``There are also "lite" versions of the Linux operating system available, including NetBSD, which is at www.netbsd.org. One of the amazing things about NetBSD is the variety of hardware pieces it will run on.''

[Tags: linux, sudbury]

Also interesting are the timelines, which I wonder a bit about. My own perception was that release ("stable") branches survive their direct successor for quite some time, and NetBSD's documentation confirms this. Anyone want to double-check the numbers and the graph? Updates welcome! :)

[Tags: elf, linux, size]

At this moment, there are 3 hardware versions of BlackMouse: i586, i686 and for x86_64.''

I think at this time I'll stick to my BSD distribution with BSD kernel. :-)

[Tags: blackmouse, linux, pkgsrc]

As expected, after the release of Slackware Linux 12.1, Voltalinux 2.1 (code name 'Livorno') is out. It benefits from the many new features in Slackware: HTTP and FTP install, new kernel, installation on LVM and RAID, etc. Also includes the benefits of the new features found in the NetBSD's pkgsrc port system, such as upgraded packages and a better management system. As usual, Voltalinux comes with more then 150 packages (compiled with the pkgsrc port system) intended for server use, including Postfix, Exim, Dovecot, ClamAV, Pure-FTPd, Bftpd, Squid, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Bind, MaraDNS, etc."''

For more information, see the Voltalinux 2.1 announcement and the Voltalinux homepage.

[Tags: linux, pkgsrc, slackware, voltalinux]

The system comes with a wrapper for running the various commands:

• dp install foobar to install a package and its dependencies
• dp options foobar to learn about the options that can be passed to the USE environment variable
• dp upgrade foobar to upgrade na installed package by recompiling
• dp replace foobar to replace a single package, without touching dependencies.
• dp remove foobar deinstall a package and all its dependencies
• dp info foobar to print information
• ...

From the SSD/Linux homepage: ``SSD/Linux is the Linux distribution developed by Plat'Home, for use with the MicroServer series. The distribution is optimized to fit on a small internal ROM, while offering all necessary functions for networking and peripheral devices.

The name of the distribution is derived from its place of development, Sotokanda in Tokyo, in imitation of BSD. It is published under a BSD-style open license. See the User's Guide for more information.

While the OS uses a Linux kernel, most of the userland is taken from NetBSD.''

[Tags: Articles, linux, plathome, Products]

Download the CD images from here: draco-0.3.0.iso (232MB, MD5), draco-desktop-2007Q4.iso (596MB, MD5).''

[Tags: draco, linux, pkgsrc]

% firefox-linux 
/usr/pkg/lib/firefox-linux/firefox-bin: symbol lookup error: /usr/X11R6/lib/libfreetype.so.9: undefined symbol: _ctype_ 

% unsetenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH

Ulrich Habel's article "Der Daemon und die Sonne" talks about pkgsrc on Solaris. He describes how to bootstrap the environment using a precompiled binary bootstrap that was made available as Solaris package, then continues on how to use pkg_add and other tools for using precompiled binaries that are available via www.sunpkg.de.

Dr. Heiko Herrman's article "Daemonic Tux: Linux mit pkgsrc" describes the situation where he gets to a new workplace that has Linux on the desktop, but that calls for some software maintenance. Instead of hunting down the system administrator, pkgsrc can be used to install everything pkgsrc offers into his home directory, and without root privileges. The article gives details on how to bootstrap pkgsrc by compiling, then explains how to compile packages via pkgsrc and gives some hints on pkgsrc's internals.

The articles cannot be read online, information about the magazine and how to get it can be found at www.cul.de.

[Tags: Articles, linux, pkgsrc, solaris]

See the homepage for more information on precompiled binary packages, screenshots, usage, etc.

[Tags: linux, nethence, pkgsrc]

I'm tempted to say that this IS a nice idea (and guerillia marketing at its best :-). Esp. after I ran by a retail store the other day that had a machine showing some KDE desktop in the window (made me go "wtf?!"). Now, how about grabbing some NetBSD Live CDs and visiting your nearby retail store tomorrow? :)

[Tags: Advocacy, linux]

The funny part is: would you expect your Linux installer to ask you THESE questions?

# sysinst

SSD/Linux 0.4-20051205/2.6.12 Installer

  Why do you choose Linux ?
  We recommend you to use NetBSD, FreeBSD, or OpenBSD instead.

Are you sure to install [y/N] ? y
Really [y/N] ? y 

:-)

[Tags: funny, linux, mips]

"What's the fuss, NetBSD already runs Linux binaries?!" you may ask. The point is: Running 32bit binaries on a 64bit system needs a bit more work. A "32bit system" is also known as ILP32, i.e. it has types 'int', 'long' and pointers 32bit, while "64bit systems" are also known as "LP64" systems because they have types 'long' and pointers with 64bit. Now guess what happens when you run a binary that was build on a system with long=32bit on a system with long=64bit: strange things! For things to work properly, arguments from and to system calls need to be converted, in addition to all those semantic changes when emulating a different Unix system (Linux).

[Tags: amd64, linux]

See the homepage for more information.

[Tags: linux, pkgsrc]

Thorsten Glaser also pointed me at a german translation which seems to mix up quite a few things, and rather represents the translators wishes than being a real 1:1 translation. Unfortunately.

[Tags: Articles, linux]

Then again, the important difference in the whole story between NetBSD and Debian is that Debian is very strongly based on precompiled binary packages (for all platforms!), while NetBSD puts equal emphasis on precompiled binary pkgs and building from src via pkgsrc, taking NetBSD out of the responsibility to build all these binary pkgs. Sort of.

[Tags: debian, linux]

On Linux, the MadWiFi driver patched into either a 2.4.x or 2.6.x kernel didn't work when enabling Turbo mode, giving obscure error messages that we could decode as wrong parameters to one of the HAL functions by the ifconfig(!) command. This and all the maze of various tools like ifconfig, iwconfig, iwpriv together with the lot of undocumented arguments you had to hand them didn't help to make setting up Turbo mode on an Atheros card w/ Linux a straight forward job. Manpages for these tools? You wish! And if available, they're uncomplete and tell the important bits that you have to put into the "private" bits of the card.

Today's experience confirmed that if you want a working setup with little to no fuzz, NetBSD is the right choice! Of course in an economy that lives from consulting and broken things, Linux sounds much better as it will create demand for support, consulting and fixing where things could just work, and people could just get work done otherwise. Oh well!

Performance measurements with iperf showed 43MBit/s (~5MByte/s) between a Pentium-133 running Linux connected to the AP via ethernet, and a PIII-800 running NetBSD 2.0_BETA/i386 and a -current kernel from today.

[Tags: ath, linux, netbsd, networking, wlan]