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hugo_pt writes "FreeBSD 5.3-BETA3 has just hit the ftp/cvsup servers. This new beta aims at correcting some known bugs from BETA2, mainly on ACPI and the schedules. It also improves several system utilities, such as bsdtar. More details available here FreeBSD 5.3-RELEASE is expected October 3rd."

jjgm writes "As FreeBSD 5-STABLE approaches, Andre Oppermann has produced a high-level presentation on the changes to the FreeBSD 5.3 network stack. There are many clever tricks for performance and scalability. Amongst other things, Andre claims that FreeBSD can now route 1Mpps on a 2.8GHz Xeon whilst Linux can't do much more than 100kpps."

jjgm writes "As FreeBSD 5-STABLE approaches, Andre Oppermann has produced a high-level presentation on the changes to the FreeBSD 5.3 network stack. There are many clever tricks for performance and scalability. Amongst other things, Andre claims that FreeBSD can now route 1Mpps on a 2.8GHz Xeon whilst Linux can't do much more than 100kpps."

Nirbo writes "One week after FreeBSD 5.3-BETA1, FreeBSD 5.3-BETA2, is now available to those wishing to update to the most current FreeBSD on the 5.x branch. It's available from the Main FTP servers, and probably a few more places by this point. BETA-3 is due out September 3rd, but for those who don't want to go a single day without updating, you can find snapshots (and the ISO images) here."

Nirbo writes "One week after FreeBSD 5.3-BETA1, FreeBSD 5.3-BETA2, is now available to those wishing to update to the most current FreeBSD on the 5.x branch. It's available from the Main FTP servers, and probably a few more places by this point. BETA-3 is due out September 3rd, but for those who don't want to go a single day without updating, you can find snapshots (and the ISO images) here."

Tezkah writes "From the announcement: 'The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team is proud to announce the availability of FreeBSD 5.3-BETA1. This is the first BETA of the 5.3 release cycle. It is intended for early adopters and those wishing to help find and/or fix bugs. The 5.3 release cycle will continue with weekly BETA builds while bugs are being fixed and features finalized. The schedule is at www.freebsd.org/releases/5.3R/schedule.html . Be sure to check the "Known issues" below, there are known problems still being worked on at this time.' New features include fully threaded and multi-processor safe network stack, X.org instead of XFree86, many ACPI enhancements, GCC updated to 3.4.2, gdb updated to 6.1.1, binutils updated, and much more. Expect 5.3 to be released in full on October 3rd, if everything goes according to schedule!"

Tezkah writes "From the announcement: 'The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team is proud to announce the availability of FreeBSD 5.3-BETA1. This is the first BETA of the 5.3 release cycle. It is intended for early adopters and those wishing to help find and/or fix bugs. The 5.3 release cycle will continue with weekly BETA builds while bugs are being fixed and features finalized. The schedule is at www.freebsd.org/releases/5.3R/schedule.html . Be sure to check the "Known issues" below, there are known problems still being worked on at this time.' New features include fully threaded and multi-processor safe network stack, X.org instead of XFree86, many ACPI enhancements, GCC updated to 3.4.2, gdb updated to 6.1.1, binutils updated, and much more. Expect 5.3 to be released in full on October 3rd, if everything goes according to schedule!"

Tezkah writes "From the announcement: 'The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team is proud to announce the availability of FreeBSD 5.3-BETA1. This is the first BETA of the 5.3 release cycle. It is intended for early adopters and those wishing to help find and/or fix bugs. The 5.3 release cycle will continue with weekly BETA builds while bugs are being fixed and features finalized. The schedule is at www.freebsd.org/releases/5.3R/schedule.html . Be sure to check the "Known issues" below, there are known problems still being worked on at this time.' New features include fully threaded and multi-processor safe network stack, X.org instead of XFree86, many ACPI enhancements, GCC updated to 3.4.2, gdb updated to 6.1.1, binutils updated, and much more. Expect 5.3 to be released in full on October 3rd, if everything goes according to schedule!"

underpar writes "ZDNet UK is reporting that FreeBSD is nearing a code freeze. August 15th is the deadline which will be followed by the usual beta testing and a final release hoped for by October 1st. ZDNet interviewed the software engineer leading the release work, Scott Long, for the article. He says: 'The 5.3 release will be the first one where we see the real benefits of that. The multithreaded network stack will outperform everything we've done before, for running applications such as Apache or MySQL.' Status reports can be found on the FreeBSD website." I've been using the last technology release of FreeBSD for some time now, and am really looking forward to the 5.3 release, as well as the 5-STABLE branch that's rumored to follow soon after.

underpar writes "ZDNet UK is reporting that FreeBSD is nearing a code freeze. August 15th is the deadline which will be followed by the usual beta testing and a final release hoped for by October 1st. ZDNet interviewed the software engineer leading the release work, Scott Long, for the article. He says: 'The 5.3 release will be the first one where we see the real benefits of that. The multithreaded network stack will outperform everything we've done before, for running applications such as Apache or MySQL.' Status reports can be found on the FreeBSD website." I've been using the last technology release of FreeBSD for some time now, and am really looking forward to the 5.3 release, as well as the 5-STABLE branch that's rumored to follow soon after.

GMan00 writes "A flurry of BSD UNIX-related (Berkeley Software Distribution) books have hit the bookstores during the recent past, and more are on the way. From books specific to Secure Architectures with OpenBSD in April 2004 and the reissue of The Design and Implementation of the BSD Operating System for FreeBSD 5.x (expected in August 2004), to Michael Lucas' series of BSD Books from NoStarch Press, print documentation is certainly available for those interested in learning about the free, open source UNIX system which powers operations such as Yahoo! portal and Sendmail.org website, Verio and Pair hosting, not to mention web server survey site Netcraft. Dru Lavigne's BSD Hacks (O'Reilly and Associates, May 2004), is the latest book in these releases, and is an enormously useful resource for system administrators and end-users alike." Read on for the rest of George's review. BSD Hacks author Dru Lavigne pages 427 publisher O'Reilly & Associates rating 10 reviewer George ISBN 0596006799 summary A great array of hacks you can perform on your BSD box, many applicable to all the BSDs, including FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD and Darwin/OS X.

Dru writes the BSD Basics column on O'Reilly & Associates' OnLamp. Her clarity and fluid style are perfect for those looking to understand aspects of the BSD operating systems. I have had some email communications with Dru about various New York City *BSD User Group-related activities, and managed to speak with her several times at BSDCan this past May.

Like most computer nerds, Dru has a sense of humor. Unlike most, however, she's actually funny.

BSD Hacks is the first book that is almost solely focused on hacks for sysadmins, without boring you with the details for basic operating system installation and configuration that has been so well documented elsewhere. BSD Hacks is not just for sysadmins, though. Intermediate and advanced BSD users will also find the book an excellent tool. For those who find difficulty in BSD installs and other fundamentals, on the other hand, it's best to start with the FreeBSD Handbook, the NetBSD Guide or the OpenBSD FAQ.

There's lots of good hacks buried in the various BSD books, around the internet in different HOWTOs and tutorials. But BSD hacking is the sole purpose of BSD Hacks; there's no need to browse through install screens and overviews of TCP/IP before getting to the heart of the matter.

With 100 listed hacks, multiplied by an impressive level of detailed angles for each, Dru provides an array that demands the placement of this book right in your server room, not in a pile of "must-read-at-some-distant-point-in-the-future" texts.

The majority of hacks are applicable to all the BSDs, including Darwin and OS X, although some are specific to one BSD or another.

This review obviously can't list every hack, although you would be smart to sit and work through the book yourself over a weekend or two. But it is possible to provide a good flavor of BSD Hacks in brief. O'Reilly and Associates does give a good glimpse on their Sample Hacks page, but let's do a quick work through ourselves.

The first chapter is called "Customizing the User Environment," and is probably best for end-users looking to go beyond their first steps. But it does include some useful hacks, such as "Use an Interactive Shell" that certainly fit well into the arsenal of any sysadmin, not to mention Hack #12 "Use Multiple Screens on One Terminal."

The second chapter, "Dealing with Files and Filesystems" also contains gems for both end-users and sysadmins. The use of mtree, which maps a directory hierarchy, is mentioned as a tool for recovery. Later on in chapter 6, Dru details its use for making a hacked data integrity checker, thus filling the role often played by products such as Tripwire.

Another great tool Dru covers in the second chapter is g4u, a free ghosting program that gives you the ability to perform quick restores over ftp. Ghosting a drive image is an incredibly useful tool, whether it's about replicating servers or doing a quick reinstall and configuration when a server fails in an emergency.

Chapter 3 is entitled "Boot and Login Environments." It gives some hacks that aren't just for basic system administration, but also some useful security ones including changing your /etc/passwd file to Blowfish encryption and utilizing OPIE for one-time passwords, which is built into FreeBSD.

"Backup Up" is the focus of Chapter 4. It includes some very creative methods of dealing with maintaining that necessity, and also includes an excellent primer on Bacula, which is increasingly gaining prominence as a cross-platform backup system.

Chapter 5 covers "Network Hacks," and continues on educating a sysadmin. Included in this chapter is the tcpdump program, a vital tool for watching traffic flowing by your network interfaces.

There's a strong security focus in Chapter 6, entitled "Securing the System." While security hacks are sprinkled generously throughout the book, this chapter works with firewalling with IPF and PF, in addition to covering SSH and Snort. It also includes the earlier mentioned 'intrusion detection-lite' approach with mtree.

Chapter 7, "Going Beyond the Basics" explores scripting, analyzing dreaded buffer overflows and more. Dru also includes a bit on "Creating a Trade Show Demo," not something you'd expect documented in print anywhere, but nevertheless quite useful for anyone working for the BSDs at a conference.

Dru continues with "Keeping Up-to-Date" in Chapter 8, which includes useful details on upgrading and downgrading your installed ports.

The final chapter is "Grokking BSD." "Grok," as Dru comments, refers to the science fiction writer Heinlein's Martian phrase for having a "thorough understanding." Dru covers creating your own manual pages, dealing with custom patches, playing with dictionaries and more.

Certainly there are no walls between each chapter, as many of the hacks could be shifted around. All the more reason to work your way through the book from beginning to end.

One useful addition for this book could have been somehow denoting which of the BSDs (in some cases, it's all of them) to which each listed hack can be applied. Certainly not all are available to Darwin and Apple's OS X. And certainly there's no point in making the OpenBSD /etc/passwd file encrypted in Blowfish, since that is its default.

While many of the hacks are found somewhere in the manual pages, on some useful website, buried in another book or in the minds of some developer somewhere, they're not necessarily in the annals of official documentation. But there's no single book or site that provides the depth and breadth that Dru provides. She managed to tap into the thoughts of dozens of developers and sysadmins around the world, greatly enhancing the variety of hacks in this book.

As a side note, the scope of BSD Hacks isn't limited to just the BSD family. Many of these are likely applicable to Linux and the other UNIX systems. But with recent, impressive increases in the BSD install base, there's a good chance that you can access a BSD box somewhere.

Whether you're a sysadmin managing hundreds of servers, or a power user ready to go beyond the obvious, BSD Hacks belongs next to your CRT.

You can purchase BSD Hacks from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews. To see your own review here, carefully read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Nirbo writes "FreeBSD switches to X.Org, The 'HEADSUP' can be found here, and on the -x11, -current, and -ports mailing lists. Very good news for those FreeBSD users who have either changed to X.Org in anticipation, or have been waiting in hope for this momentous change."

Nirbo writes "FreeBSD switches to X.Org, The 'HEADSUP' can be found here, and on the -x11, -current, and -ports mailing lists. Very good news for those FreeBSD users who have either changed to X.Org in anticipation, or have been waiting in hope for this momentous change."

imp writes "The regular elections for the FreeBSD governing board has completed. The new core team is the same as the old core team, with Scott Long replacing Greg Lehey after his resignation earlier in the year. Details can be found here."

flynn_nrg writes "Scott Long, from the release engineering team, has sent this message to the freebsd-alpha mailing list:'The day has finally come to demote FreeBSD/Alpha to tier-2 status. While I'm sure that this will come as a disappointment to many, the simple truth is that there is no longer enough community interest nor developer interest to fix critical bugs and assist in the development of new features. We've struggled with this for several years, and it's time to set the proper expectations before we enter 5-STABLE.'" (Read on for the rest of the announcement.)

"Being Tier-2 does not mean that Alpha support will actively be removed from the tree. It does, however, mean that ISO images might not be produced for upcoming releases, pre-compiled packages might not be produced and more (in fact, this already stopped several weeks ago), and future security advisories might not be issued for it. This only applies to FreeBSD 5.3 and beyond; existing alpha releases are still supported by the security team according to their schedule, and future 4.x erratas and releases will still support it also. Demotion is also not a terminal condition. If in the future there is an renewed interest and the existing problems can be fixed, it can be re-considered for tier-1.

Alpha was a very important platform for FreeBSD. It paved the way both for 64-bit cleanliness and for being able to support multiple architectures. It was also a nice and refreshing architecture in a world of bland and hackish i386 systems. Thanks to Doug Rabson for porting to it in the first place and thanks to everyone who supported it afterwards.

The Release Engineering Team"

flynn_nrg writes "Scott Long, from the release engineering team, has sent this message to the freebsd-alpha mailing list:'The day has finally come to demote FreeBSD/Alpha to tier-2 status. While I'm sure that this will come as a disappointment to many, the simple truth is that there is no longer enough community interest nor developer interest to fix critical bugs and assist in the development of new features. We've struggled with this for several years, and it's time to set the proper expectations before we enter 5-STABLE.'" (Read on for the rest of the announcement.)

"Being Tier-2 does not mean that Alpha support will actively be removed from the tree. It does, however, mean that ISO images might not be produced for upcoming releases, pre-compiled packages might not be produced and more (in fact, this already stopped several weeks ago), and future security advisories might not be issued for it. This only applies to FreeBSD 5.3 and beyond; existing alpha releases are still supported by the security team according to their schedule, and future 4.x erratas and releases will still support it also. Demotion is also not a terminal condition. If in the future there is an renewed interest and the existing problems can be fixed, it can be re-considered for tier-1.

Alpha was a very important platform for FreeBSD. It paved the way both for 64-bit cleanliness and for being able to support multiple architectures. It was also a nice and refreshing architecture in a world of bland and hackish i386 systems. Thanks to Doug Rabson for porting to it in the first place and thanks to everyone who supported it afterwards.

The Release Engineering Team"

zam4ever writes "Sean Michael Kerner has written an article on how FreeBSD has become a Stealth-Growth Open Source Project with various reasons outlined for FreeBSD's growth over the last years."

lorand writes "After some delay (initially scheduled to be released on May 5th) the long awaited 4.10 version of FreeBSD was released today. It features a large merge of the USB code from the -CURRENT development branch, some conservative updates to a number of programs in the base system and many bugfixes. The detailed release notes can be found here. Use one of the many mirrors if you need to get the ISOs." feargal adds "There are no sweeping changes from 4.9, mostly a consolidation of security and bug fixes. Looking forward, it is also the first in a new 'Errata Branch' which increases the scope of fixes applied. In the past only critical security fixes were applied to the release branch. The Errata branch will include local DoS fixes and well-tested non-security fixes."

lorand writes "After some delay (initially scheduled to be released on May 5th) the long awaited 4.10 version of FreeBSD was released today. It features a large merge of the USB code from the -CURRENT development branch, some conservative updates to a number of programs in the base system and many bugfixes. The detailed release notes can be found here. Use one of the many mirrors if you need to get the ISOs." feargal adds "There are no sweeping changes from 4.9, mostly a consolidation of security and bug fixes. Looking forward, it is also the first in a new 'Errata Branch' which increases the scope of fixes applied. In the past only critical security fixes were applied to the release branch. The Errata branch will include local DoS fixes and well-tested non-security fixes."

GMan00 writes "Daemon News' latest May EZine has been released online. This issue covers BSDCan which was held last weekend in Ottawa, Canada. As you'll see from the DN EZine, the conference was a great success, with some 170 developers, sysadmins and end-users from around the world. Some travelled as far away as Japan, the Ukraine and the Netherlands. Speakers included Jun-ichiro itojun Hagino of the IETF and a lead authority on IPv6 besides being the NetBSD Security Officer, Theo de Raadt of OpenBSD, Poul-Henning Kamp, the creator of the FreeBSD GEOM Disk i/o subsystem, and Robert Watson, the founder of the TrustedBSD Project. Dan Langille, the brain behind FreeBSDDiary and FreshPorts, organized the conference and is planning a repeat performance next May."

Anonymous Coward writes "The FreeBSD project has posted a new status report for March and April of 2004. Work continues on locking down the network stack, ACPI made more great strides, an ARM port appeared in the tree, and the FreeBSD 4.10 release cycle wrapped up."

PuceBaboon writes "Poul-Henning Kamp,a committed FreeBSD developer (the main contributor to "jails", one of my favourite features) has lost his main contract and is appealing for funding to enable him to work on FreeBSD exclusively for the rest of the year."

PuceBaboon writes "Poul-Henning Kamp,a committed FreeBSD developer (the main contributor to "jails", one of my favourite features) has lost his main contract and is appealing for funding to enable him to work on FreeBSD exclusively for the rest of the year."

Kalev writes "The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team has announced FreeBSD 5.2.1-RELEASE. This is intended to address several bugs and vulnerabilities discovered in the FreeBSD 5.2 release. See the Release Notes. The release is now available for downloading. If you are currently running FreeBSD 5.x, you can easily cvsup to it or use binary upgrade feature of sysinstall."

Kalev writes "The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team has announced FreeBSD 5.2.1-RELEASE. This is intended to address several bugs and vulnerabilities discovered in the FreeBSD 5.2 release. See the Release Notes. The release is now available for downloading. If you are currently running FreeBSD 5.x, you can easily cvsup to it or use binary upgrade feature of sysinstall."

Kalev writes "The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team has announced FreeBSD 5.2.1-RELEASE. This is intended to address several bugs and vulnerabilities discovered in the FreeBSD 5.2 release. See the Release Notes. The release is now available for downloading. If you are currently running FreeBSD 5.x, you can easily cvsup to it or use binary upgrade feature of sysinstall."

Dan writes "FreeBSD Release Engg. Team's Scott Long has announced the second release candidate of FreeBSD 5.2.1. The release is now available for downloading. Please test and provide feedback. Changes since the RC1 include more bug fixes for ATA, working kernel modules on the install floppies, and numerous security fixes to the src and XFree86 packages. Note that the sparc64 XFree86-4-Server package in this set does not have the latest updates, Scott says that this will be fixed in the final release."

Dan writes "FreeBSD Release Engg. Team's Scott Long has announced the second release candidate of FreeBSD 5.2.1. The release is now available for downloading. Please test and provide feedback. Changes since the RC1 include more bug fixes for ATA, working kernel modules on the install floppies, and numerous security fixes to the src and XFree86 packages. Note that the sparc64 XFree86-4-Server package in this set does not have the latest updates, Scott says that this will be fixed in the final release."

Dan writes "FreeBSD Release Engineering Team's Scott Long has posted the 2003 FreeBSD year-end edition status report. He says many new projects are starting up and gaining momentum, including SGI XFS port, MIPS, PowerPC on PPCBug-based embedded boards, and networking locking and multithreading. The end of 2003 also saw the release of FreeBSD 4.9, the first stable release to have greater than 4GB support for the ia32 platform. Work on FreeBSD 5.2 also finished up and was released early in January of 2004."

Dan writes "FreeBSD Release Engineering Team's Scott Long has posted the 2003 FreeBSD year-end edition status report. He says many new projects are starting up and gaining momentum, including SGI XFS port, MIPS, PowerPC on PPCBug-based embedded boards, and networking locking and multithreading. The end of 2003 also saw the release of FreeBSD 4.9, the first stable release to have greater than 4GB support for the ia32 platform. Work on FreeBSD 5.2 also finished up and was released early in January of 2004."

Dan writes "FreeBSD Release Engineering Team's Scott Long has posted the 2003 FreeBSD year-end edition status report. He says many new projects are starting up and gaining momentum, including SGI XFS port, MIPS, PowerPC on PPCBug-based embedded boards, and networking locking and multithreading. The end of 2003 also saw the release of FreeBSD 4.9, the first stable release to have greater than 4GB support for the ia32 platform. Work on FreeBSD 5.2 also finished up and was released early in January of 2004."

Dan writes "Daniel Eischen says that libkse has been renamed back to libpthread and is now the default threads library. The gcc-pthread option has also been changed to link to libpthread instead of libc_r. For alpha and sparc64 machines, libkse has not been renamed and links are installed so that libpthread points to libc_r. FreeBSD GNOME team's Joe Marcus Clarke confirmed that the ports system will switch to using libpthread as the default for PTHREAD_LIBS shortly. A patch set is currently being tested, once that completes, the necessary port hooks will be in place to easily build applications linked to libpthread."

Dan writes "Daniel Eischen says that libkse has been renamed back to libpthread and is now the default threads library. The gcc-pthread option has also been changed to link to libpthread instead of libc_r. For alpha and sparc64 machines, libkse has not been renamed and links are installed so that libpthread points to libc_r. FreeBSD GNOME team's Joe Marcus Clarke confirmed that the ports system will switch to using libpthread as the default for PTHREAD_LIBS shortly. A patch set is currently being tested, once that completes, the necessary port hooks will be in place to easily build applications linked to libpthread."

MobyTurbo writes "FreeBSD 5.2.1 RC is now available, and now can be downloaded from the FreeBSD site and mirrors, or if you are currently running FreeBSD 5.2 (or for that matter some earlier versions) you can simply cvsup to it. The upcoming 5.2.1 release should fix a number of outstanding bugs in the 5.2 release, and this is a chance to make sure those bugs get fixed!"

MobyTurbo writes "FreeBSD 5.2.1 RC is now available, and now can be downloaded from the FreeBSD site and mirrors, or if you are currently running FreeBSD 5.2 (or for that matter some earlier versions) you can simply cvsup to it. The upcoming 5.2.1 release should fix a number of outstanding bugs in the 5.2 release, and this is a chance to make sure those bugs get fixed!"

MRE writes "Well it's been out for a week an a half, but here's the first review of FreeBSD 5.2-RELEASE. Or if you want to download the new release and try it for yourself, it's only one ISO image away."

James writes "Freebsd 5.2 is released. FTP mirrors. Release notes This is another step towards 5-STABLE. Many improvements in this release, including ATA and networking enhancements." Patrick Jensen also points out that this is the first stable release with AMD64 support. You can also see the official announcement if you so desire.

James writes "Freebsd 5.2 is released. FTP mirrors. Release notes This is another step towards 5-STABLE. Many improvements in this release, including ATA and networking enhancements." Patrick Jensen also points out that this is the first stable release with AMD64 support. You can also see the official announcement if you so desire.

James writes "Freebsd 5.2 is released. FTP mirrors. Release notes This is another step towards 5-STABLE. Many improvements in this release, including ATA and networking enhancements." Patrick Jensen also points out that this is the first stable release with AMD64 support. You can also see the official announcement if you so desire.

sremick writes "After breaking the 9,000 mark in July, the FreeBSD ports collection was well on its way of crossing 10,000 by the end of 2003. Sure enough, we made it! According to freshports, the number of ports in the FreeBSD ports tree currently stands at 10,015. This little graph is also nice, though not completely current. Way to go, FreeBSD!"

Dan writes "FreeBSD Release Engineering Team's Scott Long announces the availability of FreeBSD 5.2 RC2 which fixes a number of bugs, specifically the one in which users experienced system panics during install and dynamic library problems in the 'fixit' environment. Scott is asking everyone to test this release over the holidays. You can download it from one of your preferred mirror sites." Update: 12/24 23:01 GMT by T : Dan writes with more info: "Scott Long has also laid out a roadmap for future FreeBSD 5.3 releases now that FreeBSD 5.2-RC2 is getting close to release quality."

Dan writes "FreeBSD Release Engineering Team's Scott Long announces the availability of FreeBSD 5.2 RC2 which fixes a number of bugs, specifically the one in which users experienced system panics during install and dynamic library problems in the 'fixit' environment. Scott is asking everyone to test this release over the holidays. You can download it from one of your preferred mirror sites." Update: 12/24 23:01 GMT by T : Dan writes with more info: "Scott Long has also laid out a roadmap for future FreeBSD 5.3 releases now that FreeBSD 5.2-RC2 is getting close to release quality."

JigSaw writes "A few moths ago Robert Minvielle put to test AMD's Opteron regarding its 64-bit Linux compatibility. The results back then were not very positive but he is now back testing more 64-bit updated distros: Gentoo, SuSE, Mandrake, Red Hat and Fedora. And this time the results are more positive with Linux offering good Opteron support where Windows-64 doesn't seem to. FreeBSD also lists the AMD64 platform as a tier-1 architecture."

Dan writes "FreeBSD Release Engineering Team's Scott Long has uploaded ISO images and FTP install bits for FreeBSD 5.2-RC1. i386, alpha, and pc98 are available now, amd64 will be available shortly, and sparc64 will be available shortly. Please test this as much as possible so that the FreeBSD Team can release a good 5.2-RELEASE next week. Testing focus for 5.2-RELEASE relates to PCM locking and performance issues, ATA driver improvements, GPT support for sysinstall, ATAng disk corruption issues, SMP and random_harvest panic, vinum data corruption, ACPI kernel module and reported NFS failures."

Dan writes "FreeBSD Release Engineering Team's Scott Long has uploaded ISO images and FTP install bits for FreeBSD 5.2-RC1. i386, alpha, and pc98 are available now, amd64 will be available shortly, and sparc64 will be available shortly. Please test this as much as possible so that the FreeBSD Team can release a good 5.2-RELEASE next week. Testing focus for 5.2-RELEASE relates to PCM locking and performance issues, ATA driver improvements, GPT support for sysinstall, ATAng disk corruption issues, SMP and random_harvest panic, vinum data corruption, ACPI kernel module and reported NFS failures."

BSD Forums writes "Bad guys in the movies all keep their wall safes hidden behind paintings. Is there a metaphor in there for your sensitive files? OnLamp's Dru Lavigne explores steganography, or hiding secret messages in images or sounds, with the outguess and steghide utilities on FreeBSD."

BSD Forums writes "Bad guys in the movies all keep their wall safes hidden behind paintings. Is there a metaphor in there for your sensitive files? OnLamp's Dru Lavigne explores steganography, or hiding secret messages in images or sounds, with the outguess and steghide utilities on FreeBSD."

BSD Forums writes "Bad guys in the movies all keep their wall safes hidden behind paintings. Is there a metaphor in there for your sensitive files? OnLamp's Dru Lavigne explores steganography, or hiding secret messages in images or sounds, with the outguess and steghide utilities on FreeBSD."

Dan writes "Based on Sam Leffer's suggestion, Bruce Simpson has been working on refactoring ifconfig(8). ifconfig is a FreeBSD unix utility used to assign an address to a network interface and/or configure network interface parameters. Bruce says that ifconfig has grown increasingly large and become unwieldy. Part of the effort has been to get a handle on all of the options that are currently supported so he has written a YACC grammar for it. He has uploaded some grammer, created a design document and also generated a PDF file you can view which shows you syntax diagrams for each part of the parse tree."

Dan writes "Based on Sam Leffer's suggestion, Bruce Simpson has been working on refactoring ifconfig(8). ifconfig is a FreeBSD unix utility used to assign an address to a network interface and/or configure network interface parameters. Bruce says that ifconfig has grown increasingly large and become unwieldy. Part of the effort has been to get a handle on all of the options that are currently supported so he has written a YACC grammar for it. He has uploaded some grammer, created a design document and also generated a PDF file you can view which shows you syntax diagrams for each part of the parse tree."