The FreeBSD Q1 2025 Status Report highlights significant progress and updates across various teams and projects within the FreeBSD community. The FreeBSD Core Team is drafting a project roadmap and working on policies for generative AI and community surveys. The FreeBSD Foundation reported substantial fundraising and numerous software development projects, including improvements to the audio stack, DRM drivers, and wireless support. Notable achievements include the release of FreeBSD 13.5, advancements in the Laptop Support and Usability project, and the introduction of new tools like the automatic pkgbase conversion tool. The report also details updates from teams such as Release Engineering, Cluster Administration, and Continuous Integration, as well as various userland and kernel improvements. Additionally, the report covers updates from third-party projects and community initiatives, reflecting the ongoing efforts to enhance FreeBSD's capabilities and community engagement.
A new profiling subsystem has been introduced in OpenBSD -current by Theo de Raadt to address limitations of the old gprof subsystem. The updated system enhances the profil() syscall to handle file writing securely within the kernel, accommodating modern security features like privsep, chroot, and pledge. Key changes include the removal of the monstartup(3) interface and renaming the output file to avoid conflicts in multi-process environments. This development aims to facilitate profiling in applications such as rpki-client and bgpd, with support from the OpenBSD community. The changes are available in fresh snapshots for testing and feedback.
The fourth BETA build for the FreeBSD 14.3 release cycle is now available. ISO images for the amd64, i386, powerpc, powerpc64, powerpc64le, powerpcspe, armv6, armv7, aarch64, and riscv64 architectures are FreeBSD mirror sites.
This guide provides a comprehensive walkthrough for setting up Ruby on Rails with Rideshare PostgreSQL on FreeBSD. It covers the installation of Ruby and Rails, the creation of a PostgreSQL database for Rideshare, and the cloning and setup of the Rideshare application from GitHub. The tutorial also includes commands for database schema import and application migration. Key tools used include FreeBSD 13.3, Ruby 3.1.4, Bundler 2.3.6, and PostgreSQL 15. The guide is designed for users with some familiarity with Ruby and PostgreSQL, aiming to help them deploy a web application efficiently on a FreeBSD server.
I use Zip Bombs to Protect my Server, Owning the Stack: Infrastructure Independence with FreeBSD and ZFS, Optimisation of parallel TCP input, Chosing between "it works for now" and "it works in the long term", Losing one of my evenings after an OpenBSD upgrade, What drive did I just remove from the system?, and more.
The FreeBSD Q1 2025 Status Report highlights significant progress and updates across various teams and projects within the FreeBSD community. The FreeBSD Core Team is drafting a project roadmap and working on policies for generative AI and community surveys. The FreeBSD Foundation reported substantial fundraising and numerous software development projects, including improvements to the audio stack, DRM drivers, and wireless support. Notable achievements include the release of FreeBSD 13.5, advancements in the Laptop Support and Usability project, and the introduction of new tools like the automatic pkgbase conversion tool. The report also details updates from teams such as Release Engineering, Cluster Administration, and Continuous Integration, as well as various userland and kernel improvements. Additionally, the report covers updates from third-party projects and community initiatives, reflecting the ongoing efforts to enhance FreeBSD's capabilities and community engagement.
The article discusses the misconception that FreeBSD is dying, debunking it with evidence of its steady growth and increasing interest. The author attributes this misconception to the "availability heuristic," where people assume FreeBSD is less relevant due to its lower visibility compared to Linux. The article highlights FreeBSD's quiet but significant role in powering parts of the internet and its permissive license, which allows companies to use and build upon it without publicizing their use. The author encourages companies using FreeBSD to share their experiences and challenges to foster a stronger community and improve hardware support.
The May 2025 status report details the progress of optional Rust support in FreeBSD, focusing on userland components. A feature branch has been created for this work, with a new BSD makefile introduced to enable building Rust applications during buildworld. The current patchset supports building and installing Rust applications but not yet library crates or kernel support. Several example components have been imported for testing, and next steps include supporting library crates, multiple Rust applications in a single Makefile, and developing guidelines for vendor imports of crates. Upstreaming to Phabricator is planned once the approach is finalized.
The article details the author's experience setting up FreeBSD on the StarFive VisionFive v2 board. The process involved downloading a FreeBSD snapshot, writing it to a micro-SD card, and booting the board. However, the author encountered issues due to a mislabeled CPU core in the FDT, which required manual intervention to disable the problematic core. Despite following documentation and community advice, the setup faced challenges with storage options and booting. The author also explored OpenBSD as an alternative, which proved more successful in detecting storage devices.
OpenBSD users with low-power devices like PC Engines APU2 are called to test a new diff by Darren Tucker for em(4) TX interrupt mitigation. The update aims to improve network performance by adjusting interrupt timers, potentially increasing TX throughput by 25% and reducing CPU usage by 60%. The diff addresses issues with the current settings, which may cause excessive interrupts, especially with jumbo packets. Users are encouraged to test the diff and provide feedback to the OpenBSD community.
The Valuable News weekly series provides a summary of news, articles, and other interesting content related to UNIX/BSD/Linux systems. This edition includes various topics such as managing disk partitions in FreeBSD, the release of GNU Screen 5.0.1, and the benefits of FreeBSD for embedded devices.
The third BETA build for the FreeBSD 14.3 release cycle is now available. ISO images for the amd64, i386, powerpc, powerpc64, powerpc64le, powerpcspe, armv6, armv7, aarch64, and riscv64 architectures are FreeBSD mirror sites.