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
- Hiring for Tech Roles Based on Perceived Loyalty is No Better Than Hiring to Meet Diversity Quotas
- What we're seeing right now is a national security disaster and it is almost purely about technology
- S.E.O. SPAM by Serial Sloppers With L.L.M. Garbage is Hurting Linux
- We continue to run Slopwatch
- IBM Says That Half of Its "Assets" is Basically Pure Fiction ("Goodwill")
- It times get tough, IBM can sell "Goodwill" at the local pawn shop and pay back the lenders, right?
-
- Links 02/02/2025: Union-Busting and Censorship by Executions
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 02/02/2025: Limits Pushing, Free Software Absolutism, and Why Gemini Matters
- Links for the day
- Slopwatch: BetaNews and linuxsecurity.com Have Just Published More Fake 'Articles' About "Linux"
- There's probably more "Linux" slop out there, but we do our best to identify it on a daily basis
- Richard Stallman Has Another Talk in India Tomorrow, at Least Fourth India Talks in Recent Days
- In the past month he has given at least half a dozen talks
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, February 01, 2025
- IRC logs for Saturday, February 01, 2025
- Links 01/02/2025: Chinese and American Censorship, Cloud-[sic]Native Targeted by Software Patents
- Links for the day
- Links 01/02/2025: Belated Happy New Year 2025 and Gabbro 0.1.2
- Links for the day
- Links 01/02/2025: Administrative Chaos and Aviation Disasters Persist
- Links for the day
- Arrested: Albanian Outreachy whistleblowers, Sonny Piers GNOME & Debian connections
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Links 1/2/2025: LLM Hype Revisited, Linuxwashing by Oumi
- Links for the day
- Growing Evidence That the Patent Industry Has Become a Major Scam
- Seeing that the patent "industry" has turned to serious crimes (sometimes to cover up corruption) and seeing that the net negative is clearer for all to see, people who argue for abolition of all patents will have a field day
- Planet Ubuntu Overrun by LLM Slop? Faizul "Piju" 9M2PJU Seems to be Publishing Fake Articles About "Linux"...
- Maybe it is "assisted" by LLM slop, but slop is slop and it introduces many problems
- Gemini Links 01/02/2025: LLMs, Analog Computer, and BorgBackup
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, January 31, 2025
- IRC logs for Friday, January 31, 2025
- Links 31/01/2025: Mass Layoffs at Amazon and Microsoft, Sweden Again Fails to Protect Critics of Violence
- Links for the day
- Slopwatch: Fake Articles About "Linux" and More (Latest Roundup Featuring BetaNews, Janus Atienza, and Brittany Day From Guardian Digital, Inc)
- LLM slop season
- Microsoft Staff Explains How Microsoft Swindled Employees and Avoided Paying Out Severance Pay (Microsoft Hasn't Much Money Left in the Bank)
- This is a classic way to avoid paying workers
- "Not one of us" by Dr. Andy Farnell
- Elon Musk has brought embarrassment to nerds and technologists
- Gemini Links 31/01/2025: "Bulletin Buble" and "Why Blog?"
- Links for the day
- Static Site Generators (SSGs) Pay Off: Vastly Faster Sites, Much Smaller Hosting Bills
- success story for SSGs
- Of Note: Linux Foundation Has Already Let Linux.com Rot for About 4 Months (No Activity)
- there's no campaign aside from marketing spam there
- Techrights Should be Even Faster Now
- We're now better off
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, January 30, 2025
- IRC logs for Thursday, January 30, 2025
- Richard Stallman (RMS) Gave 3 Talks in India in Less Than a Week
- In India this month we've not seen a single negative comment about RMS
- Indian Data Biases statCounter For or Against "Linux"
- In statCounter, the GNU/Linux increases and decreases are deeply tied to what it does with data collected in India
- The Corporate Media Pretends That Facebook ("Meta") Has Performed Well, But Its Debt Doubles Every 2 Years Despite Mass Layoffs
- That same media also helps parrot misleading financial claims
- Microsoft's Debt Surged by More Than 6,000,000,000 Dollars in Just 3 Months
- numbers released hours ago
- The Sheer Irony of Microsoft Proxy Accusing Others of 'Stealing'
- Wherever DeepSick's data came from, Microsoft (or its proxy) is in no position to issue criticism.
- The Difference a Decade (and GAFAM Money) Makes
- Credibility cannot be purchased
- [Meme] The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has Critics Because Its Message is Effective
- Applying to others the same standards one is willing to violate?