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Debian GNU/kFreeBSD in the FreeBSD quarterly status report
by Peter Ross 17 Oct '14

17 Oct '14

Hi all, below from the last quarterly FreeBSD report in regards of Debian GNU/kFreeBSD. Just stumbled across it, maybe worth sharing. Regards Peter https://www.freebsd.org/news/status/report-2014-07-2014-09.html Debian GNU/kFreeBSD URL: https://wiki.debian.org/Debian_GNU/kFreeBSD URL: https://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/ Contact: Debian GNU/kFreeBSD Maintainers <debian-bsd at lists.debian.org> Debian GNU/kFreeBSD is a software distribution produced by Debian, based on the kernel of FreeBSD (instead of Linux) and GNU libc. Around 90% of Debian's software archive has now been ported to it, for amd64 and i386 architectures. It was first released with Debian "squeeze" as a development preview in 2011, featured again in the "wheezy" release, and hopes to be part of the official Debian "jessie" release in early 2015. In 2003 there were several attempts to bootstrap a minimal Debian system upon FreeBSD or NetBSD kernels, some also trying to use the native BSD libc. The most successful and longest-lived of these was a "GNU/FreeBSD" chroot bootstrapped by Robert Millan with the GNU libc that most of Debian's core packages were designed to work with. The "k" was later added to the name to reflect that it takes just the kernel from FreeBSD, with most everything else from the Debian archive. We do also package some FreeBSD utilities as needed to boot it and take advantage of certain features. FreeBSD support within GNU libc is now mostly maintained by Petr Salinger, who recently converted it from an older threading implementation based on LinuxThreads to NPTL, which is much more compatible with the software we run. We have the GNU compiler toolchain as well as Clang 3.4; Perl, Python and Ruby; and OpenJDK 7, based the on work done in FreeBSD's own ports collection. We use linprocfs for /proc because much of Debian GNU software expects this. The Linuxulator is not needed at all, but could make for interesting future uses. Porting work mostly focuses now on individual packages' build systems, on preprocessor #ifdefs that do not clearly distinguish between kernel and libc, or fixing testsuites' presumptions of Linux-specific behaviour. In the course of this, we even found the odd FreeBSD kernel bug, including EN-14:06 / CVE-2014-3880. GNU/kFreeBSD has already seen production use, mostly on webservers, email servers and file servers; one such machine has 475 days' uptime receiving around 10,000 emails per day. It has become increasingly practical for desktop/laptop uses thanks largely to new features coming in from FreeBSD 10.1. KMS graphics mean that 3D gaming and high-definition video playback perform brilliantly. We have great support for Intel graphics chipsets, but only an older nvidia Xorg driver. For radeonkms, Robert Millan was able to add firmware-loading support so that non-free binary blobs can be packaged separately, outside of Debian's main archive. Proprietary drivers are not useful to us as they would need to be rebuilt from source to port them. vt(4) was necessary for KMS to not break VT switching. But it has also improved the console's handling of non-ASCII character sets and we do look forward to having console fonts for non-Latin scripts. We have supported ZFS for some time, even as a root/boot filesystem (using GRUB 2; Robert Millan added the ZFS support which now FreeBSD itself is able to benefit from). Enhancements coming from OpenZFS, especially LZ4 compression, in combination with better memory management and GEOM improvements, mean that "jessie" should see a noticeable performance boost. debian-installer already allows for pre-seeded, unattended installs and there are PXE-bootable install images available. virtio drivers are new to the "jessie" release, enabling support for some public clouds. We are now compiling Xen domU and PVHVM support into our standard kernel builds. We already have userland tools to configure the PF firewall. As an experiment, we are compiling in IPSEC support by default for the upcoming release, and would like to see it put to good use against present-day privacy and security threats. We try to support the use of Debian GNU/kFreeBSD inside a jail on a FreeBSD host system, and hopefully vice-versa. Some of the jail utilities are not yet packaged, but we have documentation on the Debian Wiki on how to set up jails on "wheezy", which are fully functional. The init system we currently use is a parallel System V-style init, although Debian GNU/Linux will be switching away from that to systemd. For the next release we may switch to OpenRC, which is mostly ported already. Not having systemd or udev means that we will be unable to support GNOME 3.14 in the upcoming release. We have very good support for XFCE, also have KDE, LXDE and the recently-packaged MATE desktop environment. The Debian software archive provides many alternative window managers for Xorg such as IceWM, dozens of terminal emulators, and so on. As we approach the freeze of the Debian "jessie" release, we would love for anyone to test GNU/kFreeBSD, try to use it for whatever would be useful to you, and let us know what issues you run into. Ask for help on our project mailing list or IRC channel, and let us know of any bugs you find. We still have time to fix problems before release, and we would be happy to improve our documentation at any time.

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want a Dell PowerEdge 4400?
by Douglas Ray 15 Oct '14

15 Oct '14

On a nearby nature strip; if anyone wants it, I'll retrieve and store till Sunday. You must be able to pick up from Templestowe by Sunday. Unknown condition. *No power supply modules*. Has full complement of scsi disks (7 * 36G raid + 2 boot disks). Has key. http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/product-support/product/poweredge… Douglas

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All your base are belong to us
by Steve Roylance 10 Oct '14

10 Oct '14

from G+ this morning -------------------------------- Lennart Poettering Shared publicly - 04:39 German language source code comments are not acceptable in the +systemd source tree, according to our coding style conventions. In preparation for merging LibreOffice into systemd I have thus started translating a few of their source code comments from German into English. --------------------------------

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A Digression Concerning Bugs was Re: The rise or fall of systemd
by Rohan McLeod 10 Oct '14

10 Oct '14

trentbuck(a)gmail.com (Trent W. Buck) wrote: > "Peter Ross" <Petros.Listig(a)fdrive.com.au> > writes: > >> to start with Douglas Adams: "There is a theory which states that if ever >> >> >> I have this sometimes in my mind if I look at Linux related development. >> Especially in the area of desktops, btw. > I refer my learnèd colleague to The Kid: > http://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html From thinking about the failure to remove all the bugs before the new version ; and the creation of new ones in the next; I started wondering whether anyone, was taking a fundamentally different approach; to " secure and bug free OS's". After all as OS's become larger and languages more powerful; then if error rates per 1000 lines of code stay roughly constant (to err is human ?); then source-code errors and security holes will become more numerous as the source increases in size ?; The prospect seems to be, we may never be certain that all the catastrophic ones a have been found, and (for example)our airplane won't fall out of the sky under rare and specific circumstances ? By chance I came across the following idea: http://files.qubes-os.org/files/doc/arch-spec-0.3.pdf I was wondering about peoples thoughts about this and the general problem ? regards Rohan Mcleod

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Re: [luv-talk] All your base are belong to us
by Peter Ross 10 Oct '14

10 Oct '14

From: "Steve Roylance" <roylance(a)corplink.com.au> > > from G+ this morning > -------------------------------- > Lennart Poettering > Shared publicly - 04:39 > > German language source code comments are not acceptable in the +systemd > source tree, according to our coding style conventions. In preparation > for merging LibreOffice into systemd I have thus started translating a > few of their source code comments from German into English. > -------------------------------- Maybe we all got it wrong ans systemd is a distribution slightly more religiously motivated than others and not an init replacement. LibreOffice started as StarOffice in Hamburg, Germany. Ich protestiere against this hideous attempt to uproot the software;-) LibreOffice is just a word processor which wanted to be portable and compatible with MS office. It says a lot that it is still the "de facto non-MS office" standard and even contains some German comments written 30 years ago. Many tried to write "big replacements" for particular software and failed.. Regards Peter

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Events among those coming soon I think likely to be of interest to some of you.
by David E Payne 08 Oct '14

08 Oct '14

. > To: micommem(a)googlegroups.com > > Tonight 2014 October 8th 6pm > The Wearable Technologies Australia and Melbourne Wearables > Meetup are > combining into one meetup group. > http://www.meetup.com/Wearable-Technologies-Australia/events/200924722/ > > We expect you'll be wearing your favourite wearable tech > product. If you've > ditched one because it didn't meet your expectations, > definitely bring it > along. > > <http://www.meetup.com/Wearable-Technologies-Australia/events/200924722/> > > *Grants* > > Business Victoria's Technology Challenges program is > currently accepting > proposals. Three of the Technology Challenges seek wearable > solutions. The > program has three stages offering up to $75,000 for > Feasibility Study, $1 > Million for Proof of Concept and $500,00 for Market Ready > stage. > > http://www.business.vic.gov.au/grants-and-assistance/programs/driving-busin… > <http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.business.vic.gov.au%2Fgrants-a…> > > ***************************************************************** > > ALSO Tonight 2014 October 8th 6pm . Nicole Foss "How to > build resilient > communities" <http://www.meetup.com/footscraymakerlab/events/211052582/> > > http://www.meetup.com/footscraymakerlab/events/211052582/ > part of City of > Maribyrnong's "Challenge to Change" program. > > http://challengetochange.info/ > > ******************************************************************* > > 2014 October 11th 10:30am Saturday > > Melbourne Zombie Shuffle > > http://www.meetup.com/The-Melbourne-Sci-Fi-Fantasy-Meetup-Group/events/2073… > > ******************************************************************* > > 2014 October 11th Saturday & 12th Sunday > http://www.melbournemeccanoexhibition.com.au/ > > ******************************************************************* > 2014 October 12 2:00pm Sunday MESH Makers Meeting in > Ringwood > > https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/h/e9b158z2rr4m/?&v=c&th=148e3ce604070e04 > > ******************************************************************* > 2014 October 17 Friday to 19th Sunday Grand Designs Live > ATA sent me details of a free double pass ticket offer which > seems to be > from the show organisers so may be for anyone in the know. > If not, someone > should explain this. > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Simply visit https://tickets.granddesignslive.com.au > <https://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Ftickets.granddesignslive.com.au&…> > and > follow the steps below to redeem your tickets: > 1. Enter promo code SANCTUARY > 2. Follow the prompts to select which event and days you'd > like to attend > 3. Select 1 complimentary double pass > 4. Proceed to check out (free of charge) and print your > tickets > > > *One double pass redeemable per person. Not to be used in > conjunction with > any other offer. > > https://tickets.granddesignslive.com.au > <https://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Ftickets.granddesignslive.com.au&…> > > > ****************************************************************************************** > > 2014 October 19th Sunday 2-5pm > > > > > *Foostcray Maker Lab - Launch for Co-design Members (& > Open Day.) (I think > my recent mistyping was more apt. > "Footscary" http://www.footscraymakerlab.com > <http://www.footscraymakerlab.com> * ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Dav* > "Some of the above comments seem to be critical of Allen > Shaheen for > being a slimy, incompetent, "MBA-weilding moron" with no > qualifications whatsoever to run a software product company. > As > someone who has worked with him, I'd just like to set the > record > straight: Allen does not have an MBA. > > -- Ex ArsDigita, April 25, 2001" > http://waxy.org/random/arsdigita/ >

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Apple Pay and security
by Peter Ross 08 Oct '14

08 Oct '14

Hi, I read this http://www.tuaw.com/2014/10/02/apple-pay-an-in-depth-look-at-whats-behind-t… It all claims to be "more secure" etc. There are a few questions though. Okay, the claim, "Apple never stores the credit card info" .. well, you have to believe that. If you have the NSA snooping between Apple and Mastercard/Visa - they will have it;-) (if it is not securely encrypted) You just have to log the the conversation to add a new card and returning the token. Secondly, all information used in a transaction comes from the phone (token, finger print or PIN and CVV) How secure is this? A dedicated card has nothing do download/install apps which makes it a bit more difficult to get the information on the chip. I guess I would try to write an app to get "under the skin" to retrieve the information from the phone. What are your thoughts? Regards Peter

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Re: [luv-talk] East West Link - contacting the government
by Peter Ross 05 Oct '14

05 Oct '14

From: "Brent Wallis" <brent.wallis(a)gmail.com> > You must live within 10 k of the CBD or dont work in the CBD...cool, happy > you can afford the rent and or the real estate..a vast majority of us have > to live in the burbs cos we can't. Well, I live close to the CBD and work close to it, and use bike or tram/train every day. I am renting. I did not want to live "where I can afford to buy" and need two cars and spend 2 to 3 hours every day going to work. I wanted my kids being able to use public transport and bikes in their everyday life. I did not want to drive around all day to "deliver" them because I have no other choice. It's a personal choice and not completely dictated by financial circumstances. The reason you are stuck in the subs (and on roads) is the lack of investment in public transport. I have lived in and visited a few cities in the world and I have found none where you are faster by car than by public transport. Put 100 people in a tram and 100 in cars. The tram is maybe 15 meters long and holds them all. The maybe 50+ cars with the 100 people need ca. 500 meters of road to fit in. The result can be seen in Point Cook where a few ten thousands are trying to "escape to work" every morning. The next train station is a few kilometres away and there is no public transport worth mentioning (a bus every half'n'hour or less doesn't count. It's stuck in the same traffic jam anyway) So the cars are piling up in Point Cook Road and it takes half hour just to reach the freeway. You do not have to be Einstein to predict that. There is no road wide enough to correct this design error. The truth is: Melbourne is sold to developers. Maximal profit means piled up shoe boxes as apartment towers in the city and cheap development in the suburbs without any investment in public infrastructure. There is no planing and regulation worth mentioning. Your "most livable city" will be gone in the next years and decades if you do not wake up. At the moment the best change to stop it is a depression coming in so money dries up. Well, there are signs of that to happen. Last week a German economist called the reliance on coal and mining for Australia's future "almost suicidal". Regards Peter

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Re: [luv-talk] Hamburg opens the file cabinets
by Peter Ross 03 Oct '14

03 Oct '14

From: "Trent W. Buck" <trentbuck(a)gmail.com> > Peter Ross wrote: >> http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Das-Amtsgeheimnis-hat-ausgedient-Ham… >> Hamburg opens the first federal state in Germany his filing cabinets. >> Since Wednesday, everyone can under transparenz.hamburg.de/ the internet > > What's Die PARTEI's policy on open government? > I had a quick look but I couldn't see anything on http://die-partei.de. I do not know but it is The Party founded by comedians. Maybe The Onion gives you a clue. Australia may be a country of migrants speaking many languages but soundly rooted in the Anglo-Saxon past. With a London-born, Oxford "educated" comedian as a PM restoring his kingdom with Dames and Knights and a proper General here and there and all other bells and whistles you need if you want to sing an Empire Song. His re-enactment show of Thatcherism needs some improvements. Under her they closed the coal mines. Fortunately I do not have to translate that, it's from America: "The Saudi Arabia of the South Pacific" - http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/09/australia_s_e… No wonder we are having debates about burqas in parliament. What actually happened to The Budget? Or talking about transparency in Victoria: Has someone seen the East West Link business case lately? Or found the second river crossing? Regards Peter

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Hamburg opens the file cabinets
by Peter Ross 02 Oct '14

02 Oct '14

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Das-Amtsgeheimnis-hat-ausgedient-Ham… Translated: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.heise.de/new… What earn the heads of public enterprises, which include the contracts of public authorities with private companies, which is in report? Hamburg answered the first state to all these questions with original documents in a transparency portal. Hamburg opens the first federal state in Germany his filing cabinets. Since Wednesday, everyone can under transparenz.hamburg.de/ the internet read what about the heads of public enterprises earn or what is included in the contracts with the city companies. Even government reports, geological and environmental data and building permits are to be found there. The Internet portal is the result of the nationwide widest Transparency Law , which requires the administration of 6 October, to inform citizens spontaneously by itself. The law is based on the popular initiative " transparency creates trust "from the club More democracy, Transparency International and the Chaos Computer Club. .. I wish I could replace "Hamburg" with "Melbourne" in this text.. Regards Peter

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