MidnightBSD Developer Journal

We've had a lot of activity the last few days.

src:

MidnightBSD now has a threaded version of Bind 9.4.2 in CURRENT. We'd appreciate feedback on Bind and related applications (nslookup, dig etc)

libpthread and libthr are built early during buildworld now.

pcvt removed!

bsd.cpu.mk now has definitions for core2 cpus (as an alias)

Several usr.sbin utilities were removed for pc98 and alpha architectures.

syslogd, adduser, rmuser, mergemaster, mailwrapper have been updated with new features and fixes.

periodic won't send empty emails anymore.

man pages:
man4.alpha removed
smp.4
config.5
rc.conf.5
build.7


mports:

added:
devel/upnp
security/sshguard
security/sshguard-ipfw
security/sshguard-pf
devel/p5-Term-ReadKey
devel/p5-Term-ANSIColor
finance/openhbci
finance/kmymoney2
finance/kexchange
finance/opentaxsolver

updates:
graphics/png
security/sudo
deel/pkg-config
shells/bash
devel/p5-AppConfig

removed:
bash2

First, there is a torrent available for MidnightBSD 0.1-RELEASE (older)

I also posted a new metalink for 0.1.1-RELEASE i386 on the MidnightBSD website. 

Less has been updated in CURRENT to v416. I've reintroduced the FreeBSD patches for less to behave like more.

A security update has been applied on CURRENT for mksh. It is unlikely to be a problem.

http://secunia.com/advisories/29803/

We now have r33d

We've recently added webkit to mports.  Install the midori port to try it out.  It's based off a nightly build, but seems rather stable.

We also recently removed gaim (replaced by pidgin) and updated openssh and bzip2 in CURRENT.

http://www.freebsddiary.org/xorg-two-screens.php

This is a nice tutorial on how to setup multiple displays with X11.  I've managed to get mirroring and extending to worth with my IBM Thinkpad T30.  

This affected the strfmon function in libc. It has been corrected in CURRENT. A memory leak was also corrected.

References:
http://nvd.nist.gov/nvd.cfm?cvename=CVE-2008-1391

http://www.midnightbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/src/lib/libc/stdlib/strfmon.c

We've got a screenshot of Gnome 2.20 running on MidnightBSD. We're still working on some of the Gnome related ports.

This image was captured from a MidnightBSD current install in Parallels running on Mac OS X.

WebKit has been added to mports.  Now MidnightBSD users have the option to install WebKit.  We are working on adding a few WebKit front end applications.

Use mports/www/midori in mports to try WebKit.

We encountered a problem sometime this morning with the latest run.  We ran out of disk space on the database partition.  Everything is up and running at the moment, and we are working to correct the problem.

A side effect of this is that you may have had trouble accessing the website this morning.  I apologize for any problems you may have experienced with the MidnightBSD site this morning.

First, Magus has been quite busy lately.  Laffer1 and ctriv have been very busy fixing broken packages.

The second sparc is almost up and running. 

Big update, laffer1 has been updating autotools.  You will need to rebuild autotools.  Laffer has been adding upgrading autotools and integrating the recent autotools wrapper changes from FreeBSD. 

Last night, laffer1 installed MidnightBSD on two Sparc64 computers.  The most recent Sparc64 current snap does not work.  Right now you need to use the 0.1 snap.

As promised, we are posting more about MirPorts on MidnightBSD.

First, there is some information on how install MirPorts here, http://www.mirbsd.org/ports.htm

I'd like to thank the developers at MirBSD / MirOS for porting to MidnightBSD. 

We still consider mports as our primary ports system but we felt it was necessary to give our users more options.

Laffer1 wants more time for coding so I (Raven) will be handling some of the MidnightBSD blog updates from now on.

We were not accepted into the Google SoC program.  It's a bummer but let's move beyond that.  It looks like FreeBSD, NetBSD and DragonFly BSD were accepted (interesting no OpenBSD).

The ideas page will remain up.  http://www.midnightbsd.org/soc/

If you're a student  (or just a regular old developer) and would like to join the project, go to the developers page, http://www.midnightbsd.org/developer/index.html. 

The build cluster is back up at EMU.  We've moved the status site to http://www.midnightbsd.org/magus/

As the database schema has changed, the site is still undergoing work.  ctriv@ has done an excellent job with the new version.

We're now able to run multiple architectures and OS versions at the same time. 

MirPorts is now working on MidnightBSD. This now gives users a choice between two ports systems. I'll post more on this when I get time. MirPorts also run on MirBSD and Mac OS X.

mports:

Anyone using Dovecot should update to the new version in ports. There was a recent security issue.
http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2008-1218

We're still upgrading gnome ports for the 2.20 release. After that, we'll probably update KDE to 3.5.9 and then look at 2.22 gnome.

Chris and I did an interview regarding mports late last year. it's now on the NetBSD website.

http://www.netbsd.org/gallery/pkgsrc-interviews.html#mports

There are many interesting interviews about various ports systems in the BSDs on that site. Check it out.

We're working on a new MidnightBSD wiki. It will contain some documentation, todo lists, and other elements that developers and users want to collaborate on.

http://www.midnightbsd.org/wiki/FrontPage

The FSF has a nice list of supported wireless chipsets on Linux systems.  I have not yet reviewed the list to confirm that all of them are supported in MidnightBSD, but if not it might be a good area investigate.

http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/net/wireless/cards.html

A third party is selling MidnightBSD 0.1 CDs.

http://www.linuxcd.org/view_distro.php?id_distro=394&PHPSESSID=8bb30f794a15cc2f17704dd93982b3cf

We do not get any economic gain from the sale of these CDs, but it might be an option for those on low speed connections.