Took about 15 minutes to spin up a mate desktop with #openbsd

Thats pretty easy.

Around 11 minutes of that 15 was installing the os and the desktop packages, but im on a slow 100mbit internet. The remaining 4 or so was configuring which involved reading a pkg-readme file, following instructions in it, and setting up a few themes.

I really don't get it when people say OpenBSD is hard to set up. Its really not

When i show screenshots of my usual setup on openbsd in linux-oriented places online i'll often get questions like "how do you *even* run that? Isn't it bad for desktop?" Or "openbsd is really bad and supports nothing, i don't think i could use it" or, "you're brave for using openbsd, i could NEVER" Etc.

Ive been getting by fine for the past 4 years or so, and have no plans to switch away.

Its true that desktop on the BSDs isn't nearly as streamlined as some linux systems, but if you can put in a little effort, its actually really quite nice to use as a desktop, and in some ways, better than linux

Alt...

The mate desktop environment running with default panel layout, arc gtk theme. There is a terminal window in the center of the screen showing the output of a system fetch utility called "exfetch". Background is a sunset sky.

justine@openbsd-desktop ~  $ qutebrowser
20:12:31 INFO: Opening in existing instance
(process:35227): GLib-CRITICAL **: 20:12:31.592: g_main_context_pop_thread_default: assertion 'stack != NULL' failed

Yes, You Too Can Be An Evil Network Overlord - On The Cheap With OpenBSD, pflow And nfsen https://nxdomain.no/~peter/yes_you_too_can_be_an_evil_network_verlord.html

A story about network metadata and #openbsd, originally from 2014, good for reprising. See The Book of PF for more #nfsen #netflow #pflow #monitoring #networking #security #pf #packetfilter #bookofPF @nostarch

Also, what's going on with ungoogled-chromium on -current at the moment? #OpenBSD

Trying to scan things on #OpenBSD from my AirPrint enabled Brother printer:
1) Install sane and all other things related to sane-airscan
2) run airscan-discover which fails with,

MDNS: avahi_client_new failed: Daemon not running

therefore
3) Try to start up avahi-daemon, which fails with:

$ doas avahi-daemon 
Found user '_avahi' (UID 629) and group '_avahi' (GID 629).
Successfully dropped root privileges.
avahi-daemon 0.8 starting up.
dbus_bus_get_private(): Failed to connect to socket /var/run/dbus/system_bus_socket: No such file or directory
WARNING: Failed to contact D-Bus daemon.
avahi-daemon 0.8 exiting.

I guess 4) would be to get dbus to work but I reckon it IS working?! Where do I go from here?

OpenBSD: anatomy of bsd.rd

Every OpenBSD admin has booted bsd.rd at least once — to install, upgrade, or rescue a broken system. But few people stop to look at what’s actually inside that file. It turns out bsd.rd is a set of nested layers, and you can take it apart on a running system without rebooting anything.

That’s what we’ll do here. We’ll go from the raw gzip file all the way down to the miniroot fil

https://www.osnews.com/story/144471/openbsd-anatomy-of-bsd-rd/

#OpenBSD

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲/𝟬𝟮/𝟮𝟯 (Valuable News - 2026/02/23) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2026/02/23/valuable-news-2026-02-23/

Past releases: https://vermaden.wordpress.com/news/

#verblog #vernews #news #bsd #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #linux #unix #zfs #opnsense #ghostbsd #solaris #vermadenday

A mention elsewhere of the insufferable ssh password guessers has me reprise my "The Hail Mary Cloud and the Lessons Learned" https://nxdomain.no/~peter/hailmary_lessons_learned.html piece, with a not added at the end about endlessh as a possible refinement (yes, I use it) #ssh #passwords #passwordguessing #passwordgroping #endlessh #openbsd #freebsd #pf #packetfilter #security #cybercrime

Dave Voutila (dv@) continues his work on multi-process device emulation for #OpenBSD vmd(8), this time moving virtio scsi (CDROM) device emulation to a separate process, further reducing the amount of code running in-process for VMs.

dv@ modified src/usr.sbin/vmd/*: vmd(8): convert virtio scsi device to a subprocess.

Break the virtio scsi device (used as a cd-rom drive) into a subprocess like the virtio block and network devices. This leaves only the entropy device (viornd) and vmmci device running in-process with the vcpus.

ok mlarkin@

This follows up on work presented by Dave at EuroBSDCon 2024.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKrxVzS96BM

https://www.openbsd.org/papers/eurobsdcon2024-vmd_multiprocessing.pdf

I want to try more #KDE software on #OpenBSD. I use Dolphin on i3 sometimes, just because a graphical file manager beats the terminal for certain tasks. I'm surprised there's so much KDE packaged for OpenBSD, I'm really glad they support it. Maybe I'll make a video about it, who knows!
On that topic, does anyone know a good way to set up an OpenBSD VM (preferably qemu)? I got an install working, but I couldn't get the virtual ethernet connected. My always-on VPN might be an issue, but I launched VMM with split tunneling and it still didn't work.

Hey Mastodon!

🖥️ 💻

Calling all #mac #macos #osx #windows #linux #FreeBSD #bsd #openbsd #netbsd #desktop & #laptop users!

On your personal computer, what is your go to when you leave your machine unattended for long periods of time:

@peteorrall Not to toot my own horn really, but perhaps you will find my (now 5 years old) "Recent and not so recent changes in OpenBSD that make life better (and may turn up elsewhere too)" https://nxdomain.no/~peter/recent-and-not-so-recent_changes_in_openbsd_that_make_life_better.html a more agreeable read?

Yes, it's about #OpenBSD, but the systems have a lot in common, really.

And there's links to other, related pieces scattered around in there.

One of the several times I was asked to do a talk about why I'm an #opensource enthusiast with a particular fondness for #OpenBSD, I wrote "Recent and not so recent changes in OpenBSD that make life better (and may turn up elsewhere too)" https://nxdomain.no/~peter/recent-and-not-so-recent_changes_in_openbsd_that_make_life_better.html in 2021.

Things have happened since, of course, but those things are still developments I remember fondly.

@wfk @gmc @freedosproject

IIRC, current #Linux, #FreeBSD and I think #OpenBSD no longer supports 486 systems. But I did see an article that #NetBSD can still be put on a 486. But I lost the link

With that said, if I had that system, I would probably put some form of DOS on it. Maybe some day I will find one :)

MVP (most valuable program) this week:

rsync

#selfhosting #openbsd #unix #linux

After some delay, here it is: https://blog.wollwage.com/2026/20260220-daily-source-reading-scheduler.html

This time we are reading the scheduler.

#OpenBSD

If you are in tech or interested and have not yet been to a regional #BSD conference, I would recommend you consider going to one.

A short description of the three major ones can be found in my recent piece "What is BSD? Come to a conference to find out!" https://nxdomain.no/~peter/what_is_bsd_come_to_a_conference_to_find_out.html (G-tracked https://bsdly.blogspot.com/2025/11/what-is-bsd-come-to-conference-to-find.html). Fun fact: I'll be at all three this year

#openbsd #netbsd #freebsd #asiabsdcon #bsdcan #eurobsdcon @bsdcan @EuroBSDCon

So, my X1 Carbon with #OpenBSD died. BIOS is not detecting the SSD slot anymore, and that's the one that had my not-yet-pushed-to-git blog publishing code.

The scheduler post is ready, but I will need to extract the code from the SSD first.

That is entirely my fault for not immediately pushing it. The dreaded "I will do it tomorrow".

I could just rewrite it but it's the weekend and I can't be arsed :D

@TomAoki Aware of that. But the ULE scheduler also clocks in at 3000+ lines. Takes more than 1 post.

That's why I am starting with the #OpenBSD scheduler. With the basics explained, I can make a shorter post for ULE and write about the differences.

OpenBSD wasn't able to run snac stable on this machine, it crashed after a few requests with "illegal instruction".

#snac #snac2 #fediverse #activitypub #NetBSD #OpenBSD #retrocomputing #retroserver #retrohardware #pentiumii #pentium2 #oldhardware

Alt...

Open 19" 90's rack Case with a green motherboard in it and old grey ribbon cables connected to a dvd drive and a ssd. there are two addon cards in the pci slots and two slot 1 pentium ii cpus with fans installed. The 4:3 screen shows a fastfetch output giving stats of the machine , an htop screen with two cpu usage graphs and snac log

Alt...

green motherboard with two pentium ii slot 1 cpus

"This Week in Plasma" brings the news that...

Plasma 6.6 is here (duh!), we fixed those widgets the new release broke 😬, we made the close buttons on the "Thumbnails" task switcher more legible, and the “Terminate this frozen window” dialog got a spinner, among many more tasty things.

https://blogs.kde.org/2026/02/21/this-week-in-plasma-6.6-is-here/

#Plasma6 #FreeSoftware #OpenSource #desktop #linux #FreeBSD #OpenBSD

Alt...

This animation shows the user trying to terminate a frozen application and how a spinner appears while Plasma tries to close it.

Alt...

The image shows Plasma showing the Thumbnails task switcher and how the close button on the active app is more prominent than in prior versions.

Mainboard: Micronics Spitfire
CPU: Pentium II 233 MHz
Graphics card: S3 Trio64
Network card: RTL8139

#86box #retrohardware #retrocomputing #oldhardware #emulation #snac #snac2 #netbsd #openbsd

Alt...

86Box window showing the mainboard select screen, micronics spitfire and pentium ii 233 mhz is selected

Alt...

86Box screen / graphics settings window, S3 Trio 64 is selected as graphics card

Alt...

86box network settings window, rtl8139 is selected

#OpenBSD
Updated the article about bsd.rd.
Added a section on the crunched binary.
👉 https://www.openbsdjumpstart.org/bsd.rd

Alt...

The Crunched Binary

Reading the #OpenBSD scheduler was surprisingly ice for such a crucial kernel component. Need to polish up some things but blog post is almost there.

I need to figure out a way to give a similar attention to the #FreeBSD code.

Question: ok if I skip a lot of the preprocessor ifdefs and concentrate on the major parts only?

The people have spoken. Memory management is up next for Sunday.

For now I have worked on the #OpenBSD scheduler. That will release this Saturday

@kaveman

Please use the link in this toot to directly access the source repository

https://ioc.exchange/@Radio_Azureus/116103250251003244

#BSD #netBSD #Linux #openBSD #freeBSD #ghostBSD #OpenSource #userland #uitilities #programming #technology #reading

@kaveman
That's an odd error message to have.
Usually we get that with YouTube
Which continent are you in?

#BSD #netBSD #Linux #openBSD #freeBSD #ghostBSD #OpenSource #userland #uitilities #programming #technology #reading

Wonderful BSD news

Netbase shall bring netBSD userland utilities to Linux.

Version v0.1 is released by introducing a new endeavor to port netBSD userland utilities to Linux with minimal source changes

Quote

The first release already includes a substantial set of core utilities, including

cat, echo, ln, mv, pwd, rm, rmdir, sleep, chmod, sync, date, mkdir, test, chown, basename, env, dirname, id, tee, yes, head, printf, wc, false, true, whoami, uniq, nice, tty, grep, domainname, hostname, ksh

The potential benefits are practical Developers working across BSD and Linux may prefer consistent tool behavior in both environments Security researchers and systems engineers may want to test or standardize on BSD utilities without switching operating systems.

It may also appeal to users who prefer BSD-style implementations over GNU ones for philosophical or technical reasons.

Z

Read more about this subject in the provided link

https://linuxiac.com/netbase-brings-netbsd-userland-utilities-to-linux/

#BSD #netBSD #Linux #openBSD #freeBSD #ghostBSD #OpenSource #userland #uitilities #programming #technology #reading

Each #OpenBSD virtual machine hosting #Git repositories on the #GameOfTrees Hub is configured by editing the gotsys.conf configuration file.

We run a live demo which shows configuration examples to help new users with getting started: https://demo.gothub.org/

Whoa! I just got my first contribution to the #OpenBSD #src tree committed. Feels good!

https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-cvs&m=177145637104592&w=2

Small maintenance release of Exosphere, my patch reporting program for remote UNIX systems.

A single minor fix to json reports, but also a ton of small improvements to the documentation.

If you'd like to have a neat CLI and pretty TUI to manage updates on a bunch of unix-like systems over SSH, do check it out

https://github.com/mrdaemon/exosphere/releases/tag/v2.3.0

#exosphere #linux #unix #openbsd #freebsd #homelab #SRE #python

Exosphere:

― aggregated patch and security update reporting
― basic system status across multiple Unix-like hosts via SSH

<https://exosphere.readthedocs.io/> | <https://github.com/mrdaemon/exosphere>

<https://untrusted.website/@mr_daemon/114980024541462116> @mr_daemon

<https://mastodon.social/@terminaltrove/114977286773333343> @terminaltrove

#Unix #Linux #BSD #FreeBSD #OpenBSD #Debian #Ubuntu #RedHat #macOS #Windows #SSH

Alt...

A frame from the animated demo at the Welcome page.

powered by @gothub@exquisite.social

gothub feels so right:

• sign up via ssh bot
• configure your server by pushing to gotsys repository (brilliant idea!)
• and you can serve your static sites with custom domain names

Log4Shell

TIL about the breakdown of the Log4Shell shared library.

• Date of occurence
• 24 November 2K21
• location of programmer at home with his son logging into minecraft (which failed)
• this vulnerability had existed unnoticed since 2013
• it was privately disclosed to the Apache Software Foundation { Log4j is a project}
• discloser: Chen Zhaojun of Alibaba Cloud's infosec team
• date 24 November 2021
• exploit severety MAXIMUM
• It's simple to execute
• estimation of affect ration of 50% of the internet (many hundreds of millions of devices)
• vulnerability abuses Log4j allowing requests to arbitrary LDAP and JNDI servers
• that allows attackers to
• execute arbitrary Java code on server / client
• leak sensitive data

Innerworkings

• Log4j
• open-source logging framework
• enables programmers to log data within their applications
• can include user input
• is used ubiquitously in Java programs especially enterprise software
• Originally written in 2001 by Ceki Gülcü
• part of Apache Logging Services
• project of the Apache Software Foundation### Tom Kellermann, a member of President Obama's Commission on Cyber Security
• Apache is "one of the giant supports of a bridge which facilitates the connective tissue between the worlds of applications and computer environments

Affected commercial services

• Amazon Web Services {AWS}
• Cloudflare
• iCloud {Apple infrastructure}
• Minecraft: {Java}
• Steam {multi platform gaming}
• Tencent QQ### Wiz and EY sate that the vulnerability affected 93% of enterprise cloud environments

The Log4Shell vulnerability's disclosure received strong reactions from cybersecurity experts.

Cybersecurity company Tenable stated

• exploit is "the single biggest, most critical vulnerability ever## Ars Technica
• arguably the most severe vulnerability ever

Quote
Log4j is foundational software. This 20+ year-old Java logging library quietly powers system events in applications worldwide, like user logins and calculation results. But this small piece of software had quietly become a dependency in thousands of projects across the Java ecosystem.

Opinion & reaction

• I'm blown away by the events leading to the tornadoes & typhoons that followed shortly after in the OpenSource programming World
• Fifty percent of software was affected with 93% of enterprise software sub section
• Log4Shell is a critical infrastructure level shared library
• nearly everyone using java depends on it's functional I/O

Analysis

• why do most Open Source software users only contact programmers when bugs are detected?
• why do they (almost) never get compliments when it goes well?
• programmers burn out after a while and leave projects abandoned
• when you were a kid, your mom / dad / family complimented you on good results
• programmers need the same
• otherwise they will leave the projects

Open Source programming is a thankless job

• Zero cash influx
• no thank you's
• complaints even when software has long matured to stable levels
• entitled users
• threats to be Doxxed or worse

Be nice to Open Source programmers

• If you have following contact here on the Fediverse with one say thank you
• don't expect replies (esp when hundreds to thousands of followers are indicated)
• realize you either can't code programs of that caliber or don't want to invest the time
• I am lucky to have conversational contact ont the FediVerse with critical infrastructure programmers
• I always say thank you, because I know how hard it is to write software of that magnitude
• when I review their software, I am critical, but formulate my words and sentences in a manner I would want to read them if places were switched
• I am thankful first, thus send them Universal Love and Universal Energy
• My toot history stand for these statements (on my other Fediverse accounts)

Don't be a dick!

Be nice to programmers

Give them Love

Z

#Log4Shell #TIL #programming #data #Java #exploit #ZeroDay #technology #Enterprise #networking #OpenSource #POSIX #BSD #freeBSD #ghostBSD #openBSD #Linux #win64 #mac #history #reading

Sources:

https://github.blog/open-source/inside-the-breach-that-broke-the-internet-the-untold-story-of-log4shell/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log4Shell

My interaction with the wonderful program curl is typical of my interaction with all Open Source programs which I use.

• I first type in the command after which I sent a CR LF {carriage return line feed}. I watch the output
• I type curl --help
• I type man curl

A swiss army knife for downloading has extensive manpages

• Im referred to man libcurl(3) {in MX Linux}
• I type man libcurl
• BecauseI did not install libcurl-devel on this small installation the manpage for libcurl(3) is not local
• I read the manpage (online)
• I distill what I need from curl and implement it

I know the basics of curl for my own use

• this method can be used with all commands
• it's a logical and systematic method
• it will work until the end of Terra

Z

#curl #get #programming #technology #fetch #networking #https #http #ftp #OpenSource #POSIX #BSD #freeBSD #ghostBSD #openBSD #Linux #win64 #mac

@gumnos

Here's part of the bug.

https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/blob/main/usr.bin/grep/file.c#L210

There's no handling of EOF if it occurs as the very first read() of the file.

A zero-length regular file and /dev/null will also result in two read()s returning 0 before grep then exits.

This code was introduced in commit 3ed1008b891eb34df96a6ae4f87e5a3270be759c in 2010.

#OpenBSD's version of this code is older and uses the normal C stdio library routines and getline(3) rather than rolling its own layer over read().

#FreeBSD #grep

The Game of Trees Hub is now hosting an #OpenBSD #Git repository mirror:

https://openbsd.gothub.org

The repositories available on our mirror contain the same data as already available at the openbsd accounts on Codeberg and Github but we do not rely on these other sites for updates. Repository updates are regularly being pushed to us directly from Canada.

[Computer history] Yes: "it's time for the next episode of the #OpenBSD on sgi story."!
If you don't know what it is about, the title of this episode is "OpenBSD on SGI, 3/6: The blowfish awakens".
The author is @miodvallat who masters the subject.
The previous part is on the Web page.
And the URL of this Web page is: http://miod.online.fr/software/openbsd/stories/sgi3.html
So, happy reading!
NB: those parts are a good #format to have a whole story each monday :-)

@mikrotik @fdroidorg morning. #alpinelinux #openbsd and #netbsd. It works as expected on #voidlinux glibc version. Will try again on musl when I get home on Saturday.

As for native version, phone app or Flatpak... ideally the first, will use the second and Flatpak only if there is no other choice.

#gameoftrees #openbsd

bsd.rd breakdown https://www.undeadly.org/cgi?action=article;sid=20260218061632 #openbsd #bsd.rd #ramdisk #installer #deepdive #opensource #libresoftware #freesoftware #development #booting

Desktop streaming on #OpenBSD using VAAPI is quite performant. I've recorded myself playing Northgard in 1440p, using fauxstream. The hardware encoding quality on this generation of Radeon GPUs (RX 6700 XT in my case) is known to be of poor quality, so there is noticeable loss of detail when panning over the map, but it seems to be quite smooth otherwise and audio/video stay in sync.

https://spectra.video/w/1smqEby9CkshEQWAthSty9

https://github.com/rfht/fauxstream

#PlayOnBSD

Yesterday we looked at the #OpenBSD kernel main function. So today, it's #FreeBSD time!

https://blog.wollwage.com/2026/20260218-daily-source-reading-kernel-main-freebsd.html

#FreeBSD #blogpost #source

KDE Plasma 6.6 released today, and the OpenBSD port is already up to date. Same-day update! Just wait for the packages and enjoy! 🐡 #OpenBSD #KDE #Plasma6

https://kde.org/announcements/plasma/6/6.6.0/

Good news about our financial situation: The Game of Trees Hub (https://gothub.org) is no longer operating at a loss

With two business subscriptions booked yesterday (from Ireland ) we are now making more money than we are spending.

Our average monthly expenses are currently 393€. We are now receiving 243€ monthly from active subscribers. Additionally, we are currently receiving 220€ per month from generous people who support us on https://opencollective.org/gothub

Ever since we started renting servers back in May 2025 our funds had been slowly depleting because the monthly bills from hosting providers exceeded our monthly income. Fortunately, we could sustain this situation for a while because of a reserve built up from generous contributions on Open Collective since June 2024. We are very grateful to all of you who are helping to make our project possible.

#Git #Hosting #OpenBSD #GameOfTrees