freebsd

So as you know I'm looking at repurposing an old Dell Optiplex 3080 tower as an #OpenBSD server. It's already got 32GB ram and a 1Tb NVME drive. I was thinking about adding some spinning rust for the data drive but I'm unsure whether to just add one hard drive as I'll be doing regular backups to NAS anyway. Or should I spend more purchasing two of the same drives for my usual RAID 1 setup like I did with my #FreeBSD server Beastie ?
Was looking at ways saving some £££ but maybe it's not a good idea ? It would eventually be hosting the following if possible. Snac instance, static website, git with cgit, Radicale, Syncthing and maybe a few more much much later.
#Homelab

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. Do not mention Reddit. Do not press that button. Do not receive your honorary degree.

#FreeBSD #Doctor #Thinkology #Wizard #Oz

Hey #BSD friends! Sorry I haven't been posting on here.

I've been posting a lot of #FreeBSD experimentation stuff on my main account:

In chronological order (☺️):
https://polymaths.social/@rl_dane/statuses/01KABZK9AZ5F6WE5MD6NXE2MJN
https://polymaths.social/@rl_dane/statuses/01KAEBXEMBWFCFJ4EBC1H08KHX
https://polymaths.social/@rl_dane/statuses/01KAF77ZMNN873WWJQG7V8NZSA
https://polymaths.social/@rl_dane/statuses/01KAF7RC5AFK4AGT0HJCFQB0M8
https://polymaths.social/@rl_dane/statuses/01KAFCBN72WZMC6N7R0AKFN25K
https://polymaths.social/@rl_dane/statuses/01KAHVYSCD3KKK3W3RTJ1GMHT5
https://polymaths.social/@rl_dane/statuses/01KAHX0AS08DS4DPP6VQ4MQTZB
https://polymaths.social/@rl_dane/statuses/01KAHZM3VY4SHAC9K21TPA5F0H
https://polymaths.social/@rl_dane/statuses/01KAHZXQS2FWA7BR1GJH7FJWQJ
https://polymaths.social/@rl_dane/statuses/01KAJVBPH3V5E96R6DV2THQVYC
https://polymaths.social/@rl_dane/statuses/01KAJWWQYHBFE00B7PHX58ZXWA
https://polymaths.social/@rl_dane/statuses/01KAK1DJ57BENGDP2RRZVECZ2G
https://polymaths.social/@rl_dane/statuses/01KAKYWBB019VZE00QPD3H1669
https://polymaths.social/@rl_dane/statuses/01KAM90ENYCKHN988PRGXXRQ82
https://polymaths.social/@rl_dane/statuses/01KANHDACYRJ0FAKYTGT9Y71V0

If this file exists, please do NOT follow the widespread advice to overwrite it:

/usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/FreeBSD.conf

Bug reports for the src and doc trees, and the wiki:

― <https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=291501>
― <https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=291502>

#FreeBSD #quarterly #latest #ports #pkg #documentation #bug

Does anyone manage to use the #keyboard media controls in #FreeBSD #Xorg? I have a DasKeyboard with a volume jog that works out of the box on #OpenBSD.

The events seems to be working using xev tester. It regognizes the RaiseVolume and LowerVolume events.

Not sure where to actually start looking for a solution.

#RunBSD

Adventures in #FreeBSD:

Install FreeBSD
GELI, I don't know who you are or what you mean, but you're lovely
How do you scroll up in the console???
Mistyped username when setting it up. Oops.
usermod. Where's usermod??? pw usermod????? Umm, OKAY!?
Changed group name, changed user name, changed home dir
Oh, it didn't actually move the home dir
No problems, cd /home; mv oldname newname
WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU CAN'T MV IT
Fine, mkdir /home/newname
NO?? WHAT.
Fine, pw usermod yadda yadda make new homedir
Homedir is created, but blank.
cd /home/oldname; mv -n * ../newname
Why is this taking so long
HOLY CRAP ARE YOU ACTUALLY COPYING ALL THOSE FILES?!? WHY?!?!?
zfs, I love and respect you. I just don't understand you. X'D
Oh, I have to install drm video drivers and enable them to get a GUI, even for Wayland. Of course. Totally normal FreeBSD things.
At least the handbook kicks butt, and is mostly accurate, compared to "we wrote this for Linux to weeks ago and it's already out of date. Oh, and even when it was new, it only applied to 15% of all distros"

On Thursday, @gyptazy provided a talk about #BoxyBSD at the "Virtualization Gathering" at @credativde.

@gyptazy provided some more information about the BoxyBSD project, but also about the history and infrastructure including the switches of #FreeBSD #Jails, #bhyve and #Proxmox (#kvm). Afterwards, additional information about the #Sylve project were shared and why this is so important and interesting and could make BoxyBSD return to bhyve based #virtualization.

Slides: https://cdn.gyptazy.com/talks/BoxyBSD_Virtualization_Hypervisor_bhyve_Proxmox_credativ_gyptazy.pdf
Recording: https://peertube.gyptazy.com/w/2HtUv9HFBNEU4sEw52bD8H

#meetup #talk #talks #conference #opensource #hosting #ipv6

The Data Copy That Lies https://lobste.rs/s/riwtej #freebsd
https://vivianvoss.net/blog/copy-that-lies

Secondary: "Tianve" - HP 250 G3
Kernel: 14.3-RELEASE-p4 amd64
Operating System: GHostBSD 25.02
KDE Plasma Version: 6.5.2
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.19.0
Qt Version: 6.9.3
Graphics Platform: Wayland

https://bsd-hardware.info/?probe=102fa9b597

#GhostBSD #FreeBSD #RunBSD #KDE #Plasma #kde_plasma #wayland #screenshot #desktop #unix

Added 𝗨𝗣𝗗𝗔𝗧𝗘 𝟰 - 𝗣𝗖𝗜 𝗣𝗮𝘀𝘀𝘁𝗵𝗿𝘂 [UPDATE 4 - PCI Passthru] to 𝗙𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗕𝗦𝗗 𝗕𝗵𝘆𝘃𝗲 𝗩𝗶𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 [FreeBSD Bhyve Virtualization] article.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2023/08/18/freebsd-bhyve-virtualization#passthru

#verblog #freebsd #bhyve #passthru #usb #pci #virtualization

I keep having to remind myself that this #FreeBSD laptop isn't running Linux.

Other than a few very minor issues, it JUST WORKS. After all of the work (it wasn't even hard, really) of setting it up and customizing a couple of my scripts to run on FreeBSD, the OS does its most important job: disappearing.

This is pretty cool. Give yourselves a pat on the back, #FreeBSD devs. Things are really getting better.

Disclaimer: Just because I haven't encountered any deal-breakers doesn't mean that you won't. Always do your due diligence and try it out on a non-critical machine, first. Also, using an old #Thinkpad (instead of a brand new whatever) is usually the best advice for stuff like this ;)

Sell me on your non Gnome / non KDE / non XFCE desktop environment or window manager of choice. Im in the mood to try something new. Im not a tiling window guy. Extra credit if it's in #FreeBSD's ports. #linux #floss #DesktopEnvironment #WindowManager #BSD

Finally tried #NetBSD 10.1 RELEASE baremetal on my #ThinkPad #T470s. Good news is most things seem to work out of box: WiFi, touchpad, i915 drived video card. Bad news is, suspend/wakeup (S3) not working. It appears suspend worked well since after issuing sysctl -w hw.acpi.sleep.state=3 the laptop went to sleep with blinking power led, fan stops. However, at wakeup keyboard just stops responding, even swtiching tty with Ctrl-Alt-Fn keys. WiFi usually wakes up just fine since I gain ssh session back shortly after wakeups. I will conclude a major issue for a system if suspend/wakeup won't work for a laptop. I simply cannot imagine having to poweroff a laptop every day before going to bed. It is kinda a sueprise to me since I assume ThinkPad laptops usually get along well with #BSD and #Linux systems.

FYI, S3 suspend/wakeup works flawlessly with #FreeBSD and #OpenBSD on this laptop without any hack.

#BSD #RunBSD #Unix #FOSS

Happy Friday #FreeBSD

Just upgrade a VM of mine running #FreeBSD 14.3 to 15.0 RELEASE, all went well in probably 20 minutes. Super fast, dead simple, and not frightening at all thanks to #ZFS BE backups. It felt so easy that I am even a bit bored.

#BSD #RUNBSD #Unix #FOSS

New 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗙𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗕𝗦𝗗 𝟭𝟱.𝟬-𝗥𝗘𝗟𝗘𝗔𝗦𝗘 𝗨𝗽𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 [Valuable FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE Updates] article.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2025/11/30/valuable-freebsd-15-0-release-updates/

#verblog #freebsd #improvements #release #updates

RFC: what are the highlights of FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE?

＂In the 15.0-RELEASE announcement email, I list a few highlights. Obviously pkgbase is going to be one of them, but I'm looking for a list of 5 or 6 items, and I don't know what you as users care about the most.

＂So… can you help out your release engineer and tell me what you personally thing is the most exciting change in 15.0?＂

― Colin Percival at <https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/1pa8ait/what_are_the_highlights_of_150release/>

(The announcement is scheduled for Tuesday 2nd December – <https://www.freebsd.org/releases/15.0R/>.)

#FreeBSD #RELEASE #RFC #announcement

FreeBSD 15.0 (almost)-RELEASE, using pkgbase, on my Ryzen 9 MiniPC (and compared to openSUSE Tumbleweed):

- Full disk encryption works beautifully via GELI, as usual.

- Installing KDE is easy and it works perfectly on Wayland.

- All my main apps work. Others will run via the Linuxulator or Wine (Linux browsers, WinBox for MikroTik, etc).

- The fan seems more relaxed.

- The system generally feels snappier.

- Native ZFS. I can autosnapshot every 5 minutes. If I try to do this with btrfs - snapshots of the home directory included and quotas enabled - the system hangs while handling them (which is why Tumbleweed doesn’t snapshot home by default).

- The media keys on my keyboard work, but volume control uses huge steps and 30 percent is already extremely loud. This can be fixed. The monitor brightness setting is also a bit off, but I don't care.

- amdgpu works perfectly.

- The wifi card works. I haven’t tested the speed because I immediately installed the realtek-re-kmod driver to use the 2.5 Gbit ethernet connection.

- Suspend doesn’t work. This is a big problem for me. It’s probably more psychological than technical, but I can’t leave the computer powered for hours when I’m not using it. I already have servers running 24/7 here. I even considered putting my Qotom FreeBSD server in a VM. It would probably work, but next summer it might be an issue because temperatures here aren’t low and spinning disks don’t love heat (and I don’t love their noise).

- It’s stable and reliable. I’ve done almost everything and it just works, as expected.

- Some small glitches remain, mostly due to missing configuration or packages (I didn’t tune anything. I just installed it and started using it).

A much smoother experience than a year ago, when I bought it.

Will I keep using FreeBSD on this minipc?
I’m not sure yet, since Tumbleweed works great and the lack of suspend really influences my choice. I'll contact Aymeric and try to offer some help to improve this.

For now, I’ll keep it on an external SSD and switch from time to time, especially when I know I’ll be using the minipc for hours.

#Linux #FreeBSD #Desktop #openSUSE

Ever messed up an update? We got you covered! Simply restore your Snapshot!

You can now also manage (create, delete, restore) a snapshot of your Box! If you ever messed up your application, OS update or anything else - simply go back to your last snapshot and try again! This way, you can test and learn #BSD even better and easier!

cc: @gyptazy

#education #opensource #FreeBSD #OpenBSD #NetBSD #RUNBSD #learning #ipv6 #freevm #freevps #community #fosdem #hosting #selfhosting #snapshot

Hmm I see #FreeBSD 15.0 has been released and 14.4 is upcoming. My server is running 14.3 right now so which if I upgrade do I go for as it houses my Bastille jails too for snac and so on and I'd rather not stuff everything up. Also this pkgbase stuff is confusing me as atm I use pkg to update and upgrade and freebsd-update and so on ?

Hello, new #FediMeteo friends!

As the great @FediFollows posted about this service, many of you started following me and the cities. And I'm so glad about it!

If you want to know something more about FediMeteo and its story (and how all this is still working on a 4 euro/month VPS powered by #FreeBSD), you can have a look here:

FediMeteo: How a Tiny €4 FreeBSD VPS Became a Global Weather Service for Thousands - https://it-notes.dragas.net/2025/02/26/fedimeteo-how-a-tiny-freebsd-vps-became-a-global-weather-service-for-thousands/

FreeBSD 15.0 Now Available

The FreeBSD Project has announced the availability of FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE, introducing updated toolchains, enhanced hardware support, improved security features, and key updates across the base system. This release continues the Project’s focus on stability, long-term maintainability, and consistent engineering.

We encourage you to review the release notes and upgrade guidance

Read the full announcement: https://www.freebsd.org/releases/15.0R/announce/

#FreeBSD #OpenSource #FreeBSD15

The slides, the video, and the text behind my presentation at EuroBSDCon 2024 - 'Why and how we're migrating many of our servers from Linux to the BSDs.'

https://it-notes.dragas.net/2024/10/03/i-solve-problems-eurobsdcon/

#ITNotes #FreeBSD #OpenBSD #NetBSD #RunBSD #IT #SysAdmin #EuroBSDCon #EBC24 #EuroBSDCon24 #EuroBSDCon2024 #NoteHUB

"Too many #ThinkPads???"

I don't even know what that means!

#Linux #FreeBSD #OpenBSD

Quick #Freebsd people, I need a dual boot laptop for FreeBSD and latest Windows. Anyone have suggestions? Something that is not expensive preferable!