Foundation Interview on BSDTalk

FreeBSD Foundation Directors Marshall Kirk McKusick and George Neville-Neil were recently interviewed by BSDTalk. This 34 minute podcast discusses the work of the FreeBSD Foundation. It is available in mp3 and ogg formats.

Submit Your Hardware Compatibility Information

The PC-BSD team will be launching a new webstore designed to take the hassle out of knowing which hardware works well with PC-BSD. A wiki page has been created where users can add the models of the motherboards, video cards, network cards, wifi cards, and laptops they have found to work great with PC-BSD. When adding to the wiki, only add hardware that you have verified works as-is with no problem.

To add to the hardware list, create a wiki account so that you can login and edit the page. Since this list will get rather large, please add your entry alphabetically.

bsdtalk224 – Marshall Kirk McKusick and George Neville-Neil

In interview with Marshall Kirk McKusick and George Neville-Neil about the FreeBSD Foundation.
More information at http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/

File Info: 34Min, 16MB.

Ogg link: http://cis01.uma.edu/~wbackman/bsdtalk/bsdtalk224.ogg

Ending audio is the opening to "Carp License" from the OpenBSD 3.5 release.

Important Notice for PC-BSD 9.1 32bit users

A number of PC-BSD 32bit users have reported problems booting their
systems after applying the latest FreeBSD update patches. We have found the problem and will have a bugfix issued shortly. Once this bugfix is issued, you may then continue re-applying FreeBSD updates. If this has affected your system, you can fix it manually following the directions below.

NOTE: At this time it *only* seems to be hitting users of 9.1-Release on 32bit / i386.

Fixing the problem

If your system has run into this issue, and can no longer boot, you can fix it with the following steps:

1. Boot your 9.1-Release DVD / USB media to the installation screen

2. Right-click on the desktop to open “xterm”

3. Mount your PC-BSD partition:

# mount /dev/ada0s1a /mnt
(Replace “ada0s1″ with the disk name / partition number)

4. Copy the original /boot/loader file
# cp /mnt/boot/loader.old /mnt/boot/loader

5. Unmount and reboot

# umount /mnt
# shutdown -r now

Followup:

A fix named “Boot-loader – beastie” fix has been issued and is being updated to the mirrors as of April 9. Once the update is installed, it is safe to do the freebsd-update.

Since it takes time to sync to all of the mirrors, be sure that it downloads and installs before running freebsd-update.

Evilcoder » FreeBSD 2013-04-05 21:16:29

So. Today we can congratulate George Neville-Neil as the new FreeBSD Security Team Secretary. It seems that I had been doing the job for around 5 years and 8 months (although not the entire time officially nor documented); which is a very long time. I decided to start reducing on the amount of hats that I carry so that I can focus more on the things that I want to focus on within FreeBSD.

Slowly but surely I am returning to my roots:

- Maintain the nl_NL tree

- Keep VuXML as up to date as possible

- Commit low hanging fruit from src/ so that the developers can focus on their development instead of being distracted by easier things. I will also try and merge for example usb/ related things from hps@.

That said: I will remain a doc committer, src committer and member of secteam .. please applaud George in his new task, it’s a thankless job and you really need to keep your head together :-)

PC-BSD Announces Package Repository for PC-BSD and FreeBSD 9.1

The PC-BSD Project is pleased to announce the details on how to access their new PKGNG repository, for PC-BSD and FreeBSD 9.1-Release systems.

This package repository is frequently updated, usually bi-weekly, with the latest and greatest from the FreeBSD ports tree. We will be using this repository for the PC-BSD rolling release edition, but it can also be used anywhere else you need packages on a PC-BSD or FreeBSD 9.1-RELEASE system. This can include FreeBSD, TrueOS, PC-BSD, Jails and more. Getting setup to use this new repository is easy, and only requires minimal configuration. For detailed instructions, take a look at the step-by-step directions on the PC-BSD wiki.

FreeBSD Foundation is Soliciting the Submission of Project Proposals 


The FreeBSD Foundation is soliciting the submission of project
proposals for funded development grants.  Proposals may be related to
any of the major subsystems or infrastructure within the FreeBSD
operating system, and will be evaluated based on desirability,
technical merit, and cost-effectiveness.

Key dates for this proposal solicitation:

Call for proposals:                  27th March 2013
Deadline for submissions:            26th April 2013
Notifcation of accepted proposals:   17th May 2013

Proposals must include the following:

* A detailed description of what is being proposed, how it will
  benefit the FreeBSD Project, and why the work is needed.
* A timeline and costing for the project.
* One or more people that will act as technical reviewers for the work.

Proposals are open to all developers, including non-FreeBSD
committers, but developers without access to commit to the source tree
must provide details about how the completion guidelines will be
achieved.

For details on the proposal submission process see
http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/documents/Project%20Proposal%20Procedures%202013.shtml

Hey, look, it’s lots of atheros NICs in one laptop

So after many months of evenings and a whole lot of work internally to get the AR9380 HAL release vetted by legal, I bring you: a single, unified ath(4) and ath_hal(4) driver which works on all chipsets.

Now, the only chipsets I can fit _in_ this laptop:

[100309] ath0: mem 0xebf00000-0xebf0ffff irq 17 at device 0.0 on pci3
ath0: AR9280 mac 128.2 RF5133 phy 13.0
[100309] ath1: mem 0xedf00000-0xedf1ffff irq 18 at device 0.0 on pci4
ath1: AR9380 mac 448.3 RF5110 phy 0.0
[100309] ath2: mem 0xe4310000-0xe431ffff irq 16 at device 0.0 on cardbus0
ath2: AR5212 mac 5.9 RF5112 phy 4.3

.. that's an AR9280, AR5212 and AR9380 in the same laptop.

And, that's a 3x3 AR9380:

static_rix (-1) ratemask 0xffffffff
[ 250] cur rate 20 MCS since switch: packets 1 ticks 2647581
[ 250] last sample (6  Mb) cur sample (0 ) packets sent 9
[ 250] packets since sample 9 sample tt 0
[1600] cur rate 22 MCS since switch: packets 15 ticks 2647530
[1600] last sample (21 MCS) cur sample (0 ) packets sent 6049
[1600] packets since sample 0 sample tt 532
   TX Rate     TXTOTAL:TXOK       EWMA          T/   F     avg last xmit
[ 6  Mb: 250]        4:4        (100.0%)        4/   0   760uS 2640242
[20 MCS: 250]        9:9        (100.0%)        9/   0   440uS 2647581
[20 MCS:1600]      969:969      (100.0%)       57/   0   572uS 2647445
[21 MCS:1600]     1517:1517     (100.0%)       74/   0   613uS 2647557
[22 MCS:1600]     1990:1990     (100.0%)       92/   0   529uS 2647557
[23 MCS:1600]    73986:73462    ( 99.5%)     5661/   0   755uS 2647538

Now, I'm sure the AR5210 will work with an AR9280 and an AR9380 in the same laptop - it's just that the hardware form factor won't let me fit them all at the same time.

Hey, look, it’s lots of atheros NICs in one laptop

So after many months of evenings and a whole lot of work internally to get the AR9380 HAL release vetted by legal, I bring you: a single, unified ath(4) and ath_hal(4) driver which works on all chipsets.

Now, the only chipsets I can fit _in_ this laptop:

[100309] ath0: mem 0xebf00000-0xebf0ffff irq 17 at device 0.0 on pci3
ath0: AR9280 mac 128.2 RF5133 phy 13.0
[100309] ath1: mem 0xedf00000-0xedf1ffff irq 18 at device 0.0 on pci4
ath1: AR9380 mac 448.3 RF5110 phy 0.0
[100309] ath2: mem 0xe4310000-0xe431ffff irq 16 at device 0.0 on cardbus0
ath2: AR5212 mac 5.9 RF5112 phy 4.3

.. that's an AR9280, AR5212 and AR9380 in the same laptop.

And, that's a 3x3 AR9380:

static_rix (-1) ratemask 0xffffffff
[ 250] cur rate 20 MCS since switch: packets 1 ticks 2647581
[ 250] last sample (6  Mb) cur sample (0 ) packets sent 9
[ 250] packets since sample 9 sample tt 0
[1600] cur rate 22 MCS since switch: packets 15 ticks 2647530
[1600] last sample (21 MCS) cur sample (0 ) packets sent 6049
[1600] packets since sample 0 sample tt 532
   TX Rate     TXTOTAL:TXOK       EWMA          T/   F     avg last xmit
[ 6  Mb: 250]        4:4        (100.0%)        4/   0   760uS 2640242
[20 MCS: 250]        9:9        (100.0%)        9/   0   440uS 2647581
[20 MCS:1600]      969:969      (100.0%)       57/   0   572uS 2647445
[21 MCS:1600]     1517:1517     (100.0%)       74/   0   613uS 2647557
[22 MCS:1600]     1990:1990     (100.0%)       92/   0   529uS 2647557
[23 MCS:1600]    73986:73462    ( 99.5%)     5661/   0   755uS 2647538

Now, I'm sure the AR5210 will work with an AR9280 and an AR9380 in the same laptop - it's just that the hardware form factor won't let me fit them all at the same time.

FreeBSD and Xorg on ARM

As part of the port of FreeBSD to the Efika Platform Project Xorg is now running on FreeBSD on ARM. Here's an update from the developer, Aleksandr Rybalko:
You've already seen or at least heard about ARM systems running FreeBSD. In most cases its routers, firewalls, network storage, etc. Why doesn't anyone use FreeBSD on an ARM based desktop or laptop It is because no one had implemented Xorg support for boards supported by FreeBSD. Now you have away to do just that!

I'm glad to introduce an Xorg driver for ARM, and not only ARM but for syscons framebuffer devices.It's called xf86-video-scfb.  The driver is very simple, and has been tested and works on the Efika MX and Raspberry Pi devices.  I hope it will work with other devices, including those not based on ARM.

Here are the instructions so you can get this running on your own system:  Building Xorg for FreeBSD ARM.
					

		
		
	

							
	

				

									

				Porting FreeBSD to Efika Platforms Project Completed
			

								


				

			We are pleased to announce the Porting FreeBSD to the Genesi Efika MX SmartBook laptop and SmartTop nettop devices projects has completed!  While many FreeBSD developers are working on ARM on embedded systems we feel it's important to show FreeBSD running on ARM devices that people can easily touch and interact with.  The port of FreeBSD to the Genesi Efika platforms makes that possible.  It has also made possible Xorg running on many other ARM devices, including the Raspberry Pi.

Here is a set of directions for getting FreeBSD running on one of these incredibly inexpensive, and light weight, laptops for yourself: http://raybsd.blogspot.com/2013/02/easy-way-to-do-it-try-freebsd-on-efika.html
					

		
		
	

							
	

				

									

				What keramida said… » FreeBSD 2013-03-22 18:26:25
			

								


				

			
The terminfo entry for “xterm-256color” that ships by default as part of ncurses-base on Debian Linux and its derivatives is a bit annoying. In particular, shifted up-arrow key presses work fine in some programs, but fail in others. It’s a bit of a gamble if Shift-Up works in joe, pico, vim, emacs, mutt, slrn, or what have you.


THis afternoon I got bored enough of losing my selected region in Emacs, because I forgot that I was typing in a terminal launched by a Linux desktop.  SO I thought “what the heck… let’s give the FreeBSD termcap entry for xterm-256color a try”:


keramida> scp bsd:/etc/termcap /tmp/termcap-bsd
keramida> captoinfo -e $(                                  \
  echo $( grep '^xterm' termcap | sed -e 's/[:|].*//' ) |  \
  sed -e 's/ /,/g'                                         \
  ) /tmp/termcap  > /tmp/terminfo.src
keramida> tic /tmp/terminfo.src


Restarted my terminal, and quite unsurprisingly, the problem of Shift-Up keys was gone.


The broken xterm-256color terminfo entry from /lib/terminfo/x/xterm-256color is now shadowed by ~/.terminfo/x/xterm-256color, and I can happily keep typing without having to worry about losing mental state because of this annoying little misfeature of Linux terminfo entries.


The official terminfo database sources[1], also work fine.  So now I think some extra digging is required to see what ncurses-base ships with.  There’s definitely something broken in the terminfo entry of ncurses-base, but it will be nice to know which terminal capabilities the Linux package botched.


Notes:

[1] http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html#which_terminfo


Filed under: Computers, Emacs, Free software, FreeBSD, GNU/Linux, Linux, Open source, Software Tagged: Computers, Emacs, Free software, FreeBSD, GNU/Linux, Linux, Open source, Software