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Leto2 writes "I'm happy to see NetBSD has released version 1.5 of their OS. NetBSD-1.5 currently runs on about 20 platforms, with an additional 10 avaliable as experimental. Get it from your local mirror today!"

NetBSD 1.4.3 is out; read the announcement, the changelog, or just start downloading.

NetBSD 1.4.3 is out; read the announcement, the changelog, or just start downloading.

NetBSD 1.4.3 is out; read the announcement, the changelog, or just start downloading.

OSDNs favorite BSD zealot BSD-Pat Lynch was on the scene at the latest BSDCon, and took the time to send us in a report. Lots of links to stuff for you BSD folks to share and enjoy.

Well I just got back from BSDCon, and spent some time catching up with old friends, new core team members, and cool new products. The highlight of the event was the reception and dinner at the Monterey Bay State Aquarium, which in my opinion is a must-see. All five BSDs were represented this year: MacOS X, BSD/OS, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD.

There were some really neat talks at BSDCon, three tracks in all: general, security, and development. The highlights of the security talks were Bill Fumerola's talk on DoS attacks and the new ipfw which uses compiled rulesets for better performance, Robert Watson's TrustedBSD presentation, and Mark Murray's explanation of the /dev/urandom work he has done with FreeBSD using Yarrow. In the development track, Greg Lehey and Jason Evans presented a paper on FreeBSD 5.0-CURRENT's new SMP model.

The exhibit hall itself was small, lending to a larger focus on technical issues, but there were several exhibitors that caught my eye. One was RelexUS, a company with its roots in Russia. They make a relational database called Linter which I found extremely easy to use (though commercial, it was very robust) It also bills Linux and FreeBSD among its native support list, as well as almost every other OS under the sun. It supports ODBC, stored procedures, transactions, asynchronous replication, and a host of other features. Also, the EFF were there, and I finally got around to joining.

Thursday night we piled into a bus to head on over to the Monterey Bay State Aquarium for dinner, drinks, and dessert. We had to wear Daemon horns to get in and fun was had by all. The new core team wrapped up the conference on Friday afternoon, and everyone left and went into town, tired, hungry, but satisfied with this year's turnout.

More pictures can be found at Greg Sutter and Jim Mock's pages. More coverage can be found on BSD Today.

-is writes "This year, BSDCon will be held from October 14th to the 20th in Monterey, California. Tutorials will be from the 14th through the 17th, and the Conference will be from the 18th through the 20th.

There are plenty of activities of interest (see the conference schedule portion of the BSDCon web site), and a couple of those spotlight NetBSD.

• On October 19th, Charles Hannum will be giving a talk entitled "NetBSD: Platform for The Future". This will take place in the Regency Ballroom from 8:30 to 9:30 am.
• On October 20th, Jun-ichiro itojun Hagino, a member of the NetBSD Core Group, will be giving a talk about NetBSD 1.5. This will take place in Regency I-III from 2:00 to 3:00 pm.
• NetBSD will also be an exhibitor at BSDCon 2000. The Expo hours are from 10:00am to 6:00pm on October 18th, 9:00am to 5:00pm on October 19th, and 9:00 am to 4:00 pm on October 20th. Stop by if you can.

Information on other exhibitors, talks, tutorials, and registration can be found on the BSDCon web site."

-is writes: "NetBSD-current IPsec (from KAME) now supports the rijndael algorithm for ESP encryption, thanks to the integration work of Jun-ichiro itojun Hagino. rijndael is the finalist of AES contest, and will be standardized in the FIPS standard suite, to replace DES. The implementation is known to be interoperable with others. Also, it is possible to negotiate rijndael IPsec SA by using the latest racoon IKE daemon (pkgsrc/security/racoon, be sure to get version 20001004a).

For more info see:

• http://www.nist.gov/aes/ (the algorithm itself)
• http://www.kame.net/ (KAME project where NetBSD IPsec comes from)
• http://www.netbsd.org/Documentation/network/ipsec/ (NetBSD IPsec FAQ)

• The change is now on the 1.5 branch, and will be available in the 1.5 release."

-is writes: "NetBSD-current IPsec (from KAME) now supports the rijndael algorithm for ESP encryption, thanks to the integration work of Jun-ichiro itojun Hagino. rijndael is the finalist of AES contest, and will be standardized in the FIPS standard suite, to replace DES. The implementation is known to be interoperable with others. Also, it is possible to negotiate rijndael IPsec SA by using the latest racoon IKE daemon (pkgsrc/security/racoon, be sure to get version 20001004a).

For more info see:

• http://www.nist.gov/aes/ (the algorithm itself)
• http://www.kame.net/ (KAME project where NetBSD IPsec comes from)
• http://www.netbsd.org/Documentation/network/ipsec/ (NetBSD IPsec FAQ)

• The change is now on the 1.5 branch, and will be available in the 1.5 release."

calc writes "Linux has now been ported to the Cisco 2500/3000/4000 routers. Click here for more details." This seems like a fairly logical (albeit not so useful hack). I mean, one would assume that cisco's have some wacky hardware in them... but then again, using standard tools to config them seems allright by me. And you could use your router as a web server if you were on crack *grin*. [Update by nik]: Not the first time a free operating system is used like this. For example, routers from Juniper run a modified FreeBSD, while Effnet base many of their products on NetBSD.

A quick glance at the NetBSD changes page will show that in the quest to get a login prompt on everything with a processor, the NetBSD team have done it again. NetBSD is now ported to the RC3230 platform from MIPS Computing, hence NetBSD/mipsco. At the same time, preliminary support for the LX200/300 variants of the MVME162 have been added to the NetBSD/mvme68k port. Has anyone ever had all the platforms that can run NetBSD up and running in the same place at the same time? Is it even feasible?

A quick glance at the NetBSD changes page will show that in the quest to get a login prompt on everything with a processor, the NetBSD team have done it again. NetBSD is now ported to the RC3230 platform from MIPS Computing, hence NetBSD/mipsco. At the same time, preliminary support for the LX200/300 variants of the MVME162 have been added to the NetBSD/mvme68k port. Has anyone ever had all the platforms that can run NetBSD up and running in the same place at the same time? Is it even feasible?

A quick glance at the NetBSD changes page will show that in the quest to get a login prompt on everything with a processor, the NetBSD team have done it again. NetBSD is now ported to the RC3230 platform from MIPS Computing, hence NetBSD/mipsco. At the same time, preliminary support for the LX200/300 variants of the MVME162 have been added to the NetBSD/mvme68k port. Has anyone ever had all the platforms that can run NetBSD up and running in the same place at the same time? Is it even feasible?

Ever more information for you, the loyal photographic memory-blessed reader. That is to say, more on Linux on Macs -- and not just the sexy new ones. Evolving attitudes in Kansas. Misinformation about Survivor. And cheap, cheap boxes for your node-in-every-room home network.

Pardon me sir, are you going to finish that Apple? Marco van de Voort writes: "MkLinux now has official support for these much sold first Nubus based PowerMac generation, that is rotting away in basements. These machines make excellent X-Terms." And the same models can naturally run NetBSD, too. [Updated 6:26GMT by timothy] Reader vkulkarn corrects me here. Mea culpa, you're right -- only some of the old Nubus PowerMac models actually run NetBSD. But I bet someone, somewhere is plotting to change that.

Garage sales can now support Linux.GigsVT writes "Coollogic has released a new set-top box, this one with Linux already installed. Sounds like ripe hacking material to me. Blurb: The Internet Ready 7200 uses a National Semiconductor MediaGX processor, 16MB of flash memory instead of a hard disk, 32MB of RAM and has the ability to connect to the Internet via DSL, Ethernet or a modem. It uses a TV instead of a monitor and comes with Netscape's Web browser." And MrRobahtsu writes "Want a 64MB diskless 200MHz Linux box cheap? Try egghead. With IDE, USB, 10/100 ethernet, and Linux and Netscape in flash ram, it looks pretty cool. Even says "can be upgraded to a pc." Not bad for $129."

Toto, I don't think we're in the Pleistocene anymore! Claudius writes: "This cnn.com article reports that Kansas voters now support the teaching of evolution in their public schools, as evidenced by recent election results. They have voted to remove two incumbents to the Kansas Board of Education who have supported standards diminishing the importance of evolution, and a third, anti-evolution candidate was unable to defeat an opponent who opposes the current standards. The issue is still far from settled, however, since five of the ten seats on the board remain to be filled in November." For a refresher on the sticky state of evolution in Kansas education, see Hemos' story on it from a while ago.

Ha ha fooled ya good. TeacherReviews.com writes "Gervase just got voted off the Survivor island, meaning that RealWorldBlows discussed in a past story produced a false result and the actual winner of Survivor is still unknown." True enough. What was going through the collective CBS head when they failed to follow the directive of their own Web site?!

Still horrifying after all these days. chaidawg writes: "According to this article in the New York Times (free registration req.), author Stephen King's experiment with payment for e-publishing seems to be working. After the first of three promised chapters he has made back all but $10,000 of the more than $100,000 he spent on advertising." This still doesn't mean Jamie is wrong -- yet.

mblase asks: "According to a recent MacCentral article, one of the benefits of Mac OS X's NeXT-based roots is that "since Mac OS X is BSD based, the ports shouldn't be too difficult. The hardest part, according to Robert Palmer, will be writing the GUI (graphical user interface) front end to make administration easy." My question is, is this likely to happen? Will UNIX developers want to port their applications to an operating system that costs more in hardware and OS software both? Or is the demand likely to come from the other direction -- OS X server admins who want the stability and popularity of established UNIX applications, even if the graphical front-end Mac users have come to expect may be less than ideal? This will doubtless be a big issue for Apple as they tout Mac OS X as a server platform for the future."

nik says: How about "larger installed userbase"? Assume Linux has ~ 7 million users, and the BSD's have about 3 million (both those numbers are on the conservative side). Apple's probably going to ship 10 million or more OS X boxes in the next year or so, and porting most software is going to be no-brainer (particularly if it's already in the Free, Net, and Open BSD ports and packages collections).

AnonymousCow writes "At LinuxTag, an unbiased comparison of performance of FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Linux, and Solaris." I'll let Tim's comment on this story stand: "Unbiased is hard to claim - all tests can be seen as biased in their formulation - but this is thorough, with 45 slides and well-explained methodology -- BSD does very well ..."

Fawking DSL writes "``NetBSD can be intimidating from a Linux user's perspective. However, as the Linux user base grows, more people are finding their needs aren't being met by traditional Linux distributions. NetBSD is ready to step up to fill this niche. While Linux and NetBSD share many characteristics, there are some key differences.'' Check out this article at BSD Today."

Nearly a year ago, hemos posted the news that the indefatigable NetBSD project had ported NetBSD to the Hitachi Super-H microprocessor which powers the Dreamcast. Now, hubertf writes: "The port of the NetBSD operating system to Sega's Dreamcast game console is reaching a state where it's near to single user mode. Utilizing the NetBSD/evbsh3 port's simple structure and the fact that it supports both big and little endian architectures as well as the general clean design of the NetBSD operating system helped for this port. Device drivers for the game pad, keyboard, etc. are next on the to-do list of Saitoh Masanobu, who works on this port.

See below for a sample dmesg output,

Please stay tuned for more information!

- Hubert Feyrer, The NetBSD Project

Copyright (c) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000
The NetBSD Foundation, Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993
The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.

NetBSD 1.5_ALPHA (DREAMCAST) #8: Fri Jul 14 01:42:14 JST 2000

msaitoh@vslock.xxx.yyy:/var/sources/src/sys/arch/evbsh3/compile/DREAMCAST
total memory = 16384 KB
avail memory = 12988 KB
using 230 buffers containing 920 KB of memory
mainbus0 (root)
shb0 at mainbus0
scif0 at shb0 port 0xffe80000-0xffe8000f irq 12
scif0: console
biomask c0000000 netmask c0000000 ttymask e0000000
md0: internal 1440K image area
rn_init: radix functions require max_keylen be set
boot device: root on md0a dumps on md0b
cannot mount root, error = 22
root device (default md0a):"

Of course, what you do with a Dreamcast running NetBSD is up to you. Errr ... just what could you do with a Dreamcast running NetBSD?

NetBSD have added another platform to their supported hardware list. As the NetBSD/sgimips and announcement pages say, NetBSD/sgimips is now stable enough to run multi-user, making NetBSD the first OpenSource OS to run on the SGI O2. Currently it's known to work on the R5000 CPU, R10K and R12K are untested due to lack of hardware.

NetBSD have added another platform to their supported hardware list. As the NetBSD/sgimips and announcement pages say, NetBSD/sgimips is now stable enough to run multi-user, making NetBSD the first OpenSource OS to run on the SGI O2. Currently it's known to work on the R5000 CPU, R10K and R12K are untested due to lack of hardware.

mirko writes: "Chalice Technologies has released an ARM-based ATX motherboard : the CATS. The CATS supports SDRAM, USB and PCI among other features, which makes it easy for anybody to assemble a reliable computer with low-cost equipment. Regarding their price along with their ability to run both ARMLinux or NetBSD, these boards are an interesting alternative to set up a cheap but powerful server."

KarmaHo writes "From the NetBSD web page: Today, the release cycle for NetBSD 1.5 has started. The NetBSD 1.5 release is scheduled for early fall this year. Of course, we want this to be the best NetBSD release ever, as with every release. To help achieve this goal, you can test the ALPHA and BETA snapshots that will be made available, or track the release branch sources."

KarmaHo writes "From the NetBSD web page: Today, the release cycle for NetBSD 1.5 has started. The NetBSD 1.5 release is scheduled for early fall this year. Of course, we want this to be the best NetBSD release ever, as with every release. To help achieve this goal, you can test the ALPHA and BETA snapshots that will be made available, or track the release branch sources."

jmsohn wrote in with a link to a press release announcing the launch of Wasabi Systems, formed to provide a commercial channel for sales, support, and service for NetBSD. With me in the Usenix terminal room is Perry Metzger, NetBSD's release engineer, and CEO of the new company, to talk about the company's plans.

N: How long have you been working on this?

P: A couple of months now. Things have moved far faster than we expected. For years we've been hoping that someone would stand up and do this, and no one did. It's a shame that no one's stood up to provide sales and support. There's no central place to get customization done, which is important for some of the commercial users who are using NetBSD in embedded systems, companies like Geocast, or IBM's Network Computer.

We're trying to be Cygnus of this space, rather than the RedHat.

N: How big is the company at the moment?

P: We're in the startup phase. We've got a few people who have already signed contracts, and a few people we're in negotiations with. The non-technical staff is relatively small at the moment, three to four people, the technical staff is larger, and growing pretty fast.

N: So you're hiring now?

P: We're very actively hiring. We're looking for developers, people to do support stuff for NetBSD using clients, infrastructure consulting for NetBSD using clients. We're tapping the NetBSD developer community right now, but we're looking for people who are good above everything else. Contact information is on the website, or just get in touch with me directly.

N: Why Wasabi?

P: It's a neat name. When all the bad names are already taken, why not use a good one? <laughs> We're a hot young company.

N: Are you going to be selling NetBSD on CD?

P: Yes. 1.4.3 on CD within a few weeks when the project releases it. 1.5 as well, which is expected at the end of September (when the RSA patent expires. . .)

We'll be doing a multi-CD release, and probably a couple of different CD options depending on what people want. We have to release for 29 different architectures, which complicates things.

N: How many NetBSD project members are involved in Wasabi?

P: At the moment we have a couple of members from -core, and most of the people involved are developers. We also have a couple of non-NetBSD developers involved.

N: If clients approach you for NetBSD development are you making sure that it's going to be released under the BSD license?

P: Everything that we can we will. There will be instances where clients come to us for work that will be used in house, or is uninteresting. But we're unequivocably an open-source company, and we want to release virtually everything we do as open source.

N: NetBSD is very community led. How is Wasabi going to be contributing back to the community?

P: We're members of the community ourselves. It's in our interests to help out the community where possible. This might mean covering developer's conference fees, hardware costs, all sorts of things. Whatever we need to do to eliminate barriers to improving the system.

N: Any plans for other NetBSD products?

P: You've seen the beachballs? [ At the BSD BoF last night Perry and others were kicking around 300 or so Wasabi beachballs "NetBSD support: it's not hot air anymore" ] I don't think that's a big revenue stream for us. But if people in the community want to buy that sort of stuff then we're happy to be the place they get it from, or to collaborate with other companies to make sure that there is somewhere they can get it from.

N: Any plans to provide support or consulting for the other BSDs?

P: Our area of expertise is NetBSD -- it's what we do best, it's what we know. But, if a customer came to us with interesting work involving another BSD we'd of course look at it. They're probably smartest hiring us for NetBSD stuff.

N: Is this going to be a U.S. operation, or will you be working with NetBSD developers worldwide?

P: We've already hired developers from outside of the U.S., who are staying where they are. We go where the talent is and where the customers are.

N: Perry, thanks for your time.

BSDJoe writes "The June daemonnews newsletter has been posted" Included in this issue are an introduction to the ports system, a length tutorial devoted to writing writing a CAM SCSI controller driver, and a great editorial about how to attract users without dumbing down.

Looking for something to do with that old PS/2 in the cupboard? NetBSD can now be booted on it. Support is strictly experimental at the moment, and available as a patchset to the main code.

Bob Bruce writes: "There will be a BSD BOF (Birds Of a Feather meeting) at Spring Comdex, on Wednesday April 19 from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. The BOF is at the Essex Inn at Grant Park, Chicago. You do not need to be a Comdex attendee to come along, everyone is welcome." Read on for more details.

Bob continues: "There will be speakers from BSD/OS, Darwin, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD. This is a great opportunity to meet some of the leaders in the BSD community. There will be plenty of technical information available. Whether you are a BSD expert, a newbie, or just thinking of switching over, you can get your questions answered."

"Several BSD celebrities will be attending, including Chris Coleman, an editor of Daemonnews, and cartoonist Susannah Coleman, creator of Darby Daemon, who will be signing prints."

"We will have installation CDROMs, BSD paraphernalia, and free food and beer. We will even have free Daemon horns!"

"This BOF is being co-sponsored by BSDi and Daemon News."

AC writes: "Another NetBSD port has come out of the closet. Ben Harris reports that NetBSD/arm26 can mount its root file system over NFS now, an important milestone! A binary test kit can be downloaded from his ftp directory."

AC writes: "Another NetBSD port has come out of the closet. Ben Harris reports that NetBSD/arm26 can mount its root file system over NFS now, an important milestone! A binary test kit can be downloaded from his ftp directory."

After our earlier story about this, hubertf writes: "Soren S. Jorvang has done a port of NetBSD to the Cobalt Networks MIPS-based Qube and RaQ Microservers which is now available. Originally the Cobalt machines ship with a custom version of Linux, and now everyone can run his favourite Open Source operating system on it." More information from the NetBSD/cobalt ports page.

Elwood writes "Andrew Gillham has booted NetBSD/i386 -current on his Netpliance i-opener. He did this without opening the case and without using a 2.5" IDE hard drive." Read on for details.

The steps involved (using a normal keyboard) are:

1. Get to a root shell, via 'ESC 4' and fast typing.
2. Bring up PPP to a NetBSD machine. Having a PBX helps
3. Backup the 16MB of flash, with the following:

   # cat /dev/hd0 | gzip -9 > hd0.gz
   # ftp 
   ftp> put hd0.gz 

4. Replace flash with NetBSD image, by ftping compressed file.

   # gzip -d -c file_name.gz | cat > /dev/hd0

5. Wait a few seconds, yank the power to prevent QNX updating flash.
6. Reboot under NetBSD, enjoy.

Full details are available at the main NetBSD Changes page.

Elwood writes "Andrew Gillham has booted NetBSD/i386 -current on his Netpliance i-opener. He did this without opening the case and without using a 2.5" IDE hard drive." Read on for details.

The steps involved (using a normal keyboard) are:

1. Get to a root shell, via 'ESC 4' and fast typing.
2. Bring up PPP to a NetBSD machine. Having a PBX helps
3. Backup the 16MB of flash, with the following:

   # cat /dev/hd0 | gzip -9 > hd0.gz
   # ftp 
   ftp> put hd0.gz 

4. Replace flash with NetBSD image, by ftping compressed file.

   # gzip -d -c file_name.gz | cat > /dev/hd0

5. Wait a few seconds, yank the power to prevent QNX updating flash.
6. Reboot under NetBSD, enjoy.

Full details are available at the main NetBSD Changes page.

Mike Lockwood writes: "I haven't seen a formal announcement yet, but the Releases page on the NetBSD Web site says, "The latest patch release, NetBSD 1.4.2, was released on March 19, 2000." Now that I have already downloaded a copy of the mac68k port and installed it on my Quadra 700, I figured it is safe to tell the rest of the world."

Mike Lockwood writes: "I haven't seen a formal announcement yet, but the Releases page on the NetBSD Web site says, "The latest patch release, NetBSD 1.4.2, was released on March 19, 2000." Now that I have already downloaded a copy of the mac68k port and installed it on my Quadra 700, I figured it is safe to tell the rest of the world."

Got a Cobalt Raq 2, but want to keep your BSD fetish going? If so, Soren Jorvang's announcement of a prelimenary port to this particular piece of blue iron should be right up your street.

hubertf writes, "Two new channels have been created using Rich Site Summary files, an XML dialect, to provide NetBSD-related news to content providers and their users. The files are parsed by news services today to retrieve information, and re-distribute it in their reader forums and/or sent out via mail directly to your cell phone, if you decide so. Both general NetBSD news and news related to the NetBSD Packages Collection are now available not only from the NetBSD Web site, but also from the sites listed at http://www.netbsd.org/Changes/rss.html. Now all you Slashdot fans can get the latest NetBSD news without leaving /. for a second. 8-) "

Silmaril writes "OpenBSD started a CVS branch to add SMP to the kernel." Meanwhile, over on the NetBSD side of the fence, Bill Sommerfeld has committed his i386 MP spinup work. See both those links for more details.

Hawks writes, "For you NetBSD junkies out there who don't like Darwin, according to the Changes to NetBSD/macpps 1.5 page, NetBSD now boots on the PowerMac G4's and iMacDV's. I would assume that means it should boot on the iBook and possibly the new Pismo PowerBooks. Hummm, 400Mhz laptop running *BSD...droolllll

cloudscout writes, "The latest craze in handheld computing isn't the new Palm IIIc, it's the IBM WorkPad z50 currently being unloaded at ridiculously low prices by all sorts of discount Internet retailers. This device runs Windows CE 2.11 by default, however, a successful NetBSD Port means that this device could be the first widespread *NIX handheld. There's even a Linux Port in the works. The initial blowout saw these devices selling for under $250, but the huge demand has driven that price up to the $400 range now. Still cheap for a nearly full-sized system with 640x480 color LCD. "

A few bits and pieces on the BSD front in the recent past. Scott Bartram announced that JDK 1.1.8 is now available for NetBSD-current/i386. Over at LinuxWorld, Jonathan Bresler sent in this e-mail about BSD related activities. Sun are releasing source code for NFS under the SISSL (and boosting funding for a Linux only effort to implement v4, sigh). Anti Basic wants you to know that you can now pre-order FreeBSD 4.0 from the FreeBSD Mall. And finally, this month's edition of DaemonNews hit the stands a few days ago, including a particularly interesting article by Greg Lehey, outlining his work on software RAID, Vinum.

From David Brownlee, via the NetBSD announce mailing list "The Canadian Special Olympics 2000 Winter Games run from Jan. 25 to 29 in Ottawa, Ontario. They are using NetBSD servers to provide connectivity, file storage, and results posting for event officials, media, and athletes." And more details on the games are available as well.

From David Brownlee, via the NetBSD announce mailing list "The Canadian Special Olympics 2000 Winter Games run from Jan. 25 to 29 in Ottawa, Ontario. They are using NetBSD servers to provide connectivity, file storage, and results posting for event officials, media, and athletes." And more details on the games are available as well.

[Courtesy of the NetBSD Newsletter] Continuing their quest to have NetBSD run on every platform in existence, the NetBSD/Luna68k port is now stable enough to run multiuser. The Luna is a Japanese machine, with a 68030 processor running at 20Mhz, about equal to a sun3/60. The port's the result of hard work put in by Toru Nishimura. The port's announcement is available.

From the NetBSD -annouce mailing list: "Frank van der Linden (frank@wins.uva.nl) has brought Kirk McKusick's trickle sync + FFS soft update code into the main tree." For the uninitiated, softupdates is an extension to FFS which collects and orders writes to the filesystem, removing unnecessary metadata writes, and carrying out necessary metadata writes asynchronously. All the speed of Linux's default filesystem configuration, with all the safety of UFS. More information at the NetBSD news page, and Kirk McKusick's softupdates page. Softupdates has been in FreeBSD for a while, it's great to see NetBSD getting it as well.

Jim Wise writes "Hayakawa Koichi has integrated code to support CardBus devices into NetBSD. This provides support for various Yenta-based Cardbus bridges and associated device drivers. So far, device drivers are available for Cardbus modems and OHCI USB controllers, and cardbus ethernet cards from 3Com and Intel. "

ChristianC writes "The latest release of NetBSD, 1.4, now supports iMacs and G3s. This is particulary interesting, as OS X is based on various BSD distributions, so NetBSD and OS X will be very similar under the hood. "

Woody writes "There is tons of stuff happening on the BSD front. The NetBSD Foundation is scheduled to release version 1.4 of their multi-platform OS tomorrow, May 12. The OpenBSD group is scheduled to release version 2.5 of their super-secure multi-platform OS on May 19. Finally, those boys over at FreeBSD are scheduled to release version 3.2 of their i386 optimized OS on or around May 15. Lots of rumblings in the BSD world! "

AOL announced today it is teaming up with NCI, as software partner, to build a range of AOL set-top boxes. NCI uses FreeBSD suggesting AOL may be shipping FreeBSD based boxes. The devices will use MediaGX chips from National/Cyrix. Update: 05/12 04:07 by S : Paul Wain of NCI wrote in to tell me in an unofficial capacity that their "Corporate" Machines use a NetBSD derivative but the consumer ones use other OSes. Some of our server products use FreeBSD but not the "Consumer" ones.

Herb Peyerl contributed this earlier in the week, but the NetBSD site did not confirm it for some time. "NetBSD now runs on Sun Ultrasparc hardware. NetBSD/sparc64 is the product of a 2-year effort. Currently, UltraSPARC I and II CPUs, esp SCSI controllers, le ethernet controllers, zs serial ports, cgsix graphics controllers are supported. Any of the other drivers from the NetBSD/sparc port might also work. The 32-bit kernel runs most NetBSD/sparc binaries. A 64-bit version of the system currently exists and runs on some hardware, but requires further development to be fully functional.". The latest snapshot is available.

Herb Peyerl contributed this earlier in the week, but the NetBSD site did not confirm it for some time. "NetBSD now runs on Sun Ultrasparc hardware. NetBSD/sparc64 is the product of a 2-year effort. Currently, UltraSPARC I and II CPUs, esp SCSI controllers, le ethernet controllers, zs serial ports, cgsix graphics controllers are supported. Any of the other drivers from the NetBSD/sparc port might also work. The 32-bit kernel runs most NetBSD/sparc binaries. A 64-bit version of the system currently exists and runs on some hardware, but requires further development to be fully functional.". The latest snapshot is available.

Herb Peyerl contributed this earlier in the week, but the NetBSD site did not confirm it for some time. "NetBSD now runs on Sun Ultrasparc hardware. NetBSD/sparc64 is the product of a 2-year effort. Currently, UltraSPARC I and II CPUs, esp SCSI controllers, le ethernet controllers, zs serial ports, cgsix graphics controllers are supported. Any of the other drivers from the NetBSD/sparc port might also work. The 32-bit kernel runs most NetBSD/sparc binaries. A 64-bit version of the system currently exists and runs on some hardware, but requires further development to be fully functional.". The latest snapshot is available.