PC-BSD 1.1

PC-BSD 1.1 was just announced - time to start downloading! It uses the newly release FreeBSD 6.1 as a baseline and adds more drivers. As I've just been hacking around, I may just start from scratch again.

PC-BSD 1.1 Announcement

More *BSD Wallpapers

Here's another site with some nice looking BSD wallpapers:
BSDnexus.com - Wallpapers

Here's my previous posting on the subject:
Daemon Dancing in the Dark: FreeBSD Wallpaper

Why should I care what color the bikeshed is?

Why should I care what color the bikeshed is?

UFS Explorer

Interesting looking piece of shareware software.  UFS Explorer allows you to mount UFS (and other filesystems) read-only while in the Windows, allowing you to easily view and copy files around.  Looks like it would be a great help for those of you with dual-boot systems, booting both Windows and BSD.  I mostly have dedicated machines these days.

SysDevSoftware UFS Explorer.

loader.conf

The loader.conf file is used to specify lots of load time options, used by loader(8). The most obvious use for it is to disable (or enable) the splash screen display. Some of the FreeBSD "distros" like PC-BSD use a splash screen by default, but if you are like me, you're going to want to watch FreeBSD while it goes to work. You can edit either /boot/loader.conf or, if you have a shared /boot/loader.conf, you can instead put local configuration stuff in /boot/loader.conf.local.  So to turn of the splash screen shown by PC-BSD, you add or change the line:

splash_bmp_load="NO"

while "bitmap_name" is the name of the splash screen to load.

You can see helpful examples of loader.conf stuff in /usr/share/examples/bootforth/.

loader.conf

Wiki Walking

A couple of FreeBSD and BSD wikis I just came across.  I'm fascinated with the technology and hope to set one up on my server soon:

Main Page - FreeBSDwiki
Main Page - BSDWiki

man release

Cool man page that talks about how the official FreeBSD release is actually built. All kinds of crazy info that almost no one would ever be interested in. But it is great to see it documented, although I wonder about how up to date it is, as one of its examples shows how FreeBSD 4.9 was made!

man release

PC-BSD stuff

Dru Lavigne has a nice quick overview of using PC-BSD, the distro I use on my local machine.  I've really been impressed with the v1.0 release - it installed painlessly on my machine and it connected  up reasonably well with my Windows network.  At least I can see Windows shares, but I can't seem to write to any of them.  I'm still working out the kinks as far as getting it plugged into my home network.

I also downloaded the VMWare Image and installed it on my work computer (which is a real sweet machine - dual 3.0ghz CPU, 2gb RAM, 160gb of RAID 1 hard drive), which runs the (free!) VMWare Server just swell.  I've always been a big VMWare fan and with the free stuff they now offer, it is a no-brainer to use it.

One thing that virtual machines are just great for is testing out new software.  By using the download VMWare image, I can check to see how my PBI (PCBSD Installation package) is coming along when installed on a vanilla machine.  Yup, I'm working on my very first PBI, which will install Emacs 21.  Following Dru's instructions for building PC-BSD packages, I was up and running fairly quickly.  I hope to have a more complete report soon.

ONLamp.com -- Using PC-BSD
ONLamp.com -- Building Binary PC-BSD Packages

FreeBSD 6.1 out

FreeBSD 6.1 was released on Monday.  Now I need to brush up on my updating procedure and get my server moved up to 6.1.  I wonder how long it will be before PC-BSD has a 6.1-related release? Too bad, because they just came out with their 1.0.

FreeBSD 6.1-RELEASE Announcement

KAppFinder

Neat little utility that scratches an itch I've had for awhile, as I explore the world of a GUI FreeBSD - how can I easily put new GUI apps onto the KDE menu? Turns out there is a very easy way - run "kappfinder"!  Here's a short note on how to use it (it's using SuSe linux, but it still applies to *BSD KDE install):

NOVELL: Cool Solutions: KAppFinder: System Menu Update Tool

linuxpluginwrapper_how_to.txt

Woo hoo! I got lucky. While I did do a refresh and deleted the aformentioned text file on how to install the linuxpluginwrapper, I had Yet Another tab open with the file still in it. So here it is:


## Workaround for broken port linuxpluginwrapper.
## Beech Rintoul - akbeech@gmail.com

## Before building linuxpluginwrapper:

rm -R /usr/X11R6/lib/browser_linux_plugins

ln -s /usr/X11R6/lib/browser_plugins /usr/X11R6/lib/browser_linux_plugins


## Build linuxpluginwrapper:

cd /usr/ports/www/linuxpluginwrapper

make -DWITH_PLUGINS install clean

## or upgrade:

portupgrade -vm -DWITH_PLUGINS linuxpluginwrapper

## Remove symlink (Will break Mozilla).

rm -rf /usr/X11R6/lib/browser_linux_plugins

## Fix acroread:

rm -rf /usr/local/bin/acroread # If upgrade.

mv /usr/local/bin/acroread7 /usr/local/bin/acroread

rm -rf /usr/X11R6/lib/browser_plugins/nppdf.so

ln -s /usr/local/lib/acroread/usr/local/Adobe/Acrobat7.0/Browser/intellinux/nppdf.so /usr/X11R6/lib/browser_plugins/nppdf.so

## Change path to nppdf.so in /etc/libmap.conf:

# Acrobat7 with Mozilla/Firebird/Galeon/Epiphany/Konqueror
[/usr/local/lib/acroread/usr/local/Adobe/Acrobat7.0/Browser/intellinux/nppdf.so]
libc.so.6 pluginwrapper/acrobat.so

## Note:
## Acroread now works properly in browser.
## Helix plugin does not work with Firefox or Mozilla at this time.
## Flash 6.0 works without modification.
## Flash7 is VERY unstable and will crash Firefox (possibly Mozilla).

## Launch browser and type "about:plugins" without the quotes to check that plugins are enabled.


Mind you, I don't know if it works or not, or if it is even still needed, so let me know what you find out, in case I don't get to it soon.

Mozilla Flash & FreeBSD

Some notes for getting Flash to work with Mozilla on FreeBSD:

comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc: Mozilla Flash


http://akparadise.byethost33.com/freebsd/linuxpluginwrapper_how_to.txt : Linuxpluginwrapper HowTo


Edit: This page, unfortunately, seems to have disappeared. I had it in my cache, but before saving it, I refreshed and now it is gone:-( If anyone has a copy, please feel free to send it along and I will archive it.

Edit #2 : Found it! See here

Edit #3 : Here's another link:

PC-BSD FAQ's - Using Flash, realplayer and acroread with Firefox (Yeah, it's pc-bsd, but it still has some good FreeBSD info). I'm going to try this on my fresh PC-BSD install and I'll let you know how it goes.

denyhosts

I'm going to install this port and see how well it does.  It works by examining the ssh log file (/var/log/auth.log) and dynamically adding IPs to the hosts.allow file to keep the script kiddies from whacking away at your ssh daemon. I get plenty of those attempts and they fill my log file.  It also logs lots of info too. And can email you with reports.

Port description for security/denyhosts

BSDCan 2006 coming up

Man oh man, what I wouldn't do to be going up to Ottawa this Friday to be joining in on the BSDCan festivities!  Ottawa is a simply lovely city, and I'm sure it will be in full spring bloom too.  I'm sure it would be FreeBSD overload, and it'd be a blast to put faces to a lot of the names I see on the various mailing lists and web sites.  But, alas, I'll be staying home, just a few scant hours away in Boston.

Oh well, maybe next year...

BSDCan 2006

Technorati Tags: bsdcan

PC-BSD v1.0 out

Just to show you how far behind the times I am, I'm just now noticing that the official 1.0 release of PC-BSD was announced a month ago!  I even downloaded it and didn't notice it was the official 1.0.  I'm contributing to the cause by sending out a burn of the CD to someone in Indonesia for translation.

PC-BSD v1.0

New FreeBSD LiveCD distro - Frenzy

Looks like a project to keep an eye on.  Frenzy is a LiveCD release of FreeBSD they called a "portable system administrator toolkit".  They just released their 1.0 beta 1 version. It is only in Russian for now, although previous releases had an English option. And they promise a new English version soon. 

Project Frenzy - FreeBSD-based LiveCD

Technorati Tags: freebsd, frenzy

Other OSes

I've always been fascinated by applications in general and especially OSes.  I'm always screwing up both my FreeBSD and my Windows systems because I'll download and try out just about anything. It's especially bad these days, with the huge hard drives.  I saw a hard drive on sale this week.  It is a 400gb(!) drive for US$150.  Even I would have a hard time filling up a 400gb hard drive.  I picked up a 180gb hard drive for around US$50, and I still haven't come close to filling it up.

But I just can't resist trying out new OSes.  I've mentioned a few sites here before, but I made the mistake of subscribing to the Distrowatch RSS feed and now I'm in real touble. I'm constantly downloading ISO, burning them and almost never actually trying them out.  Even for various Linux distros, I can hardly resist myself if there is any kind of hook for it.

And I'm a real sucker for unique OSes.  I downloaded Syllable and others, boot them, admire their hard work and dedication and then move on. Anyway, here's a link to the Wikipedia page listing lots and lots of them. In particular, check out the Hobby OS list. Simply fascinating!

List of operating systems - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia