeBSD 10.0 release candidate is out ahead of the hopeful general availability in early January.
FreeBSD 10.0 didn't make it out this year as was originally planned with the first target release date being months ago. Fortunately, the release is progress with a day-after-Christmas update.
-
Advancing prudently but quietly within the Debian camp is the Debian GNU/kFreeBSD operating system that pairs Debian's GNU user-land with the FreeBSD kernel. For Debian 8.0 "Jessie" there are continued improvements on this spin that does away with the Linux kernel. Debian GNU/kFreeBSD Jessie/Sid currently defaults to the FreeBSD 9.2.0 kernel, but a FreeBSD 10.0 development kernel has already landed in Debian and is the focus of today's benchmarks.
-
Latest version of the OS brings in Clang/LLVM, Hyper-V support, ARM additions, and compatibility with the Raspberry Pi
-
What makes this monster server (code-named MEGACORE) interesting isn’t its scale (it’s a fairly common server we build) but rather its purpose. It was recently built by iXsystems for the FreeBSD Foundation, and will be used to test and push FreeBSD to its limits. The FreeBSD Foundation plans on making it available to FreeBSD’s developers and committers for the purposes of addressing SMP, memory, and general performance scalability. It will be the most powerful machine in the Project’s possession to date.
-
Support for secure boot will be available in the FreeBSD 10.1 release which is due to be made later this year, according to Marshall Kirk McKusick, a senior developer of the operating system.
McKusick told iTWire that work on FreeBSD's boot process had been making steady progress. "Implementing UEFI booting is the first step, and last year the (FreeBSD) Foundation sponsored (developer) Benno Rice with a small project to implement a working prototype," he said.
UEFI would be a
bad idea for FreeBSD if FreeBSD
wants to dodge back doors because of
BIOS/EFI-level exploits.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- EPO "Cocaine Communication Manager" - Part I - Getting the Word Out About What the 'Alicante Mafia' Did to Europe's Second-Largest Institution
- Can't everyone in the European media agree that letting cokeheads run Europe's second-largest institution is a terrible idea?
-
- Another IBM Company (Spawned by IBM) is Hiding the Scale of Layoffs, Just Like Red Hat and Kyndryl
- Why is the scale of the layoffs there shrouded in secrecy?
- Links 14/02/2026: Financial Woes in Hong Kong and "Hong Kong Journalists Face ‘Precarious’ Future After Jimmy Lai Jailed"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 14/02/2026: Fish Shell and Meta Slash-commands
- Links for the day
- Links 14/02/2026: "Bias and Toxicity in" Slop, Microsoft's Vista 11 System Update Breaks Systems Again
- Links for the day
- Links 14/02/2026: "Suppression of Free Speech" and "Climate Change Puts Winter Games on Thin Ice"
- Links for the day
- Richard Stallman in the United States - Part I - Huge Audience (Offline and Online), 'Cancel Culture' Attempted and Failed
- the comeback of Richard Stallman (RMS) in the United States
- GitHub Cannot Survive for Much Longer
- Microsoft is trying to just hide the debt
- Ed Zitron: Microsoft Is A Decaying Empire That Bet The Future On Making In Excess Of $500 Billion In New Revenue Within The Next 4 To 6 Years From AI — And It Hasn’t Made A Dime In Profit Yet
- Microsoft bets its future on a bunch of nothing
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, February 13, 2026
- IRC logs for Friday, February 13, 2026
- Gemini Links 14/02/2026: "Throwback VR Headset" and OFFLFIRSOCH 2026
- Links for the day
- IBM's Accounting Claims Don't Add Up
- IBM is an enigma. To Wall Street is claims to be doing extremely well, but insiders tell the complete opposite.
- Links 13/02/2026: "Cofounders Fleeing MElon’s xAI" and IOC Opposes Solidarity With Ukraine's Fallen
- Links for the day
- IBM is Becoming "Garbage In, Garbage Out" (GIGO) "Just like Arvind and Krabanaugh." (CEO and CFO, Respectively)
- There are some decent new comments about IBM this morning
- Gemini Links 13/02/2026: Square Function with Diode Network and Calls Against Discord
- Links for the day
- Links 13/02/2026: SUSE Uses Microsoft Internally, MElon's Company Helps Turn Epstein Files Into Child Abuse (After the Pornography Scandals)
- Links for the day
- If Your Company Lost About 30% of Its 'Value' in 3 Months, Then Maybe It Was Never Worth What You Claimed
- Does that make sense?
- Pleroma is Dying
- The last social control media that I joined was Pleroma
- African Browser Choices Show a Growing Problem in the World Wide Web
- World Wide Web (WWW) becoming little but a transport layer for a particular proprietary application (Google Chrome) [...] we're back to the late 1990s
- Asia and Social Control Media
- statCounter reckons it's down from over 10% to just 3% since it began tracking those things
- If You Want Digital Freedom, Then Follow Richard Stallman, the "Linux" Brand Has Changed and OSI is Microsoft (GitHub)
- If you want something stable and predictable, then stick with GNU, the GPL, and GCC
- Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal and SRA Failing to Curb SLAPPs Against People Who Expose Wrongdoing
- We'll soon show messages that we transmitted to politicians
- Beware the Latest IBM SPAM, IBM is Already Down "After Hours"
- After a harsh day in Wall Street IBM's shares area already down again (after trading hours)
- Radicalism in Our Communities is Mostly Corporate, Not Grassroots
- Infiltration and systematic destruction can be shallowly painted as "inducing manners"
- Anonymous Threats Against My Wife and Against Yours Truly
- Promoting GNU/Linux and condemning people who attack GNU/Linux is not a crime
- Decades-Long Microsofter (Darryl K. Taft) and TIOBE Conflate Microsoft GitHub (Proprietary) With FOSS in Microsoft-Sponsored 'News' Site
- We do not intend to do a lengthy debunking because we covered this subject several times in the past
- Life Gets Better After Social Control Media
- Don't become part of these experiments
- statCounter Suggests Americans Are Dumping Social Control Media
- Are Americans getting fed up with social control media and quitting in droves?
- Back Doors and Fake Security
- They've militarised everything, even people's home computers
- Cost-Cutting and Book-Cooking at IBM
- It's like cutting salaries by more than 50%
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, February 12, 2026
- IRC logs for Thursday, February 12, 2026
- Microsoft Cuts Continue, Visitor Center in Redmond Shut Down
- This goes on and on, leading up to the next giant wave of mass layoffs
- Mainstream Media Intentionally Ignoring EPO Strikes
- “EPO on Strike!”
- Jeffrey Epstein crypto disclosure: uncanny timing, Bitcoin demise, pump-and-dump, ponzi schemes
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Gemini Links 12/02/2026: Avoiding Coffee, Trying Ubuntu, and "Open Source Robot"
- Links for the day
- Microsoft Slop CEO Speaks of Layoffs
- They will go along with the "replaced by AI" baloney
- In Systematic Contempt of the British High Court, Brett Wilson LLP Spent Two Years Lying to Courts and Breaking Rules Against Us
- We criticise Brett Wilson LLP quite lot because of its conduct
- IBM Kyndryl as "Aggressive “Enron” Accounting"
- IBM Kyndryl continues to nosedive today
- Relationships evidence: Tiago, Tassia, Thais, Antonio & Debian favoritism, nepotism
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Debian pregnancy cluster: why it is public interest
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- IBM Bubble Deflating After James Kavanaugh's Accounting Trick With 'Toxic Assets' Comes Under SEC Scrutiny
- If something goes up based on false speculations, bonus numbers and self-serving lies, then it'll come back down, eventually...
- The EPO's Corruption and Violation of Rules is Spreading to the United Kingdom (Software Patents)
- Yesterday a letter was sent to the chief regarding salaries while reminding him of the next strike, which is only 11 days away
- State of the Slop, Slopfarms Containment
- Slopfarms still exist this year, but their visibility is limited
- IBM Continues Tanking Today, Already $58+ Lower Than Recent High, Insiders Explain Why
- The same CFO from the inception of Kyndryl is still the CFO at IBM
- Links 12/02/2026: Pushback Against, "NATO Is Expected to Step Up Arctic Security"
- Links for the day
- Links 12/02/2026: "Microsoft Just Forked Windows" and Windows Notepad is a Giant Security Hole
- Links for the day
- Put Criminals in Prison, Not People Who Report the Crimes
- Can people be sent to prison for opposing crime?
- Windows Has Become Increasingly Irrelevant
- There's a very massive wave of layoffs coming Microsoft's way
- Our Most Successful Year Ever
- The hired guns in London are eager to turn the UK into another China
- Slopfarms Waning, But Not Extinct Yet
- Metrics show that usage of LLMs is declining
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, February 11, 2026
- IRC logs for Wednesday, February 11, 2026
