I suggested on the docs@ list that using a Wiki to allow people to make documentation updates may make it easier to actually have people contribute, and then changes can be merged back into CVS. Discussion ensued, with some folks pointing at Wikipedia‘s MediaWiki, or TikiWiki. Similar discussion popped up elsewhere. I plan to try this … soon.
Month: November 2004
November TPJ out
The latest issue (November) of The Perl Journal is out, if you happen to subscribe. Quick! Someone make a Python comment, apropos of nothing!
Want to Clean Up?
Liam J. Foy has put together a new page to track what needs to be cleaned in DragonFly; take a look if you are curious, or(even better) if you wanted a relatively simple task.
New Shell book
Spotted on Unixreview.com: a review of Unix Shells by Example; a decent review, plus it covers the interesting term “UUOC“.
11/28/2004
Supported hardware list
Jasse Jansson is putting together a list of supported hardware; he’s at jasse ‘at’ hornet ‘dot’ ac if you want to contribute.
11/27/2004
Another mirror
Macomnet.net is a new DragonFly mirror: http://mirror.macomnet.net/pub/DragonFlyBSD/
11/24/2004
Much GoBSD
The GoBSD site has been visually updated, with a new GoBSD ‘distribution‘ of DragonFly, which includes pkgsrc as a built-in ports replacement. There’s also an ambitious mission statement.
HEAD and Stable, together
The Stable tag has been moved up to the most recent code, as some critical fixes required what’s in the most recent code. In general, this should only be positive, unless you are using unionfs or nullfs, as they will be broken if you upgrade. So, if you are using those file systems, hold off on upgrading for a few weeks. When you do upgrade, it has to be a full buildkernel/buildworld.
Leaf moves up
leaf.dragonflybsd.org is moving to the most recent version of DragonFly (HEAD) so as to serve as a test for some SATA fixes.
11/22/2004
DragonFlyBSD.org outage
Matthew Dillon reported a hard disk failure knocked out the DragonFly website and mailing lists over the weekend; there’s a new disk, filled from backups, back in place now.
Timer fix?
Matthew Dillon has added code that should hopefully fix the long-standing timer bug some people have seen.
11/21/2004
One CD, boot many OSes
Oliver Fromme suggested a way to make it possible to boot a CD into a variety of operating systems – specifically either FreeBSD or DragonFly.
11/19/2004
Checkpoint getting checked
Matthew Dillon did an update of checkpointing, as apparently someone had expressed interest in porting it.
Fetch fixed
A vulnerability was found in FreeBSD’s fetch, which also affected the DragonFly version. Jeroen Ruigrok has already fixed it.
Getting Atheros working
Freddie Cash described on kernel@ how he got his atheros card working, using a FreeBSD driver.
Perl untied
Joerg Sonneberger followed up on his own commit message saying that Perl seems to be out of the base system.
X.org 6.8.1 details
Andreas Hauser detailed his X.org 6.8.1 packages and caveats in a recent post to the submit@ mailing list.
80386 Orphaned?
Is anyone even using a 386 processor anymore? If you are, go look for some pocket change and buy a faster computer.
11/12/2004
OpenNTPd now working
Joerg Sonneberger detailed the changes inherent in using OpenNTPd, which will be in the system momentarily.
VFS work in
Matthew Dillon’s committed the next big stage of his VFS work; the commit message includes a lengthy explanation of what it touches.
NetBSD Log, Others
No, I’m not branching out. :) Hubert Feyrer is running an unadorned blog similar to this one, but concentrating on NetBSD.
There’s also a similar page at undeadly.org for OpenBSD. I suppose KernelTrap is in the same vein mostly for Linux, and the FreeBSD Project has src summaries.
11/11/2004
Working with C
A question about programming brought some interesting tips on how to deal with source code and other issues. There was quite a lot of suggestions, in fact.
11/10/2004
Bad Bug Better; VFS work in
Matthew Dillon reported that he and David Rhodus have tracked down and eliminated a longstanding bug that caused VM/filesystem corruption, dating from FreeBSD 4, which may even still be present in FreeBSD 5.
As a side effect, Matthew Dillon’s VFS work will get pushed into the most current code (HEAD). Unionfs and nullfs work has not been completed in the VFS code, so that means if you use HEAD and also use unionfs/nullfs, either don’t update for the next week or so, or drop back to DragonFly_Stable.
New GDB, BSD-flavored tar
GDB 6.2.1 is now in the tree, and the BSD version of tar (bsdtar) is now included but not built by default. It’s all thanks to Joerg Sonnenberger.
11/09/2004
FreeBSD, OpenBSD releases
FreeBSD 5.3-RELEASE has happened. This is the start of a 5.x stable branch, after 4 (long) years. OpenBSD 3.6 is out too.
11/08/2004
Handling Hyperthreading
‘asmodai’ provided a link to this Intel web page as a reference for handling hyperthreaded processors. It’s Windows-specific, though.
Custom Live CD
“TIV” posted some notes on how to make a custom DragonFly LiveCD; Matthew Dillon suggested some additional tips.
X.org 6.8.1 patchset
David Rhodus posted a patchset to X.org 6.8.1 that should make it work on DragonFly; it may or may not make it in time for the next X.org release.
VFS and NFS work
I don’t normally post about test patches, but I am linking here to one of Matthew Dillon’s recent VFS patches, as he explains a bit of the work that is going into it.
11/06/2004
Documentation alternative
forknibbler.com, where I hosted builds of DragonFly documentation, is down for the next while as I have been chaning network layouts. However, the docs that were there are still available at http://leaf.dragonflybsd.org/~justin/.
Another log
An excellent thing has happened: H.Miyamoto has started another log of DragonFly news over at http://wids.net/dbsdlog.jp/. This new log is in Japanese, which certainly reaches an audience I cannot.
Easy money
WordIQ.com appears to have a DragonFly section on its site. However, it appears to be a copy of the excellent Wikipedia DragonFly page. A legal copy, but probably a moneymaking gambit, given the advertising on the WordIQ page. This is similar to something that happened over at freshports.org site some time ago, though not quite so mercenary.
Console on Fire(wire)
Hidetoshi Shimokawa described in a post to kernel@ just how to get a console working over Firewire, instead of serial.
Journaling soon
As mentioned in an aside while talking about current work, Matthew Dillon expects his VFS work will leads to a journaling file system.
Kinder, gentler firewall
Matthew Dillon committed changes from Andreas Hauser that makes the default firewall setup (in /etc/rc.firewall relatively normal and usable.
11/04/2004
Right way to upgrade
Upgrade using ‘make upgrade’, not mergemaster. Why? Well, for one thing, ‘upgrade’ only touches files that you shouldn’t.
German mirror
There’s a new DragonFly mirror in Germany. It’s not that new, but I’m catching up on all my mail since I moved the site, and I never posted this:
11/03/2004
Going again
Up and running again – shiningsilence.com is now running through my home connection on a home machine. Neither of those are terribly high-powered, but that’s OK. I’ll attempt to get a more beefy machine in the coming months, and a better connection may be available within the year.
In the several hours this afternoon when I was rebuilding this Log, comment spam filtering was turned off – some 400-500 spams came rolling in. Wow.
11/01/2004
Almost ready
Almost have this working again – I slightly mangled the restoration of entries here, so it’ll be a bit.
