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MobyTurbo writes "NetBSD-current for the i386 architecture now has SMP. (It used to be that only FreeBSD had this feature among the free BSDs.) See the announcement on the current-users mailing list."

jschauma writes "After quite some discussion on the current-users MailingList, Luke Mewburn announced that NetBSD-current is now, per default, a fully dynamically linked system. Please see his post to the list for details."

jschauma writes "After quite some discussion on the current-users MailingList, Luke Mewburn announced that NetBSD-current is now, per default, a fully dynamically linked system. Please see his post to the list for details."

jschauma writes "After quite some discussion on the current-users MailingList, Luke Mewburn announced that NetBSD-current is now, per default, a fully dynamically linked system. Please see his post to the list for details."

jschauma writes "After quite some discussion on the current-users MailingList, Luke Mewburn announced that NetBSD-current is now, per default, a fully dynamically linked system. Please see his post to the list for details."

BSD Forums writes "The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce that release 1.6 of the NetBSD operating system is now available. NetBSD is widely known as the most portable operating system in the world. It currently supports fifty two different system architectures, all from a single source tree, and is always being ported to more. The NetBSD 1.6 release contains complete binary releases for thirty nine different system architectures. The thirteen remaining are not fully supported at this time and are thus not part of the binary distribution." hubertf adds some important notes: "Many of the FTP Mirrors are now carrying the NetBSD 1.6 distribution. Please try to use the NetBSD FTP Mirror Site closest to you. ... Czech, German, French, Japanese, Polish, Portugese , Russian, Spanish and Swedish language translations of the NetBSD 1.6 release announcement are available." The NetBSD packages collection now includes over 3000 pieces of software, including KDE3, OpenOffice and many more of the usual suspects.

BSD Forums writes "The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce that release 1.6 of the NetBSD operating system is now available. NetBSD is widely known as the most portable operating system in the world. It currently supports fifty two different system architectures, all from a single source tree, and is always being ported to more. The NetBSD 1.6 release contains complete binary releases for thirty nine different system architectures. The thirteen remaining are not fully supported at this time and are thus not part of the binary distribution." hubertf adds some important notes: "Many of the FTP Mirrors are now carrying the NetBSD 1.6 distribution. Please try to use the NetBSD FTP Mirror Site closest to you. ... Czech, German, French, Japanese, Polish, Portugese , Russian, Spanish and Swedish language translations of the NetBSD 1.6 release announcement are available." The NetBSD packages collection now includes over 3000 pieces of software, including KDE3, OpenOffice and many more of the usual suspects.

BSD Forums writes "The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce that release 1.6 of the NetBSD operating system is now available. NetBSD is widely known as the most portable operating system in the world. It currently supports fifty two different system architectures, all from a single source tree, and is always being ported to more. The NetBSD 1.6 release contains complete binary releases for thirty nine different system architectures. The thirteen remaining are not fully supported at this time and are thus not part of the binary distribution." hubertf adds some important notes: "Many of the FTP Mirrors are now carrying the NetBSD 1.6 distribution. Please try to use the NetBSD FTP Mirror Site closest to you. ... Czech, German, French, Japanese, Polish, Portugese , Russian, Spanish and Swedish language translations of the NetBSD 1.6 release announcement are available." The NetBSD packages collection now includes over 3000 pieces of software, including KDE3, OpenOffice and many more of the usual suspects.

BSD Forums writes "The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce that release 1.6 of the NetBSD operating system is now available. NetBSD is widely known as the most portable operating system in the world. It currently supports fifty two different system architectures, all from a single source tree, and is always being ported to more. The NetBSD 1.6 release contains complete binary releases for thirty nine different system architectures. The thirteen remaining are not fully supported at this time and are thus not part of the binary distribution." hubertf adds some important notes: "Many of the FTP Mirrors are now carrying the NetBSD 1.6 distribution. Please try to use the NetBSD FTP Mirror Site closest to you. ... Czech, German, French, Japanese, Polish, Portugese , Russian, Spanish and Swedish language translations of the NetBSD 1.6 release announcement are available." The NetBSD packages collection now includes over 3000 pieces of software, including KDE3, OpenOffice and many more of the usual suspects.

BSD Forums writes "The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce that release 1.6 of the NetBSD operating system is now available. NetBSD is widely known as the most portable operating system in the world. It currently supports fifty two different system architectures, all from a single source tree, and is always being ported to more. The NetBSD 1.6 release contains complete binary releases for thirty nine different system architectures. The thirteen remaining are not fully supported at this time and are thus not part of the binary distribution." hubertf adds some important notes: "Many of the FTP Mirrors are now carrying the NetBSD 1.6 distribution. Please try to use the NetBSD FTP Mirror Site closest to you. ... Czech, German, French, Japanese, Polish, Portugese , Russian, Spanish and Swedish language translations of the NetBSD 1.6 release announcement are available." The NetBSD packages collection now includes over 3000 pieces of software, including KDE3, OpenOffice and many more of the usual suspects.

BSD Forums writes "The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce that release 1.6 of the NetBSD operating system is now available. NetBSD is widely known as the most portable operating system in the world. It currently supports fifty two different system architectures, all from a single source tree, and is always being ported to more. The NetBSD 1.6 release contains complete binary releases for thirty nine different system architectures. The thirteen remaining are not fully supported at this time and are thus not part of the binary distribution." hubertf adds some important notes: "Many of the FTP Mirrors are now carrying the NetBSD 1.6 distribution. Please try to use the NetBSD FTP Mirror Site closest to you. ... Czech, German, French, Japanese, Polish, Portugese , Russian, Spanish and Swedish language translations of the NetBSD 1.6 release announcement are available." The NetBSD packages collection now includes over 3000 pieces of software, including KDE3, OpenOffice and many more of the usual suspects.

BSD Forums writes "The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce that release 1.6 of the NetBSD operating system is now available. NetBSD is widely known as the most portable operating system in the world. It currently supports fifty two different system architectures, all from a single source tree, and is always being ported to more. The NetBSD 1.6 release contains complete binary releases for thirty nine different system architectures. The thirteen remaining are not fully supported at this time and are thus not part of the binary distribution." hubertf adds some important notes: "Many of the FTP Mirrors are now carrying the NetBSD 1.6 distribution. Please try to use the NetBSD FTP Mirror Site closest to you. ... Czech, German, French, Japanese, Polish, Portugese , Russian, Spanish and Swedish language translations of the NetBSD 1.6 release announcement are available." The NetBSD packages collection now includes over 3000 pieces of software, including KDE3, OpenOffice and many more of the usual suspects.

BSD Forums writes "The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce that release 1.6 of the NetBSD operating system is now available. NetBSD is widely known as the most portable operating system in the world. It currently supports fifty two different system architectures, all from a single source tree, and is always being ported to more. The NetBSD 1.6 release contains complete binary releases for thirty nine different system architectures. The thirteen remaining are not fully supported at this time and are thus not part of the binary distribution." hubertf adds some important notes: "Many of the FTP Mirrors are now carrying the NetBSD 1.6 distribution. Please try to use the NetBSD FTP Mirror Site closest to you. ... Czech, German, French, Japanese, Polish, Portugese , Russian, Spanish and Swedish language translations of the NetBSD 1.6 release announcement are available." The NetBSD packages collection now includes over 3000 pieces of software, including KDE3, OpenOffice and many more of the usual suspects.

BSD Forums writes "The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce that release 1.6 of the NetBSD operating system is now available. NetBSD is widely known as the most portable operating system in the world. It currently supports fifty two different system architectures, all from a single source tree, and is always being ported to more. The NetBSD 1.6 release contains complete binary releases for thirty nine different system architectures. The thirteen remaining are not fully supported at this time and are thus not part of the binary distribution." hubertf adds some important notes: "Many of the FTP Mirrors are now carrying the NetBSD 1.6 distribution. Please try to use the NetBSD FTP Mirror Site closest to you. ... Czech, German, French, Japanese, Polish, Portugese , Russian, Spanish and Swedish language translations of the NetBSD 1.6 release announcement are available." The NetBSD packages collection now includes over 3000 pieces of software, including KDE3, OpenOffice and many more of the usual suspects.

BSD Forums writes "The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce that release 1.6 of the NetBSD operating system is now available. NetBSD is widely known as the most portable operating system in the world. It currently supports fifty two different system architectures, all from a single source tree, and is always being ported to more. The NetBSD 1.6 release contains complete binary releases for thirty nine different system architectures. The thirteen remaining are not fully supported at this time and are thus not part of the binary distribution." hubertf adds some important notes: "Many of the FTP Mirrors are now carrying the NetBSD 1.6 distribution. Please try to use the NetBSD FTP Mirror Site closest to you. ... Czech, German, French, Japanese, Polish, Portugese , Russian, Spanish and Swedish language translations of the NetBSD 1.6 release announcement are available." The NetBSD packages collection now includes over 3000 pieces of software, including KDE3, OpenOffice and many more of the usual suspects.

BSD Forums writes "The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce that release 1.6 of the NetBSD operating system is now available. NetBSD is widely known as the most portable operating system in the world. It currently supports fifty two different system architectures, all from a single source tree, and is always being ported to more. The NetBSD 1.6 release contains complete binary releases for thirty nine different system architectures. The thirteen remaining are not fully supported at this time and are thus not part of the binary distribution." hubertf adds some important notes: "Many of the FTP Mirrors are now carrying the NetBSD 1.6 distribution. Please try to use the NetBSD FTP Mirror Site closest to you. ... Czech, German, French, Japanese, Polish, Portugese , Russian, Spanish and Swedish language translations of the NetBSD 1.6 release announcement are available." The NetBSD packages collection now includes over 3000 pieces of software, including KDE3, OpenOffice and many more of the usual suspects.

JayBonci writes "Dust off the old Dreamcast. If you're one of the many like myself who still enjoy their Dreamcast or are aspiring DC hackers, then you may want to pay attention to a quiet announcement by CSI, the Japanese manufacturer of the Dreamcast Broadband Adapter (flaky, but understandable translation provided by the fish). If you have no idea what the BBA is, the official page here. If CSI gets 1000 pre-orders for the unit, they will be willing to make another production run. Keep in mind that these units are very useful for the Dreamcast Linux efforts and NetBSD/Dreamcast, and that Japanese units work on US systems."

jschauma writes "'IRIX Binary Compatibility', the first paper of a series on IRIX binary compatibility on NetBSD by Emmanuel Dreyfus has been published by ONLamp.com. The paper goes into the details of the implementation in the NetBSD kernel. As it explains how things are implemented, the paper documents various kernel susbsystems and reverse engineering techniques."

djcdplaya writes: "DaemonNews is reporting that the good guys over at NetBSD have gotten dual PowerPC processors working on dual-G4 Apples. The NetBSD mailing can be found here."

djcdplaya writes: "DaemonNews is reporting that the good guys over at NetBSD have gotten dual PowerPC processors working on dual-G4 Apples. The NetBSD mailing can be found here."

jschauma writes: "A ``NetBSD Live!'' CD, which boots NetBSD/i386 1.5.2 directly from CDROM into KDE, including Koffice, has been made available. This exciting development may be the first step towards 'fancy' graphical installation CDs. Just grab one and carry it around with you, so you never have to boot any other OS! See the announcement on the NetBSD News page, more details are here."

jschauma writes: "A ``NetBSD Live!'' CD, which boots NetBSD/i386 1.5.2 directly from CDROM into KDE, including Koffice, has been made available. This exciting development may be the first step towards 'fancy' graphical installation CDs. Just grab one and carry it around with you, so you never have to boot any other OS! See the announcement on the NetBSD News page, more details are here."

jschauma writes "NetBSD has been ported to yet another platform: NetBSD/pmppc, Artesyn's PM/PPC board. By my count, this is the 58th port!"

jschauma writes "NetBSD has been ported to yet another platform: NetBSD/pmppc, Artesyn's PM/PPC board. By my count, this is the 58th port!"

jschauma writes "Following Todd Vierlings announcement to the current-users Mailinglist, the NetBSD 1.6 Release Process has begun. This means not only that 1.6 has been branched off the cvs-tree, but also that daily snapshots will soon be available. Changes from 1.5 to 1.6 are listed here. A brief announcement including a best-case scenario release timetable is available from here. Whooot."

jschauma writes "Following Todd Vierlings announcement to the current-users Mailinglist, the NetBSD 1.6 Release Process has begun. This means not only that 1.6 has been branched off the cvs-tree, but also that daily snapshots will soon be available. Changes from 1.5 to 1.6 are listed here. A brief announcement including a best-case scenario release timetable is available from here. Whooot."

jschauma writes "Following Todd Vierlings announcement to the current-users Mailinglist, the NetBSD 1.6 Release Process has begun. This means not only that 1.6 has been branched off the cvs-tree, but also that daily snapshots will soon be available. Changes from 1.5 to 1.6 are listed here. A brief announcement including a best-case scenario release timetable is available from here. Whooot."

jschauma writes "Following Todd Vierlings announcement to the current-users Mailinglist, the NetBSD 1.6 Release Process has begun. This means not only that 1.6 has been branched off the cvs-tree, but also that daily snapshots will soon be available. Changes from 1.5 to 1.6 are listed here. A brief announcement including a best-case scenario release timetable is available from here. Whooot."

-is writes "Jason R. Thorpe has recently added experimental code to NetBSD-current, that enables zero-copy for TCP and UDP on the transmit-side. These changes could mean significant performance improvements for FTP, WWW, and Samba servers. See Jason's announcement to the current-users mailing list for details." From the text: " On tests on an embedded system with limited memory bandwith, TCP transmit performance on 100baseTX-FDX went from ~6500KB/s to ~11100KB/s, a significant improvement." Excellent!

-is writes "Jason R. Thorpe has recently added experimental code to NetBSD-current, that enables zero-copy for TCP and UDP on the transmit-side. These changes could mean significant performance improvements for FTP, WWW, and Samba servers. See Jason's announcement to the current-users mailing list for details." From the text: " On tests on an embedded system with limited memory bandwith, TCP transmit performance on 100baseTX-FDX went from ~6500KB/s to ~11100KB/s, a significant improvement." Excellent!

-is writes "Jason R. Thorpe has recently added experimental code to NetBSD-current, that enables zero-copy for TCP and UDP on the transmit-side. These changes could mean significant performance improvements for FTP, WWW, and Samba servers. See Jason's announcement to the current-users mailing list for details." From the text: " On tests on an embedded system with limited memory bandwith, TCP transmit performance on 100baseTX-FDX went from ~6500KB/s to ~11100KB/s, a significant improvement." Excellent!

Dahan writes: "I just saw that the development branch of NetBSD is now at version 1.5ZB. A change log is available for those interested. Note that although the title of the page says it's a list of changes from NetBSD 1.5 to 1.6, NetBSD 1.6 is not out yet--the page lists changes that will be in 1.6 whenever it's released. (And when will that be? "When it's ready," of course.) Standard caution about not running development kernels on mission-critical systems applies, although I've been running 1.5ZA on my DEC^H^H^HCompaq Alpha PC164 web/mail/DNS/whatever server for a few months now, and it's been great. And for those of you used to the Linux version numbering scheme and are wondering what all these letters mean, here's an explanation of NetBSD's version numbering."

Dahan writes: "I just saw that the development branch of NetBSD is now at version 1.5ZB. A change log is available for those interested. Note that although the title of the page says it's a list of changes from NetBSD 1.5 to 1.6, NetBSD 1.6 is not out yet--the page lists changes that will be in 1.6 whenever it's released. (And when will that be? "When it's ready," of course.) Standard caution about not running development kernels on mission-critical systems applies, although I've been running 1.5ZA on my DEC^H^H^HCompaq Alpha PC164 web/mail/DNS/whatever server for a few months now, and it's been great. And for those of you used to the Linux version numbering scheme and are wondering what all these letters mean, here's an explanation of NetBSD's version numbering."

Dahan writes: "I just saw that the development branch of NetBSD is now at version 1.5ZB. A change log is available for those interested. Note that although the title of the page says it's a list of changes from NetBSD 1.5 to 1.6, NetBSD 1.6 is not out yet--the page lists changes that will be in 1.6 whenever it's released. (And when will that be? "When it's ready," of course.) Standard caution about not running development kernels on mission-critical systems applies, although I've been running 1.5ZA on my DEC^H^H^HCompaq Alpha PC164 web/mail/DNS/whatever server for a few months now, and it's been great. And for those of you used to the Linux version numbering scheme and are wondering what all these letters mean, here's an explanation of NetBSD's version numbering."

Dahan writes: "I just saw that the development branch of NetBSD is now at version 1.5ZB. A change log is available for those interested. Note that although the title of the page says it's a list of changes from NetBSD 1.5 to 1.6, NetBSD 1.6 is not out yet--the page lists changes that will be in 1.6 whenever it's released. (And when will that be? "When it's ready," of course.) Standard caution about not running development kernels on mission-critical systems applies, although I've been running 1.5ZA on my DEC^H^H^HCompaq Alpha PC164 web/mail/DNS/whatever server for a few months now, and it's been great. And for those of you used to the Linux version numbering scheme and are wondering what all these letters mean, here's an explanation of NetBSD's version numbering."

hubertf writes: "NetBSD/mvmeppc is a new port of NetBSD to the Motorola MVME PowerPC Single Board Computers. This was made possible through a donation by Gan Starling of two (plus one loaner) MVME160x boards so that a porting effort could be made. Due to NetBSD's highly portable architecture, the operating system was up and running multi-user after just two weeks worth of part-time effort. A NetBSD/mvmeppc specific mailing list has been set up for people to discuss any issues with running NetBSD on their MVME PowerPC boards, and a snapshot of NetBSD/mvmeppc is also available for anyone wishing to experiment with the new port. Steve Woodford is the NetBSD/mvmeppc port maintainer."

hubertf writes: "NetBSD/mvmeppc is a new port of NetBSD to the Motorola MVME PowerPC Single Board Computers. This was made possible through a donation by Gan Starling of two (plus one loaner) MVME160x boards so that a porting effort could be made. Due to NetBSD's highly portable architecture, the operating system was up and running multi-user after just two weeks worth of part-time effort. A NetBSD/mvmeppc specific mailing list has been set up for people to discuss any issues with running NetBSD on their MVME PowerPC boards, and a snapshot of NetBSD/mvmeppc is also available for anyone wishing to experiment with the new port. Steve Woodford is the NetBSD/mvmeppc port maintainer."

hubertf writes: "NetBSD/mvmeppc is a new port of NetBSD to the Motorola MVME PowerPC Single Board Computers. This was made possible through a donation by Gan Starling of two (plus one loaner) MVME160x boards so that a porting effort could be made. Due to NetBSD's highly portable architecture, the operating system was up and running multi-user after just two weeks worth of part-time effort. A NetBSD/mvmeppc specific mailing list has been set up for people to discuss any issues with running NetBSD on their MVME PowerPC boards, and a snapshot of NetBSD/mvmeppc is also available for anyone wishing to experiment with the new port. Steve Woodford is the NetBSD/mvmeppc port maintainer."

hubertf writes: "NetBSD/mvmeppc is a new port of NetBSD to the Motorola MVME PowerPC Single Board Computers. This was made possible through a donation by Gan Starling of two (plus one loaner) MVME160x boards so that a porting effort could be made. Due to NetBSD's highly portable architecture, the operating system was up and running multi-user after just two weeks worth of part-time effort. A NetBSD/mvmeppc specific mailing list has been set up for people to discuss any issues with running NetBSD on their MVME PowerPC boards, and a snapshot of NetBSD/mvmeppc is also available for anyone wishing to experiment with the new port. Steve Woodford is the NetBSD/mvmeppc port maintainer."

It's not a contradiction: Free software costs money. (That's because server space, bandwidth, coffee, electricity, computers, and workspace all cost money.) Besides which, the time it takes to code new window managers, programming libraries (and languages), web browsers, and all the other goodies which make a modern computer useful may be spent as a labor of love, but it's time that competes with real-world jobs, family time, vacations in the Riviera and sleep. Besides the relative few who work at work on their Free software projects, the programmers, project managers, web-site maintainers, documentation jockeys and QA volunteers behind the programs we enjoy every day don't seem to be in it for the money, so much as the thrill of releasing new software, a desire to make their own world a little better, and for plain old fun. The staffers and volunteers who put long hours and dedication into organizations trying to safeguard online freedoms are also obviously interested in rewards that go way beyond salaries. This New Year's, consider giving them a little money anyhow. Here are a few ideas; you're invited to point out projects and organizations that I've left out.

As you may have read the other day, the FreeBSD project is now taking donations via PayPal. And if you're in a clean, roots-UNIX kind of mood, the folks at OpenBSD and NetBSD (NetBSD PayPal) would probably also appreciate your goodwill, not to mention your money, hardware and time.

If you don't have a specific project in mind, but would like to donate some of your chunk of the time-money continuum to a worthy software undertaking, a good place to start is Software in the Public Interest. They can take both general donations as well as earmark for projects they support, like Berlin, Debian, GNOME and more. (Not into GNOME? KDE could use some assistance, including money, too.)

If you like the projects funded by the boxed-distribution makers (like paying for full-time work on endeavors like KOffice), you can do more than buy the box: Mandrake has recently formed something called the Mandrake Club as a gathering place for both people and funds.

To encourage (and reward) cross-platform goodness, supporting the Mozilla project is hard to beat. (This story was posted using a 9.7 build using the wonderful Modern theme.) Source of Mozilla wisdom Mozillazine could use some help paying for the switch to a new host, and to defray ongoing costs. Another good place to cast your perls is Yet Another Foundation, which supports the somewhat scrutable development of the not-so-scrutable Perl.

More generally, consider investing some money in organizations like the Free Software Foundation, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the Electronic Privacy and Information Center (EPIC), all of which help battle (in court and in the marketplace of ideas) the forces who wish to monitor and otherwise exert top-down control of your computer and everything to do with your on-line life.

Remember, with all of these projects, non-monetary contributions are welcomed as well -- if you can write or correct some online documentation, create test-cases to root out weaknesses, or create some pretty graphics to smooth the user experience, you can contribute. (Long-distance pizza deliveries to developers are also generally appreciated.) Teaching a coworker, classmate, parent or friend how to set up mailfilters on a Linux box, or how to edit photos in the GIMP, is a nice way to save them money, too. Making a difference locally might also mean contributing some time, money or hardware to help run local LUG events.

Note: Many of the organizations named above are set up as 501(c) charities; if you'd like to claim any charitable contributions as tax deductions, now's the time to get the postmark, at least if it's important to you for those donations to be on the current calendar year. For a few more ideas on ways to donate geekily this year, see Jack Bryar's Newsforge column with some more links.

And a Happy New Year's!

It's not a contradiction: Free software costs money. (That's because server space, bandwidth, coffee, electricity, computers, and workspace all cost money.) Besides which, the time it takes to code new window managers, programming libraries (and languages), web browsers, and all the other goodies which make a modern computer useful may be spent as a labor of love, but it's time that competes with real-world jobs, family time, vacations in the Riviera and sleep. Besides the relative few who work at work on their Free software projects, the programmers, project managers, web-site maintainers, documentation jockeys and QA volunteers behind the programs we enjoy every day don't seem to be in it for the money, so much as the thrill of releasing new software, a desire to make their own world a little better, and for plain old fun. The staffers and volunteers who put long hours and dedication into organizations trying to safeguard online freedoms are also obviously interested in rewards that go way beyond salaries. This New Year's, consider giving them a little money anyhow. Here are a few ideas; you're invited to point out projects and organizations that I've left out.

As you may have read the other day, the FreeBSD project is now taking donations via PayPal. And if you're in a clean, roots-UNIX kind of mood, the folks at OpenBSD and NetBSD (NetBSD PayPal) would probably also appreciate your goodwill, not to mention your money, hardware and time.

If you don't have a specific project in mind, but would like to donate some of your chunk of the time-money continuum to a worthy software undertaking, a good place to start is Software in the Public Interest. They can take both general donations as well as earmark for projects they support, like Berlin, Debian, GNOME and more. (Not into GNOME? KDE could use some assistance, including money, too.)

If you like the projects funded by the boxed-distribution makers (like paying for full-time work on endeavors like KOffice), you can do more than buy the box: Mandrake has recently formed something called the Mandrake Club as a gathering place for both people and funds.

To encourage (and reward) cross-platform goodness, supporting the Mozilla project is hard to beat. (This story was posted using a 9.7 build using the wonderful Modern theme.) Source of Mozilla wisdom Mozillazine could use some help paying for the switch to a new host, and to defray ongoing costs. Another good place to cast your perls is Yet Another Foundation, which supports the somewhat scrutable development of the not-so-scrutable Perl.

More generally, consider investing some money in organizations like the Free Software Foundation, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the Electronic Privacy and Information Center (EPIC), all of which help battle (in court and in the marketplace of ideas) the forces who wish to monitor and otherwise exert top-down control of your computer and everything to do with your on-line life.

Remember, with all of these projects, non-monetary contributions are welcomed as well -- if you can write or correct some online documentation, create test-cases to root out weaknesses, or create some pretty graphics to smooth the user experience, you can contribute. (Long-distance pizza deliveries to developers are also generally appreciated.) Teaching a coworker, classmate, parent or friend how to set up mailfilters on a Linux box, or how to edit photos in the GIMP, is a nice way to save them money, too. Making a difference locally might also mean contributing some time, money or hardware to help run local LUG events.

Note: Many of the organizations named above are set up as 501(c) charities; if you'd like to claim any charitable contributions as tax deductions, now's the time to get the postmark, at least if it's important to you for those donations to be on the current calendar year. For a few more ideas on ways to donate geekily this year, see Jack Bryar's Newsforge column with some more links.

And a Happy New Year's!

zmcgrew writes: "Linux has been out for the PS2 for a while, but what about the *BSD users? Well, now NetBSD is availible for the PS2! This means that NetBSD is now availible for 2 gaming consoles, the Dreamcast, and now the PS2. Wonder if the Game Cube and X-Box are in the works? =) I quote from the page, " To boot the kernel, you will require a special boot disc from SONY. The playstation2 can not read CD-Rs. Currently, the only such disc available is the SONY Playstation 2 Linux distribution, sold only in Japanese markets." Well, this leaves a bunch of people out, but maybe someone will figure out how to get the PS2 to boot & read CD-Rs... *Ahem* Maybe a *Co-Weekend project-ugh* for someone? =)" Looks like this port appeared last month -- which means that in a week or so, NetBSD will probably be running on the graphics subsystem alone ;)

zmcgrew writes: "Linux has been out for the PS2 for a while, but what about the *BSD users? Well, now NetBSD is availible for the PS2! This means that NetBSD is now availible for 2 gaming consoles, the Dreamcast, and now the PS2. Wonder if the Game Cube and X-Box are in the works? =) I quote from the page, " To boot the kernel, you will require a special boot disc from SONY. The playstation2 can not read CD-Rs. Currently, the only such disc available is the SONY Playstation 2 Linux distribution, sold only in Japanese markets." Well, this leaves a bunch of people out, but maybe someone will figure out how to get the PS2 to boot & read CD-Rs... *Ahem* Maybe a *Co-Weekend project-ugh* for someone? =)" Looks like this port appeared last month -- which means that in a week or so, NetBSD will probably be running on the graphics subsystem alone ;)

zmcgrew writes: "Linux has been out for the PS2 for a while, but what about the *BSD users? Well, now NetBSD is availible for the PS2! This means that NetBSD is now availible for 2 gaming consoles, the Dreamcast, and now the PS2. Wonder if the Game Cube and X-Box are in the works? =) I quote from the page, " To boot the kernel, you will require a special boot disc from SONY. The playstation2 can not read CD-Rs. Currently, the only such disc available is the SONY Playstation 2 Linux distribution, sold only in Japanese markets." Well, this leaves a bunch of people out, but maybe someone will figure out how to get the PS2 to boot & read CD-Rs... *Ahem* Maybe a *Co-Weekend project-ugh* for someone? =)" Looks like this port appeared last month -- which means that in a week or so, NetBSD will probably be running on the graphics subsystem alone ;)

zmcgrew writes: "Linux has been out for the PS2 for a while, but what about the *BSD users? Well, now NetBSD is availible for the PS2! This means that NetBSD is now availible for 2 gaming consoles, the Dreamcast, and now the PS2. Wonder if the Game Cube and X-Box are in the works? =) I quote from the page, " To boot the kernel, you will require a special boot disc from SONY. The playstation2 can not read CD-Rs. Currently, the only such disc available is the SONY Playstation 2 Linux distribution, sold only in Japanese markets." Well, this leaves a bunch of people out, but maybe someone will figure out how to get the PS2 to boot & read CD-Rs... *Ahem* Maybe a *Co-Weekend project-ugh* for someone? =)" Looks like this port appeared last month -- which means that in a week or so, NetBSD will probably be running on the graphics subsystem alone ;)

hubertf writes: "There's news over at the NetBSD web site that Lennart Augustsson has added support for USB v2.0 devices into NetBSD-current. The new ehci driver is still in development but is in a working state for some mass storage devices, such as CD-RW drives. USB v2.0 offers a vast speed improvement (480Mb/s instead of 12Mb/s) over the original USB specification, and retains a good level of compatibility. For more details, see Lennart's announcement on current-users@netbsd.org."

hubertf writes: "There's news over at the NetBSD web site that Lennart Augustsson has added support for USB v2.0 devices into NetBSD-current. The new ehci driver is still in development but is in a working state for some mass storage devices, such as CD-RW drives. USB v2.0 offers a vast speed improvement (480Mb/s instead of 12Mb/s) over the original USB specification, and retains a good level of compatibility. For more details, see Lennart's announcement on current-users@netbsd.org."

hubertf writes: "There's news over at the NetBSD web site that Lennart Augustsson has added support for USB v2.0 devices into NetBSD-current. The new ehci driver is still in development but is in a working state for some mass storage devices, such as CD-RW drives. USB v2.0 offers a vast speed improvement (480Mb/s instead of 12Mb/s) over the original USB specification, and retains a good level of compatibility. For more details, see Lennart's announcement on current-users@netbsd.org."

hubertf writes: "There's news over at the NetBSD web site that Lennart Augustsson has added support for USB v2.0 devices into NetBSD-current. The new ehci driver is still in development but is in a working state for some mass storage devices, such as CD-RW drives. USB v2.0 offers a vast speed improvement (480Mb/s instead of 12Mb/s) over the original USB specification, and retains a good level of compatibility. For more details, see Lennart's announcement on current-users@netbsd.org."

kerskine writes: "Just read this article on CNET that says Sega has just dropped the price of the Dreamcast console to US$49.95. Given past articles on Slashdot on all sorts of fun Dreamcast projects, now's the chance to get one. Why not get two (in case you break one)?" See also this article on getting Linux to run on Dreamcast, and NetBSD is another option to explore. 8ight points out even more interesting Dreamcast information.