BSD & Darwin Archive

OpenDarwin 7.2.1 (which corresponds to Mac OS X 10.3.2) has been released for both PowerPC and Intel x86 architectures: complete release notes are available here.

Due to an installer/fdisk bug there is an update available. Current Dragonfly version is 1.0A.

Matt Dillon has announced the availability of DragonFly BSD's 1.0 Release Candidate #1. Changes and features include: variant symbolic links, UDF support, lightweight kernel threads, message passing, GCC 3.4 in the tree, binutils 2.14, Kernighan's awk 2004-02-07, BIND 9.2.4 rc4, CVS 1.12.8, libpcap 0.8.3, tcpdump 3.8.3, less 381, MMX/XMM kernel optimizations are now on by default, greatly improving bcopy/bzero/copyin/copyout performance for large (>4K) buffers, XIO, acpica5, new AC'97 codec support, network stack revamping, long standing bug fixes for wide variety of support and stability issues, and more. A final is expected in two weeks.

"The BSD phenomenon is quite remarkable: a community of incredibly talented and experienced developers, administrators, and users, joined by diverse technical interests and a common desire to build and use the best operating systems in the world." Read the rest of the editorial here.

MirOS announced the release of a new snapshot of MirOS BSD #7-current. Read more.

ekkoBSD.org has announced the latest beta release of the ekkoBSD Operating System to the public today.This release supports the Sparc 64bit Platform.

A helpful beginner's guide to managing BSD filesystems. The author outlines what filesystems are, the format of /etc/fstab including some of the more commonly-used options, mounting media such as CDs, and using df to monitor partition space.

ekkoBSD as a core OS offers security, stability, and flexability to your infrastructure. Feature enhancements include ekkoBSD native binaries, new fdialog features, fetch/libfetch, new applications in bin/sbin, and a new installation guide. The GUI installer (EINSTein) is still not functional in this release.

DragonFly BSD was announced in July of this year, with Matt Dillon the originator and main weightlifter of this project. Development has been proceeding at a good clip, with a first release expected in 2004. Here's some data on the amount of activity in the DragonFly source, as of the end of December 2003.

ekkoBSD is a BSD OS which offers security, stability, and flexability to your infrastructure. As a default installation, it gives you an email server, Web Server, ssh, and several other services that would normally need to be added and secured. This release is the first native build under an ekkoBSD host. Some highlights include the replacement of bsd-ftpd with pure-ftpd, security fixes, changes to the hierarchy, the introduction of the new installer, and the new fdialog.

The GNU-Darwin Distribution is a free operating system and a popular source of free software for Mac OS X and Darwin-x86 users, but it is also a platform for digital activism. Founded in November of 2000, the Distribution has the stated goal of bringing software freedom to computer users of every stripe, and vigilantly defending digital liberties.

Technically, the BSD operating systems are every bit as good as Linux, so why aren't they commercially successful? eWEEK.com Linux & Open Source Center Editor Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols and software consultant Brian Masinick explain why.

Fink 0.6.0 was released yesterday and is compatible with Panther. This is a source-only release; binaries will follow in a few days. Changes include: 10.2 with gcc 3.1 is officially no longer supported. 10.2-gcc3.3 and 10.3 are officially supported now, even though not all packages are in the 10.3 or 10.2-gcc3.3 tree yet. The mirror code has been updated to support the mirrors finkmirrors.net will introduce. Additionally, Fink now has a new logo.

Find non-free code at GNU-Darwin, and get a reward from RMS. In preparation for this initiative, the team has greatly improved the software freedom status and GPL compliance of the newest free OS including the ports system, packages, on-line, and hard media offerings. It appears that the FSF wants GNU-Darwin to stay free. As always, many thanks to them, especially RMS, D. E. Evans, Eben Moglen, etc. It feels great to do the right thing, and that GNU-Darwin is finally inside the free software circle. There is also a longer article about this at Advogato.