This is pretty funny, apparently my announcement of the 14.5-R torrents being available made some people aware that I also have 15.1-R torrents as well. Right now my most active release is 15.1-R, with no activity on 14.5-R (there have been a few uploads that have happened in the last half day or so).

#FreeBSD

The FreeBSD 14.5-R magnet links are now published.

As usual, DHT can take some time to propagate, so give it time.

https://wiki.freebsd.org/Torrents

#FreeBSD

The Linux mainline kernel itself contains AI code now. It's officially allowed as long as it's disclosed as such. Thus, you will have to avoid literally all servers running on Linux.

https://docs.kernel.org/process/coding-assistants.html

https://www.neowin.net/news/linus-torvalds-declares-massive-ai-fueled-code-surges-as-the-new-normal-for-linux/

NetBSD has very strict rules regarding AI-generated code. But it doesn't rule AI-generated code out out of principle because it's AI-generated; it only wants to be safe that nothing that's actually GPL-licensed is slipped in. So, if you're an 100%, ultra-hardcode anti-AI extremist, avoid what few servers run on NetBSD.

https://www.netbsd.org/developers/commit-guidelines.html

OpenBSD contains AI-generated code, too. And it has no official stance regarding it. So servers running on OpenBSD are taboo, too.

https://www.osnews.com/story/144935/openbsd-and-slopcode-raindrop-to-a-torrent/

FreeBSD has no stance on AI whatsoever that I could find. However, apparently, the FreeBSD community loves to integrate Claude Code into their systems for automation purposes:

https://aumont.fr/posts/claude-code-freebsd/

https://discoverbsd.com/p/8a7660c31b

But you'll also have to look at the userland, the Web server, the database driver etc.

MariaDB allows AI code. You can safely assume that all MySQL databases on Web servers out there are actually powered by MariaDB.

https://mariadb.org/governance/governance-ai-policy/

Oracle MySQL can integrate AI, so it's safe to assume it contains AI-generated code.

https://blogs.oracle.com/mysql/announcing-mysql-ai

PostgreSQL probably allows AI code, too. There are even tools for it.

https://github.com/timescale/pg-aiguide

SQLite is very popular amongst AI users while not having any rules on AI-generated code. Assume it to be tainted.

This leaves you with only one choice: Self-hosting a personal, single-user snac2 server because snac2 doesn't need any database whatsoever. In fact, snac2 is staunchly against AI. And it runs on NetBSD.

https://codeberg.org/grunfink/snac2

But then there's the Web server. Apache may allow AI-generated code if it has been reviewed and made sure that it does not contain anything that's incompatible with the Apache-2.0 license.

https://www.apache.org/legal/generative-tooling.html

nginx welcomes AI and advertises itself as ready for AI, and it takes no anti-AI-code stance. It's most likely already tainted.

https://www.f5.com/de_de/products/nginx.

This basically leaves you with no Web server guaranteed to be 100% free from AI-generated code to run snac2 on. But that doesn't matter because it's impossible to build a Web server devoid of any AI code to install snac2 on.

By the way: Mastodon itself explicitly allows AI code if it's disclosed as such, and if its contributor understands it.

https://github.com/mastodon/.github/blob/main/AI_POLICY.md

In other words, next to all Mastodon servers are running

• AI-generated Mastodon code
• on an AI-generated Web server
• with an AI-generated database driver
• on an AI-generated operating system kernel

Naive #FreeBSD PkgBase buildworld question:

I assumed I could build world with only the FreeBSD-src package, but the build wants sys/sys/params.h

Is that all it needs and if so, should that live in the src (non-sys) package?

More #NetBSD thoughts:

I'm an #i3wm / #sway or #KDE #Plasma guy. I tried #OpenBSD's default wm for about a minute, but it was just too jarring for me. I also used #cwm for a while, and it's actually nicely configurable, but I eventually reverted to i3 on OpenBSD. I haven't tried Sway yet, but #Wayland's supposedly working in "Fish Linux" now. ;)

But #ctwm? Look, it's pretty ancient, and it's not a totally perfect fit for my worfklow, but I'm actually kinda diggin' it!

It's also probably the most attractive default GUI of any of the BSDs, considering that obsd gives you a pretty loud bright red or bright blue titlebar motif-looking thing (not knocking motif, just the primary color choice), and #FreeBSD gives you (checks notes) no GUI by default. XD

ctwm isn't quite as flexible as i3/sway, but it's just configurable enough to keep me coming back and tinkering away at it. The way the warpring function (alt+tab, in other words) works is pretty obtuse (only moving forward or backward in the window list, never re-ordering based on recency), but once I learned how to exclude windows (X11 classes or window titles) from the warpring, it became a ton more usable.

I also figured out how to enable active titlebar highlight (it drives me nuts when that's disabled or very subtle, how do you even not understand that basic tenet of usability?) and even how to assign an xpm image to the titlebar so it looks pretty.

Fun stuff!

I should post another screenshot. ;)

On a different note: the first day of FreeBSD'ing was nice. Of course the windowmanager setup with Mango and Wayland needs some more attention at first (default sound, pipewire etc. you get it), but that KDE rocks already. An advantage of a DE: lock, stock and barrel included (mostly). In the workday all went smooth, including Joplin and Signal. Good stuff!
#freebsd

@da_667 @cR0w

I'm not going to pretend that running BSD is a cakewalk, but particularly for #FreeBSD, there are lots of really helpful folks on the #fediverse.

Also, the FreeBSD handbook is amazingly good.

--Sent from my nearly ten year old hand-me-down inspiron running #NetBSD ;)

RE: https://chaos.social/@txt_file/117173096944928199

So, just over a week till the release. I'll be generating magnet links again for this release.

#FreeBSD

I run gkrellm everywhere. Even on closed Source operating systems. The dashboard is designed in such a way that I can just glance and know if something is wrong, if some process pulls way too much, and then I get in with htop to granularly see what's going on

@rl_dane

#gkrellm #Linux #BSD #freeBSD #OpenSource #win64 #dashboard

Gladius, that previously crashed on Ghostbsd, now works perfectly with Vulkan that works correctly.

#bsd #ghostbsd #freebsd #pcgaming #w40k #gladius #videogame #videogames

Alt...

Gladius running on GhostBSD with the Linux native port.

Alt...

Gladius running on GhostBSD with the Linux native port.

Alt...

Gladius running on GhostBSD with the Linux native port.

Alt...

Gladius running on GhostBSD with the Linux native port.

@rl_dane The issue I have with #Debian's included yt-dlp is it's almost always out of date. I just looked on my #FreeBSD build server and it's in Ports under www/yt-dlp.

I'll have to check the version numbers when I have more time but already I am thinking that using FreeBSD is a better option here.

#youtube

The constant arms race between #google and #yt-dlp is amusing to watch, in a tragic sense.

Came very close to running the somewhat scary "curl ${some_url} |sh" install "procedure" for #deno on my #devuan box until I saw that yt-dlp had been updated only yesterday.

I don't know why #debian (upstream) doesn't package Deno like #FreeBSD does.

Tried two games with the Linux port under Ghostbsd.

- Gladius: relics of war, caused a crash of the entire session and I got kicked to the login manager...
Great.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/489630/Warhammer_40000_Gladius__Relics_of_War/

#bsd #freebsd #ghostbsd #pcgaming

#Unix #Sreenshot #Xorg #pfetch #FunNixExperience

@rl_dane Doing well over here. Lots of time spent with #FreeBSD as of late. Just installed 15.1 on a workstation in my #homelab tonight. 😎

How was your time offline?

#POLL Results:

44 people are in deep denial about their existential dread, and should consult a counselor and read #Kierkegaard immediately 😁
139 people like teh pretty tings, and can't be bothered
188 people have started down the path towards enlightment
354 people are cool_kids
92 people are very_cool_kids
55 people laugh at your inadequate security model
27 people can run a server on a bit of bailing wire and a microcontroller from 1987 — fear them.
26 people are keeping Gassée's dream alive, and are plenny cool in my book
4 people are totally cool, and totally in a class by themselves
and 21 people kinda scare me, but I'd like to know more. 🤣

#humor #humour #houmor #houmour

#Windows #MacOS #Linux #CommandLine #BSD #RunBSD #FreeBSD #OpenBSD #NetBSD #Haiku #HaikuOS #BeOS #Amiga #Workbench #AROS #AmigaOS #Plan9 #9Front #TempleOS

P.S., wherever you find yourself, you're awesome. This is all for fun.

using a Chelsio NIC for FreeBSD VNET jails...

tested with a T540-CR.

host /boot/loader.conf:

t5fw_cfg_load=YES
if_cxl_load=YES
if_cxgbev_load=YEs
hw.cxgbe.num_vis=4 # set to number of jails + 1

host /etc/sysctl.conf:

dev.cxl.0.tx_vm_wr=1
dev.vcxl.0.tx_vm_wr=1
dev.vcxl.1.tx_vm_wr=1
dev.vcxl.2.tx_vm_wr=1
dev.vcxl.3.tx_vm_wr=1
net.inet6.ip6.dad_count=0

(this makes transmit use the card's switch chip, which is optional, but required if you want the host and/or jails to be able to communicate with each other. dad_count=0 is to work around a hardware bug.)

host /etc/jail.conf:

myjail {
vnet new;
vnet.interface vcxl0;
}

jail /etc/rc.conf:

# just add your normal network configuration on the vcxl interface.
ifconfig_vcxl0_ipv6="inet6 2001:db8:1:1::4/64"
ipv6_defaultrouter="fe80::1%vcxl0"

jail /etc/sysctl.conf:

net.inet6.ip6.dad_count=0

advantages:
- no need to mess with SR-IOV, bridging or routing on the jail host
- works in places SR-IOV doesn't
- very fast as the card can switch traffic at line rate

disadvantages:
- no way that i've found to restrict vlan or IP address per VI, so all jails have complete network access.

#freebsd #networking

https://codeberg.org/thomasadam/cow

@DianeBruce

Ouch, that's an expensive loss these days!

#FreeBSD #HamRadio

Update on the FreeBSD ports cleanup after someone committed a 150M blob of the Linux Copilot CLI:

https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-announce/2026-July/000295.html

Good as far as it goes, especially the striving for transparency, reproducibility, and minimizing downstream impacts. ❤️

Notably missing, however:

• an explanation of how it happened in the first place
• concrete steps that will be taken to prevent it from happen again

Edit: downthread there are references to the broad plan -- pre-commit hooks based on size, and other guardrails. I'm advocating to over-communicate that effort (but very happy with everything else!)

#FreeBSD

With Apple phasing out AFP in macOS 27 and Time Capsules officially reaching end-of-life, it's time to move network backups to proper SMB.

If you run a FreeBSD server, you can build a fast, rock-solid, and secure Time Machine target powered by ZFS and Samba - neatly isolated inside a FreeBSD jail using Bastille.

https://it-notes.dragas.net/2026/01/28/time-machine-freebsd-jail/

Keep your macOS backups running smoothly via SMBv3 (with full vfs_fruit support) and full dataset quota control on ZFS!

#FreeBSD #macOS #TimeMachine #ZFS #BastilleBSD #Samba #SysAdmin #Backup #OwnYourData #SelfHosted #BSD #RunBSD #OwnYourData

#FreeBSD #RiverWM

Alt...

A screenshot of my Cow ( FVWM for Wayland ) desktop that runs on the River compositor. The wallpaper shows a green meadow with flowers and a girl lying down staring at the sky. In the background are snow peaked mountains. There is a terminal window open with the Cow menus open and a qutebrowser window that is shaded.

I have a #FreeBSD #VM set up in my #homelab for #Poudriere and #Ports. I've dabbled in the Ports system in the past - it's a useful feature, but there's a lot of work in manually managing builds, especially for n=1 systems. Still, it didn't stop me from wanting to use it.

First impressions with Poudriere? Wow, this makes life so much easier. In the context of #IT #Operations, whoa...this goes well beyond just automating builds in dedicated jails, Poudriere now becomes the enterprise package management repo system.

Wicked sick.

#tech #RunBSD

Immich Stack on FreeBSD: Native Photo Management using Podman and Jails – daemonless

https://daemonless.io/images/immich/ @tim132

Self-hosted photo and video management solution with facial recognition, object detection, and smart search - running natively on FreeBSD.

#AI #Podman #FreeBSD #Immich

https://codeberg.org/thomasadam/cow

#Wayland #fvwm #CoW #RiverWM #FreeBSD

Farewell, hypha

https://hypha.tv/

We built our entire startup infra on FreeBSD in 2026. Now we need to talk. : r/freebsd

https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/1r7mp9n/we_built_our_entire_startup_infra_on_freebsd_in/

― the most popular #FreeBSD #AI post of all time.

https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://hypha.tv/

Alt...

Screenshot of: https://old.reddit.com/r/freebsd/search/?sort=top&q=flair%3AAI&restrict_sr=on&t=all

@rl_dane I'd say the desktop experience on #FreeBSD has come a long way since I first started with version 6.0.

Oh, the sheer pain of hand-configuring the xfree86 and later xorg.conf files, just to get the gray screen with X cursor!

It wasn't even a masochistic type of pain, either.

I'd say it's closer to the Debian experience from 2006. 🤣

Haven't had the need to try wifi (yet).

@peteorrall

The #FreeBSD experience is a lot like the Linux experience... in 1999. ;)

So, you don't get any kind of a GUI (or even Wifi) working out-of-the-box, but the official handbook is a dream to work with, and they take you through the steps of getting it working quite easily.

The major version upgrade (14.x->15.0) was a non-starter, but they make it stupid easy to roll back to a previous version basically instantaneously.

The package system has tons and tons of packages, such that I never really missed things like flatpak. The only problem is that many packages are needing maintainers, but that never gave me any major problems. (I should really volunteer but... skill issue, maybe? ;)

As always, the answer to the fear of losing time when converting main machine over to a new-to-you OS is to just put it on a side machine and enjoy playing with it, and see if it becomes more of a main machine.

Touching the topic of music production, though, I have no idea. I'm not even really familiar with how the sound server works, but I know that pipewire and jack are in the repos.

@rl_dane Coming from #Debian to #FreeBSD as a daily driver what are your thoughts?

I'm not there just yet but I have a new TrueNAS server in place where I can run lab VMs without constraint. I have a FreeBSD VM running there now. Diving into Jails. 😎

@peteorrall

It's been the OS installed on the computer I use the most at home since November, so, yes, mostly.

I have Debian on my work machine and OpenSuSE on my "gaming" SFF desktop.

Also have #OpenBSD on my old X200t, and am just getting started with #NetBSD on a hand-me-down Inspiron.

I love hand-me-down laptops. 😁

#FreeBSD

@rl_dane Is #FreeBSD your daily driver now?

Woot, FINALLY!

rld@Intrepid:~$ uname -a
FreeBSD Intrepid 15.1-RELEASE-p2 FreeBSD 15.1-RELEASE-p2 releng/15.1-n283596-aadd58dddcbc GENERIC amd64

No more networking issues, and drm (graphics) didn't work at first, but then sorted itself out.

🤷‍♂️ Mmmmmkay!!! 😄

#FreeBSD #FreeBSD15 #Upgrade

#FreeBSD #Wayland #CoW #pkgbase

@nixCraft also useful:

sysutils/checkrestart

<https://www.freshports.org/sysutils/checkrestart/>

– find processes using stale binaries or shared libraries that may need restarting after an upgrade.

#FreeBSD #restart

When #FreeBSD is so reliable you forget you're not on #Debian*.

rld@Intrepid:handbook$ doas apt install imv
doas (rld@Intrepid) password: 
doas: apt: command not found
rld@Intrepid:handbook$ doas pkg install imv

* UNTIL you try to do a major version upgrade and wifi breaks. 🤣

The key to knowing if a FreeBSD box reboot is needed lies in comparing the installed kernel version with the currently running kernel version. How do you do that?

1 Get the version of the running kernel:
`freebsd-version -r`

2 Get installed FreeBSD kernel version:
`freebsd-version -k`

3 Since 14.4-RELEASE-p7 & 14.4-RELEASE-p8 are different versions, reboot it
`sudo reboot`

More here if you want to do this in automated way with ansible https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/freebsd-determine-if-a-system-reboot-is-necessary/

#unix #freebsd

Alt...

The terminal screenshot showing FreeBSD commands to check kernel versions and reboot the system by running: freebsd-version -r # <---- Get the version and patch level of the running kernel freebsd-version -k # <---- Get installed FreeBSD kernel version by the freebsd-update command sudo reboot # 14.4-RELEASE-p7 & 14.4-RELEASE-p8 are different versions we need to reboot the system

GPL in FreeBSD base

/* SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 */

<https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/blob/main/sys/dts/include/dt-bindings/soc/qcom%2Ctcsr.h>

@erikarn please, should qcom,tcsr.h be added to the wiki?

<https://wiki.freebsd.org/GPLinBase#Open_Work>

Cc @emaste (Ed Maste named in the wiki).

rg -il 'SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 \*' . --sort=path | grep -v contrib

Side note: it's not ideal that "base" has two quite different meanings …

#FreeBSD #base #GPL #licencing

@aaron

In fairness, Debian/kFreeBSD was an on-going project for well over a decade, and there was even a Debian/kNetBSD several years before that. That said, their histories show that talk is cheap for the people suggesting Debian on a BSD kernel yet again.

If you encounter them, throw the cat amongst the pigeons by telling them that not only is Debian/Hurd an active project, unlike the dead Debian on BSD ones, it's also not a Linux kernel; and Samuel Thibault could do with the assistance. (-:

I don't know what M. Thibault's position on LLM-generated code is.

https://wiki.debian.org/Debian_GNU/kFreeBSD

https://debian.org/ports/hurd/

#Debian #FreeBSD #Hurd #NetBSD #AIslop

@lproven oh …

… I probably tune out (without getting it) because, for example, I reject the notion that an Ubuntu-like installer would be detrimental to learning how to manage and maintain FreeBSD.

https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/1v2t96c/comment/ozitl7j/?context=2

More because I couldn't figure out how it relates to anti-AI.

@rl_dane

#Linux #Ubuntu #FreeBSD #BSD

https://codeberg.org/thomasadam/cow

#FreeBSD #River #CoW #fvwm

https://codeberg.org/thomasadam/cow

#WindowManager #Linux #OpenBSD #FreeBSD

PS: I have not yet customised the theme it's the out of the box theme.

https://codeberg.org/thomasadam/cow

#CoW #River #Wayland #fvwm #FreeBSD

Alt...

A screenshot of the CoW ( Compositor on Wayland ) desktop showing the Qutebrowser window and the terminal foot with a fastfetch output displaying the wm as River

https://github.com/FreeBSDFoundation/pkgbasify

@seuros

Thanks for the work. I've always had a bit of a soft spot for FireWire.

Did you test out dcons? To make sure it still works?

#FreeBSD

FreeBSD call for testing: PREFSRC route attribute support <https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-net/2026-July/009137.html>

this lets you set the preferred source IP address for outgoing packets via a particular route, overriding the default source selection logic.

it's particularly useful for IPv4-over-IPv6 routing; previously, BSD required assigning an IPv4 /32 to every interface for this to work properly; now, you can simply set the IPv4 loopback address as the preferred source.

it's also useful in situation where the router has multiple IPv6 addresses and you want to select which is used, similar to the "net.inet.icmp.reply_src=lo0" sysctl for IPv4 (but it affects all outgoing connections, not just ICMP errors).

it's also useful for IPv4 when you want to control this per-route rather than globally, especially if you're routing in multiple FIBs.

basically, it's really useful for a lot of situations and i'd love to see it land, so please help test it.

it is compatible with the Linux netlink API and works out of the box with BIRD (krt_prefsrc attribute).

the main patch is this one: https://reviews.freebsd.org/D58294 - either use the 'download raw diff' link, or use 'git arc patch D58294' to apply it to a tree.

you can send feedback directly to Pouria, or just reply to me and i'll forward it.

#freebsd #ipv6 #networking

I am not a technical user so this may seem like a silly question, #freebsd friends. I have a computer that has a Broadcom wireless chip. What I’ve read is that in FreeBSD, Broadcom drivers are generally less supported than Intel chipsets. Is this because of anything other than resource allocation? Is there anything specific with Broadcom stuff that makes them more difficult to work with?

Follow up question, is there a driver bounty program that people could contribute to? Allocate some resources to get some better drivers?

@rl_dane

This is the second post where you'd dropped the F bomb....for good reason.

I have so much to say but not sure how to say it but I will do my best. For *years*, I've enjoyed using #Linux both as a hobbyist and professional #sysadmin. The OS is definitely not the one I started with 20+ years ago. Since at least COVID has....well, it's turned into a full blown corporate-controlled high speed sprawling mess. Not necessarily matured just grown exponentially wherever the various powers see fit. For this and other reasons, I am leaning more and more towards #FreeBSD.

Lastly, I will admit there are some #AI niche use cases which do interest me (related to my own hobbies) but shoving it into everything is not a good idea.

@patrick

Man, booting FreeBSD aarch64 as a VM on an M4 is FAST.

#FreeBSD

Just realized that the only device I use regularly that doesn't have significant BSD code in it is my android phone.

Devices I use regularly/interact dirdctly with [Free]BSD on them:
✅ macos
✅ PS5
✅ Personal FreeBSD server

And at work as well.

Which of course entered the cursed thought of porting android over to FreeBSD.

#FreeBSD

So I wanted to share with you this little project of mine. I delved into "retro-necromancy" and reanimated one very old UNIX utility called ile written by Robert Pendleton in 1988. I found it on one of the Walnut Creek source code CDs from 1994.
What it does is simply works like an input line editor (hence ile) for shells and programs that do not support interactive line editing. To put it simply, it adds Emacs-style keybindings like ^A, ^E, ^K, ^U and so on and command history that you can easily navigate.
Of course, these days it's hard to find a shell that doesn't support line editing.
But this little tool can still be usable, for example, with ed. It's nice to have Emacs-style editing in ed.
It can work like shell replacement or just run like a "middleman" between any given program. It respects terminal settings and doesn't get in a way. Keybindings are configurable.
Needless to say, the code from 1988 wouldn't run on any modern system. It was written in K&R style because there was no ANSI C standard yet! And #UNIX was quite a different beast back then.
So I ported it to modern systems, rewrote outdated bits (like sgttyb ioctls and brutal utmp handling).
Currently it builds and runs on #Linux, #OpenBSD, #FreeBSD and #NetBSD. Hopefully without too much bugs.
You can find it on Codeberg:
https://codeberg.org/chesheer/ile

Strange that neither #FreeBSD nor #OpenBSD have jbig2 in their packages. I wasn't able to get it to compile on FreeBSD, either. :/

#jbig2 #ports #packages

# Terminal vt(4) Gruvbox colors 
kern.vt.color.0.rgb="#000000"
kern.vt.color.1.rgb="#cc241d"
kern.vt.color.2.rgb="#98971a"
kern.vt.color.3.rgb="#d79921"
kern.vt.color.4.rgb="#458588"
kern.vt.color.5.rgb="#b16286"
kern.vt.color.6.rgb="#689d6a"
kern.vt.color.7.rgb="#a89984"
kern.vt.color.8.rgb="#928374"
kern.vt.color.9.rgb="#fb4934"
kern.vt.color.10.rgb="#b8bb26"
kern.vt.color.11.rgb="#fabd2f"
kern.vt.color.12.rgb="#83a598"
kern.vt.color.13.rgb="#d3869b"
kern.vt.color.14.rgb="#8ec07c"
kern.vt.color.15.rgb="#ebdbb2"

Wow, #newsboat is actually pretty usable at 1200 #baud! #respect! :D (sent from tootme on my #FreeBSD #thinkpad running at 110 baud 😄) — #microblogging #MicroToot: 137 characters

Another great shout out to @vermaden for this thorough introduction to #FreeBSD, especially if one is coming from #Linux. It may be several years old but much of the info is still relevant today.

The FreeBSD Handbook is great but the additional details and context for the topics covered are where this document really shines.

This needs to be required reading for anyone curious about the OS.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2020/09/07/quare-freebsd/

Welcome back Beastie!

FreeBSD 15.1-RELEASE goes on the Thinkpad T480s and my install notes (slightly) updated:

https://www.dwarmstrong.org/freebsd-install/

Onward!

#FreeBSD #RunBSD

Alt...

Output of the 'fastfetch' command displaying system info for a Thinkpad with a fresh install of FreeBSD.

Hmm, since I have a ssh based ggate client, I realized I could put that code into the kernel. It's like iSCSI, but over ssh.

#FreeBSD

@bpl

Hopefully my #FreeBSD numbers for thus far in 2026 should redeem me 😁 —

rld@Intrepid:~$ uname -srm
FreeBSD 14.3-RELEASE-p12 amd64
rld@Intrepid:~$ qalc $(wc -l < powertrack.txt) minutes
23195 minutes = 16 d + 2 h + 35 min
rld@Intrepid:~$ 

...well, a little bit, at least. 😁

Following on from a recent conversation with @rl_dane about running Joy+Horton #vi in one of its three (sic!) 'open' modes on a paper terminal:

I decided to see whether any modern #termcap or #terminfo database actually had any settings anywhere for switching dot matrix printers between near-letter, draft, and letter quality modes.

#Illumos, #OpenBSD, #Debian, and #NetBSD all use the Dickey terminfo.src. #FreeBSD is the only one maintaining a different database. It is still maintaining the old BSD termcap file, in 2026.

Neither of the databases have sdrfq/snlq/snrmq or ZG/ZL/ZK capabilities in any record.

This stuff exists solely as words on a manual page (and reprints of the same in various books) and a single Usenet post by Oliver Okrongli in 1994. It's not even in the O'Reilly termcap+terminfo book.

We should prune such stuff that apparently has never really existed.

#retrocomputing #Unix

@sotolf @paul @xarvos @ay

I have to preface this to say that it's not my main OS, so I have limited time with it. For example here's my total usage per OS per year:

2023:
Linux: 49 d, 14 h, 57 min

2024:
Linux: 191 d, 18 h, 55 min
OpenBSD: 4 d, 7 h, 59 min

2025:
Linux: 175 d, 1 h, 41 min
FreeBSD: 23 d, 17 h, 54 min
OpenBSD: 3 d, 8 h, 19 min

(actually most of the time labeled "FreeBSD" for 2025 was actually Linux. I only converted that one box to #FreeBSD in November)

That said, notwithstanding how "primitive" #OpenBSD's FFS is, I have yet to lose any data with it, even taking into account a basically ornamental battery 😆 and occasional kernel crashes from me mucking about with buggy sysctls.

All that to say, I wouldn't doubt that ext4 is actually more robust than btrfs, even though it's more "basic."

@frobozz

#ZFS is nice. I've had it, with full root-on-ZFS, since PC-BSD. It took me several years to actually realize how nice it was.

If you want something more arcane than #FreeBSD to play with, take a look at #Illumos, in particular its derivatives #OpenSolaris, #OmniOS, #SmartOS, and @ptribble 's #Tribblix.

Illumos has original Joy+Horton #vi (not one of the clones), the SMF, zones, ZFS, and a fair number of System 5isms not in the BSD world (e.g. sar, which @rl_dane was talking about the other day).

LOL NOPE. There was a ticksy '^M' / '\r' hiding in the text, Precious!!! Tricksy carriage return, we hates them, Precious!!!

P.S. using the "l" command could have saved me a few minutes of consternation 😅 —

rld@prometheus:~$ echo -e 'sneaky\rhello there'
hello there
rld@prometheus:~$ echo -e 'sneaky\rhello there' |snarfi
rld@prometheus:~$ ed
P
*H
*r !snarfo
19
*,n
hello thereaky
*,p
hello there
*,l
sneaky\rhello there
*

GUYS,

I think I just found a bug in #FreeBSD's #ed(1):

*,n
1	a 1-bit bi-level (#425477
2	 and 
3	#9fabcd
*1
a 1-bit bi-level (#425477
*j
*p
 and it bi-level (#425477
*WHAT??!?
?
unexpected command suffix
*,n
 and    a 1-bit bi-level (#425477
2	#9fabcd
*
*,p
 and it bi-level (#425477
#9fabcd
*u
*,n
1	a 1-bit bi-level (#425477
2	 and 
3	#9fabcd
*,p
a 1-bit bi-level (#425477
 and 
#9fabcd
*

@darkuncle @gumnos

I think it's in the 'sysstat' package in #Debian, but I don't see it in #FreeBSD ports/pkg.

rld@Intrepid:~$ pkg search -i sysstat
libsysstat-0.4.6               Library used to query system info and statistics
libsysstat-qt6-1.1.0_3         Library used to query system info and statistics ported to qt6
xsysstats-1.51_6               System information display tool
rld@Intrepid:~$ 

What’s stopping you from building a nice little home lab running multiple VMs, a personal DNS resolver with Ad blockers, a ZFS based NAS and firewall with #Linux or #FreeBSD? 🤔

@vermaden

It's 2026, and we still don't know what the ELI in GELI stands for 😂

I've emailed the author. He was very cordial, but kept his cards close to his chest. 😄

cc: @RadioAzureus

#FreeBSD #GELI

👿 FreeBSD 15.1 Released With Updated WiFi Drivers, Better C23 Support & Other Improvements https://www.phoronix.com/news/FreeBSD-15.1-Released

#freebsd #bsd #unix #opensource

Sorry, I got distracted, but I've now posted the FreeBSD 15.1-R magnet links at their usual place:
https://wiki.freebsd.org/Torrents

I'm seeding them all now, and as usual DHT will take a while to find the new torrents.

#FreeBSD

Step 1: Open terminal
Step 2: Type `alias nano='vim -c "smile"'`
Step 3: Enjoy this whenever someone type `nano`!

#SysAdmin #Linux #FreeBSD

Alt...

This screenshot shows green ASCII art of the Vim ester eggs on a dark retro terminal screen, with the "Press ENTER or type command to continue" prompt displayed at the bottom when you type nano at the cli via bash alias: alias nano='vim -c "smile"'

Sorry I missed the release of FreeBSD 15.1 that happened yesterday. I'm downloading the release now to prepare the magnet links. They should be ready in the next hour.

#FreeBSD

https://dmesgd.nycbug.org/index.cgi?do=view&id=9010

Ok, this is funny...

I launched #tut with #vi as my default editor instead of #ed, because I just wanted to fire off a quick toot without having to put my brain in ed mode, and yet I kept...

Starting toots with a instead of o

Ending toots with \n.\nwq\n instead of [esc]:wq

😆

Sent from ed on my #FreeBSD #Thinkpad. 😁

@funkylab

For #FreeBSD (on that same box), I found a shell script that uses sysctl to get the ACPI name for the battery, and runs acpi_call from ports to set the thresholds, which survives a reboot.
On #OpenBSD, I believe you set the thresholds directly through sysctl.
On #Linux, you set it with something like echo 80 > /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/charge_stop_threshold

RE: https://mastodon.bsd.cafe/@stefano/116702145454686241

The world-wide #chatmail relay network is growing in various wonderful ways. #freebsd joined the world-wide federated secure communication party and BSD cafe offers a public relay at https://chatmail.bsd.cafe :) Thanks @stefano @feld and @outofcreativity !

Couldn't seem to get #VimClassic to compile on #FreeBSD.

But then I realized the only thing I used it for is sncli, because it does something funny with the terminal when it hands it off to nvi, such that the cursor becomes invisible. But then, it's just a !reset to fix it, so I might as well just stick with nvi. ;)

#vi #vim #nvi #TextEditors #PlainText

@nixCraft

No hate towards my BTW brethren, but this is why I bounced from CachyOS to #Devuan on my laptop last night.

Planning on switching this laptop from #FreeBSD to #NetBSD soon.