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Building NetBSD Under Cygwin on Windows XP, PPC
Dan writes "John Gordon has completed a set of changes to the NetBSD build infrastructure that allows him to build at least two architectures (i386 and ibmnws platform, a PowerPC box) under Cygwin/Windows XP Home Edition and PowerPC. He has made a CVS patch for Cygwin, and provides instructions on the required configuration of Cygwin to avoid a problem with directory name clashes due to the case insensitive file system on Windows."
It is official; Netcraft confirms: *BSD is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last [samag.com] in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin [amazingkreskin.com] to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dying
Why would you want to? I'm not sure I understand.
-Peapod
Hi, my name is Melissa Spencer. I'm lonely. Please call me at 801-226-4142 and solve my problems. :D
Also, I want to discuss the BSDs with anyone willing to talk.
Spencer, Michael & Susan 1814 Heather Dr OREM, UT 84097 801-226-4142 Its an actual home phone number! :) In the great state of Utah! :)
/. effect on their phone!
Poor people.... the
no text
"under Cygwin/Windows XP Home Edition and PowerPC."
This makes no sense. Windows XP ist an OS, PowerPC a processor. It should say: "You can build NetBSD for the i386 or a certain PowerPC Plattform under Windows XP on i386."
Another one got caught today, it's all over the papers. "Geeks apprehended in Child Poronography Bust", "Geek publicy shamed after holding girl's hand." "Damn, shower-ridden geeks. They're all alike." But did you, in your three-piece psychology and 1950s technobrain, ever take a look behind the eyes of the geek? Did you ever wonder what made him suck cock, what forces shaped his penis so small, what may have molded him? I am a geek, enter my world. Mine is a world that begins with slashdot. I'm smarter than most of the other moderators, this crap they post bores me. "Damn goatse troll. They're all alike." I'm in by dark, cool basement. I've listened to those people with lives upstairs explain for the fifteenth time how to get some fine pussy. I understand it (not!). "No, Ms. Smith, I didn't take my acne medicine. CowboyNeal ate it." "Damn CowboyNeal. He probably did eat it. They're always gettin eaten by that tub-o-lard." I made a discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a second, this is cool. It does what I want it to. If it makes a mistake, it's because I screwed it up. Not because it doesn't like me, or feels threatened by me, or thinks I'm a smart ass, or doesn't like teaching and shouldn't be here. Damn geek. All he does his play games. They're all alike. And then it happened... goatse opened to the world...rushing through the phone line like heroin through an addict's veins, an electronic pulse is sent out, a refuge from day-to-day incompetencies is sought...slashdot is found. "This is it...this is where I belong..." I know everyone here...even if I've never met them, never talked to them, may never hear from them again...I know you all...Damn geeks. Stinking up the basement again. They're all alike...You bet your ass we're all alike...we've been spoon-fed baby food at school when we hungered for steak (not!)...the bits of meat that you did let slip through were later on stolen by CowboyNeal (true!). We've been dominated by sadists, or eaten by CowboyNeal. The few trolls that have something to teach found us willing pupils, but those few are like drops of water in the desert. This is our world now...the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty and the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons (ie, CowboyNeal), and you call us criminals. We explore...and you call us losers. We seek after knowledge...and you call us criminals. We exist without girlfriends, without nationality, without religious bias...and you call us criminals. You have girlfriends, you have suntans, you socialize, fuck, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the losers with friends like CowboyNeal. Yes, I am a geek. My crime is that of a loser. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for. I am a geek, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual, but you can't stop us all...after all, we're all horse cocks.
[ed. note: in the following text, former FreeBSD developer Mike Smith gives his reasons for abandoning FreeBSD]
When I stood for election to the FreeBSD core team nearly two years ago, many of you will recall that it was after a long series of debates during which I maintained that too much organisation, too many rules and too much formality would be a bad thing for the project.
Today, as I read the latest discussions on the future of the FreeBSD project, I see the same problem; a few new faces and many of the old going over the same tired arguments and suggesting variations on the same worthless schemes. Frankly I'm sick of it.
FreeBSD used to be fun. It used to be about doing things the right way. It used to be something that you could sink your teeth into when the mundane chores of programming for a living got you down. It was something cool and exciting; a way to spend your spare time on an endeavour you loved that was at the same time wholesome and worthwhile.
It's not anymore. It's about bylaws and committees and reports and milestones, telling others what to do and doing what you're told. It's about who can rant the longest or shout the loudest or mislead the most people into a bloc in order to legitimise doing what they think is best. Individuals notwithstanding, the project as a whole has lost track of where it's going, and has instead become obsessed with process and mechanics.
So I'm leaving core. I don't want to feel like I should be "doing something" about a project that has lost interest in having something done for it. I don't have the energy to fight what has clearly become a losing battle; I have a life to live and a job to keep, and I won't achieve any of the goals I personally consider worthwhile if I remain obligated to care for the project.
Discussion
I'm sure that I've offended some people already; I'm sure that by the time I'm done here, I'll have offended more. If you feel a need to play to the crowd in your replies rather than make a sincere effort to address the problems I'm discussing here, please do us the courtesy of playing your politics openly.
From a technical perspective, the project faces a set of challenges that significantly outstrips our ability to deliver. Some of the resources that we need to address these challenges are tied up in the fruitless metadiscussions that have raged since we made the mistake of electing officers. Others have left in disgust, or been driven out by the culture of abuse and distraction that has grown up since then. More may well remain available to recruitment, but while the project is busy infighting our chances for successful outreach are sorely diminished.
There's no simple solution to this. For the project to move forward, one or the other of the warring philosophies must win out; either the project returns to its laid-back roots and gets on with the work, or it transforms into a super-organised engineering project and executes a brilliant plan to deliver what, ultimately, we all know we want.
Whatever path is chosen, whatever balance is struck, the choosing and the striking are the important parts. The current indecision and endless conflict are incompatible with any sort of progress.
Trying to dissect the above is far beyond the scope of any parting shot, no matter how distended. All I can really ask of you all is to let go of the minutiae for a moment and take a look at the big picture. What is the ultimate goal here? How can we get there with as little overhead as possible? How would you like to be treated by your fellow travellers?
Shouts
To the Slashdot "BSD is dying" crowd - big deal. Death is part of the cycle; take a look at your soft, pallid bodies and consider that right this very moment, parts of you are dying. See? It's not so bad.
To the bulk of the FreeBSD committerbase and the developer community at large - keep your eyes on the real goals. It'
What`s the point of /building/ NetBSD on WinXP/cygwin? Its not funny to build systems, the fun is to /install/ them. What the hell should i do with a lot of NetBSD binaries on my Windows system, i cant use netbsd on a fat/ntfs anyways can i?
Is compiling the best use of our CPU?
seti@home anyone?
"If you loved me, you`d all kill yourselves today"
Spider Jerusalem
I think this could be neat if:
A)if this could be used to set up, create and manipulate ufs/ffs partitions on your computer. (I know, highly unlikely)
B)If the next step was to create windows binaries of the NetBSD system (to replace their GNU counterparts)
Hell, it's neat regardless! Next, we need to have the guys at LFS add cygwin compatibility so I can truly build a linux from scratch!
[note: in the following text, former FreeBSD developer Mike Smith gives his reasons for abandoning FreeBSD]
When I stood for election to the FreeBSD core team nearly two years ago, many of you will recall that it was after a long series of debates during which I maintained that too much organisation, too many rules and too much formality would be a bad thing for the project.
Today, as I read the latest discussions on the future of the FreeBSD project, I see the same problem; a few new faces and many of the old going over the same tired arguments and suggesting variations on the same worthless schemes. Frankly I'm sick of it.
FreeBSD used to be fun. It used to be about doing things the right way. It used to be something that you could sink your teeth into when the mundane chores of programming for a living got you down. It was something cool and exciting; a way to spend your spare time on an endeavour you loved that was at the same time wholesome and worthwhile.
It's not anymore. It's about bylaws and committees and reports and milestones, telling others what to do and doing what you're told. It's about who can rant the longest or shout the loudest or mislead the most people into a bloc in order to legitimise doing what they think is best. Individuals notwithstanding, the project as a whole has lost track of where it's going, and has instead become obsessed with process and mechanics.
So I'm leaving core. I don't want to feel like I should be "doing something" about a project that has lost interest in having something done for it. I don't have the energy to fight what has clearly become a losing battle; I have a life to live and a job to keep, and I won't achieve any of the goals I personally consider worthwhile if I remain obligated to care for the project.
Discussion
I'm sure that I've offended some people already; I'm sure that by the time I'm done here, I'll have offended more. If you feel a need to play to the crowd in your replies rather than make a sincere effort to address the problems I'm discussing here, please do us the courtesy of playing your politics openly.
From a technical perspective, the project faces a set of challenges that significantly outstrips our ability to deliver. Some of the resources that we need to address these challenges are tied up in the fruitless metadiscussions that have raged since we made the mistake of electing officers. Others have left in disgust, or been driven out by the culture of abuse and distraction that has grown up since then. More may well remain available to recruitment, but while the project is busy infighting our chances for successful outreach are sorely diminished.
There's no simple solution to this. For the project to move forward, one or the other of the warring philosophies must win out; either the project returns to its laid-back roots and gets on with the work, or it transforms into a super-organised engineering project and executes a brilliant plan to deliver what, ultimately, we all know we want.
Whatever path is chosen, whatever balance is struck, the choosing and the striking are the important parts. The current indecision and endless conflict are incompatible with any sort of progress.
Trying to dissect the above is far beyond the scope of any parting shot, no matter how distended. All I can really ask of you all is to let go of the minutiae for a moment and take a look at the big picture. What is the ultimate goal here? How can we get there with as little overhead as possible? How would you like to be treated by your fellow travellers?
Shouts
To the Slashdot "BSD is dying" crowd - big deal. Death is part of the cycle; take a look at your soft, pallid bodies and consider that right this very moment, parts of you are dying. See? It's not so bad.
To the bulk of the FreeBSD committerbase and the developer community at large - keep your eyes on the real goals. It's wh
I wonder, why not run just Gentoo Linux PPC on that box? Just run it. No building of NetBSD even will be required - you will be happy emergeing Gentoo packages already!
Less is more !
I do distributed builds for the Linux target using distcc across many machines including cygwin boxes with x86 Linux cross compilers. Why? Because the Windows boxes we have are generally faster than the Linux boxes we have and are idle most of the time anyway.
Even with cygwin you cannot create or properly handle a file with a reserved name, such as aux, nul, com1, con, et cetera. So when you try to extract the "aux" dir, or files like aux.h or aux.c which are fairly commonly used names in source trees apparently, tar chokes and fails to extract the file. In order to compile some software I've had to extract files like aux.h as winaux.h (arbitrary filename I chose) and then edit makefiles, cfiles which include it, etc.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I was about to mention SFU3 and noticed that an AC beat me to the punch -- but only because it was an insert in this month's Sysadmin Magazine (which totally threw me for a loop -- MS bought the centerfold spread and paid for a demo CD -- I sure hope they ended up picking up the entire tab for this month's production costs). One thing I noticed on the SFU3 CD jacket -- and bear with me because didn't see any fine print and haven't actually looked at the CDs contents yet -- is that it appears that MS is selling SFU3 as an add-on component for Windows. I'm curious if it requires Win2K Server (any of the family) or will also install on Win2K Pro and WinXP Pro. Does anyone know what the deal is, because this should solve his file name problem? That is, if the fine print doesn't say otherwise ... and yeah, I could go google the answer, but why bother, because I probably won't buy this when I can do it another way for free.
Even superheroes once were losers