Re: Please forgive a blatant plug: I reviewed v10 for the Reg

[Michael Huff]

On Thu, Apr 18, 2024 at 3:01 AM Liam Proven  wrote:

> I thought this might interest folks here...
>
> NetBSD 10 proves old tech can still kick apps and take names three decades
> later
>
> Proper old-school Unix, not like those lazy, decadent Linux types
>
> https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/17/30yo_netbsd_releases_v10/
>
> Comments and feedback welcomed!
>
> --
> Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
> Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com
> Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven
> IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884
> Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
>

I saw it on Hacker News ,
enjoyed the discussion on both sites (HN, Register) . Thanks for writing it
up and sharing it!

Re: Running NetBSD as qemu guest on laptop, camouflaging as host

[Michael Huff]

On Wed, Mar 22, 2023 at 3:27 AM Chavdar Ivanov  wrote:

>
> Just xrandr for me.
>
>
I don't use vmware, but for virtualbox I have "vesa 0x160" added to
/boot.cfg to the boot normally line:
menu=Boot normally:vesa 0x160;rndseed /var/db/entropy-file;boot

With that, I don't need to use xrandr and I can have a full-screen console
that uses my whole 1920x1080 monitor -without having to run X. I decided on
that by running "vesa test" from the boot prompt on startup and picking out
the resolution I wanted.

I don't see why the same idea wouldn't work on vmware but I can't try it at
the moment.

Re: Blocking gunk

[Michael Huff]

I visited and didn't get that message. I'm using ublock origin on firefox.
This is on windows 11, but ublock is ublock and ought to work just the same
on NetBSD.

On Tue, Oct 18, 2022 at 9:20 PM Todd Gruhn  wrote:

> SOO, go to kitco.com
>
> Pops up :   "you're using an Ad Block"  .
>
> How do I block this?
>

Re: Configuring a FireFox build with pkgtools

[Michael Huff]

Have you tried using about:preferences to change the font? You might 
also check to see what (if any) theme you're using on windows -as well 
as plug-ins.


Some things can be changed pretty easily such as showing the bookmark 
toolbar by default. Other things may depend on the window manager you're 
using in X.


While I'm not sure what you exactly have in mind; I think most of the 
cosmetic issues can be fixed in other ways (preferences, themes, 
plugins) instead of recompiling.


On 2/2/2022 10:01 AM, Todd Gruhn wrote:

I dont care for the look-n-feel of FFox.

It there a way to make FFox look and feel more like the
binary I am running on Windoze?  Set certain pkgsrc vars ?

Re: Confused about setting up MATE desktop

[Michael Huff]

That's a tremendous help -thank you so much!

On 7/19/2021 5:51 PM, Jay Patel wrote:

Check https://pkgsrc.se/audio/aiomixer

Have fam and dbus installed for rc.conf :



echo dbus=YES >> /etc/rc.conf

echo famd=YES >> /etc/rc.conf

echo rpcbind=YES >> /etc/rc.conf

echo ipv6addrctl_policy=ipv4_prefer >> /etc/rc.conf

echo ipv6addrctl=YES >> /etc/rc.conf



Scripts to copy :

cp /usr/pkg/share/examples/rc.d/famd /etc/rc.d/

cp /usr/pkg/share/examples/rc.d/dbus /etc/rc.d/

On Tue, 20 Jul 2021 at 7:19 am Michael Huff wrote:

Hi

I'm building MATE from pkgsrc 2021Q2 in a VirtualBox machine
(amd64) and so far so good. However, I realize that I'm probably
missing a lot of steps and I'm not having great luck finding out
what all I need to build, enable or add to rc.conf. Dbus is an
obvious one, but after that I have no idea.

Can anyone fill me in on what configuration steps I need to take
after building and installing meta-pkgs/mate?

Additionally, I'm not able to find a mixer app or applet to adjust
the sound volume from the desktop (or even cli) -it looks like
one's not included? What should I build and install ?

Thanks!

Re: Confused about setting up MATE desktop

[Michael Huff]

Hi!


On 7/19/2021 10:11 PM, Chavdar Ivanov wrote:

On Tue, 20 Jul 2021 at 00:23, Michael Huff  wrote:

Hi

I'm building MATE from pkgsrc 2021Q2 in a VirtualBox machine (amd64) and
so far so good. However, I realize that I'm probably missing a lot of
steps and I'm not having great luck finding out what all I need to
build, enable or add to rc.conf. Dbus is an obvious one, but after that
I have no idea.

Besides dbus, I have also hal and avahidaemon


I couldn't find hal before, but it's right there in sysutils/hal -not 
sure about avahidaemon -is that net/avahi?





( sshd mdnsd httpd wscons rpcbind mountd nfs_client nfs_server lockd statd
ntpdate dbus mpd hal avahidaemon autofs cupsd cups_browsed) all have
=YES in my rc.conf. Obviously most of them are not related to mate.


TY! It's a good list to work from; I'll just add things one at a time 
until everything acts reasonable. :)




Can anyone fill me in on what configuration steps I need to take after
building and installing meta-pkgs/mate?

I don't recall anything special building it. Under VirtualBox, I start
it with .xinitrc:

#!/bin/sh
export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/tmp/runtime-${LOGNAME}
test -d $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR ||
 install -d -m 700 -o $(id -u) -g $(id -g) $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR

if [ -x /usr/pkg/bin/dbus-launch -a -z "${DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS}" ];
theneval $(dbus-launch --sh-syntax --exit-with-session)
fi
/usr/local/bin/additions/VBoxClient --clipboard
/usr/X11R7/bin/xrandr --output VGA-0 --mode 1920x1080
export XCURSOR_PATH=/usr/pkg/share/icons
exec mate-session


(I keep my locally built copy of the VirtualBox client utilities in
/usr/local/bin/additions; I rebuild the additions with every new
VirtualBox version release and with every new -current version - I
only run -current).


Sorry I wasn't clear -but you answered what I meant. I meant what 
packages to look for and what to add to /etc/rc.conf mostly.




Additionally, I'm not able to find a mixer app or applet to adjust the
sound volume from the desktop (or even cli) -it looks like one's not
included? What should I build and install ?

I can add the Volume Control Applet to the toolbar, it works for me.
In the past audio playback frm NetBSD VirtualBox guest used to be
choppy, but now it seems to work very well (the host is Windows 11 +
the latest VirtualBox development build).

I see at the moment that marco is crashing though, so I had to start
openbox in order to have any window manager running... I'll have to
investigate this, but I am getting:

kvm_open: /dev/kmem: Permission denied
LibGTop-Server: kvm_open: Permission denied
glibtop: read 8 byte: No such file or directory
...

and marco exits.


I recall sound working in NetBSD 7 or so. I'm not sure if the problem 
I'm having is a misconfiguration on my part, changes in VirtualBox, 
changes in NetBSD or all of the above.




Thanks!



I rarely run mate; I found meta-pkgs/lxqt to be quite well-behaved and
is what I normally run these days. I also have gnome40 (does not run
under VirtualBox at all, but I can run it on bare metal on my laptop
with Intel graphics acceleration), kde4+kf5 (also works well).

Chavdar


I remember playing with lxqt on Linux a few years back before settling 
on mate -this may sound weird, but I think for an alternate I'll go for 
a WM (instead of a desktop); specifically icewm or the latest fvwm.


-Michael

Confused about setting up MATE desktop

[Michael Huff]

Hi

I'm building MATE from pkgsrc 2021Q2 in a VirtualBox machine (amd64) and 
so far so good. However, I realize that I'm probably missing a lot of 
steps and I'm not having great luck finding out what all I need to 
build, enable or add to rc.conf. Dbus is an obvious one, but after that 
I have no idea.


Can anyone fill me in on what configuration steps I need to take after 
building and installing meta-pkgs/mate?


Additionally, I'm not able to find a mixer app or applet to adjust the 
sound volume from the desktop (or even cli) -it looks like one's not 
included? What should I build and install ?


Thanks!

Re: Large size console font possible?

[Michael Huff]

On 11/8/2020 11:16 AM, Michael Huff wrote:


I'm going to try building a kernel for my laptop following your advice 
and see if that helps.




Did it, works great. Prettier font, and more importantly -I can read it!

Again, much obliged.

Re: Large size console font possible?

[Michael Huff]

On 11/8/2020 11:28 AM, Ottavio Caruso wrote:

On 08/11/2020 20:21, Michael Huff wrote:
Nope. After reading your mail, I tried setting it to "vesa=off" and 
that didn't seem to make any difference.




Just remove "vesa=on". It should force boot into 80x25.


There wasn't a vesa entry in boot.cfg until I added it (rather, until I 
added "vesa=off").


OT:Apologies for my earlier top posting

Re: Large size console font possible?

[Michael Huff]

Nope. After reading your mail, I tried setting it to "vesa=off" and that 
didn't seem to make any difference.



On 11/8/2020 11:13 AM, Ottavio Caruso wrote:

On 08/11/2020 20:01, Michael Huff wrote:

Hi

I'm using NetBSD 9.1-amd64.

On a laptop with an intel card. During boot the font resizes into 
something really tiny and barely readable -which gives me intense 
eyestrain really quickly, and makes console troubleshooting a problem.


Is there a way to

a)Prevent NetBSD from switching to a small font

b)ideally select a large size font for NetBSD to use on the console 
(meaning: not in X)


Any chance you have "vesa on" in /boot.cfg ?

Re: Large size console font possible?

[Michael Huff]

wsfontload! Yes, I've played with that, I think. It only works on the 
terminal you're on, but it's better than nothing.


I'm going to try building a kernel for my laptop following your advice 
and see if that helps.


Much obliged!

On 11/8/2020 11:06 AM, Benny Siegert wrote:



On Sun, 8 Nov 2020, Michael Huff wrote:

On a laptop with an intel card. During boot the font resizes into 
something really tiny and barely readable -which gives me intense 
eyestrain really quickly, and makes console troubleshooting a problem.


The console font is determined by the fonts which are compiled into 
the kernel. By default, there is a font called BOLD8x16 and a 
pixel-doubled version.


What I do is to create a new kernel config with "option 
FONT_SPLEEN16x32", build a kernel and run that.


There is also a way to select a different font (including a different 
size) at runtime (using wsfontload, I believe) but I have not played 
with that.

Large size console font possible?

[Michael Huff]

Hi

I'm using NetBSD 9.1-amd64.

On a laptop with an intel card. During boot the font resizes into 
something really tiny and barely readable -which gives me intense 
eyestrain really quickly, and makes console troubleshooting a problem.


Is there a way to

a)Prevent NetBSD from switching to a small font

b)ideally select a large size font for NetBSD to use on the console 
(meaning: not in X)


Btw I want to set this for all ttys, not just for /dev/console. If I 
remember correctly, you can set this using stty, but only for that 
terminal. That's not what I want.


Thank you for your help.

Re: Where to find netbsd 0.8 and 0.9?

[Michael Huff]

I think that there's articles on virtuallyfun.com about 0.8 and 0.9.

I'd go there and look through the tags and see what turns up.

On 5/15/2020 12:31 AM, ignat...@cs.uni-bonn.de wrote:

On Tue, May 12, 2020 at 02:42:47AM +0600, Никита Степанов wrote...
nothing! The subject line suggests, however, a desire to learn the
whereabouts of NetBSD-0.8 and -0.9.

If I'm not mistaken, those binary releases aren't publicly available
anymore. The first binary release base on 4.4BSD-lite is NetBSD-1.0;
public sources of 0.8 and 0.9 are not buildable anymore. You might
be able to build most of it by installing binary 1.0 and compiling
the cvs checkout; modern compilers won't accept that.

(See https://cdn.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/misc/release/misc/USL-lawsuit
for the background.)

Incidentally, the first release supporting files > 2 GB in size is
1.0, too (64bit off_t).

Regards,
-is

Re: ZFS Howto first cut

[Michael Huff]

I think it would be good to explain how to set it up on NetBSD -at least 
for x64 and x86.


Specifically; tell people to put zfs=YES in rc.conf, then give 
instructions on how to create some pools, and then point to the oracle 
docs for more on zfs.


Although it might be better to point to zfsonlinux's documentation, or 
even freebsd -instead of Oracle.



On 3/1/2020 7:32 AM, Greg Troxel wrote:

http://wiki.netbsd.org/zfs/

This is really rough, and I freely admit that I don't understand all the
details.  Part of the point was to understand things better for myself,
and part of it is to provoke others into saying what's wrong with it :-)

Please feel free to email me or reply on-list with suggestions, fixes,
or things that ought to be explained that aren't.  (And feel free to
just fix it, for those that can write.  I'm at a stopping point.)

Re: NetBSD ZFS compatibility with other OSs

[Michael Huff]

I haven't tested it extensively, but I'm able to load zpools I created 
in NetBSD on Debian 10 and on Centos 8.


On 2/24/2020 10:16 AM, Rocky Hotas wrote:

Hi all!
ZFS is one of the major updates in NetBSD 9.0. As far as I understood,
it is an implementation of OpenZFS, as Linux and FreeBSD already have
done. Also MacOS should use ZFS.

Is a ZFS filesystem created inside NetBSD 9.0 compatible with these OSs?
At least NetBSD, FreeBSD and Linux used code from the OpenZFS project.

In a simple example, assume that I created a pool with NetBSD 9.0. Am I
able to export it, and to import it on FreeBSD and/or Linux, obviously
without data loss? And what about re-importing it on NetBSD?

Bye!

Rocky

Re: NetBSD 9.0 & MBR, X, etc

[Michael Huff]

On 2/19/2020 9:51 PM, Clay Daniels wrote:

On Wed, 19 Feb 2020, Clay Daniels wrote:>
I have found that the only way it works for me is to use MBR. not 
GPT. Anyone have any luck with a GPT installation?


To answer my own question, it makes sense to run NetBSD on MBR as 
NetBSD's default partiton manager is apparently  fdisk, and I don't 
see gpart offered.


Anyway, I have an up and running install of NetBSD on a M2 ssd, using 
the whole drive. I have a spinning disk drive that runs Windows 10 & 
Freebsd dual-boot using Rod Smith's refind boot manager. This works 
ok, but refind does not pick up the mbr drive, as it's strictly uefi. 
Oh well, it works for me to boot the ssd with NetBSD by monkeying with 
the bios boot order.


So I'm sitting here writing this email from my NetBSD install. I don't 
have X installed yet, but I can ssh into my email server and use good 
old Alpine from the console.


I have experimented with setting up X, but have not been successful 
yet. Simply running startx did not bring up the TWM window manager. 
The instructions in the NETBSD Guide, Chap. 9. X, give a different 
xinitrc than the one I find pre-installed in /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc. I 
backed up, re-installed NetBSD  and I'm going to do more research. The 
nice thing for me is I have an extra old computer right next to this 
newer one that lets me look up info.


All in all, I'm having fun with this new NetBSD 9.0.


I have an old pc with a 2.7tb disk and a 1tb secondary disk; like you I 
swapped the bios boot order to get around some hassles I had. I have the 
1tb set to mbr and I'm using the 2.7tb one as a zfs pool.


I have a laptop I've divided the hd into two parts; a 25gb netbsd area 
and the rest is a zfs pool. I think I just chose mbr for that one, but I 
don't specifically remember.


Startx just works for me, sorry I can't help there.

I haven't run NetBSD on bare metal in ages -I'm having fun too, and I 
haven't even gotten to the goodies (nvmm) yet!

Re: NetBSD ZFS basics?

[Michael Huff]

When I wrote "netbsd specific" I mostly meant what to put in rc.conf. I 
wasn't able to figure that one out on my own. I had made some guesses on 
my own (based on what I found through google) but once I put in 
"zfs=YES" in rc.conf, my pools 'magically' appeared.


Thank you!


On 2/17/2020 1:37 AM, Chavdar Ivanov wrote:

On Mon, 17 Feb 2020 at 10:17, Michael Huff  wrote:

Hi

I'm playing with netbsd on virtualbox. Because NetBSD can't boot from
ZFS (for now) I have two disks; a small one for the system and a larger
one to put zfs and other things on.

I've figured out how to create and destroy pools and datasets; but I
haven't been able to figure out how to keep the mounts (datasets?)
between boots.

zfs=YES in rc.conf ?

I use it every day and have nothing else.


I've googled and most of the things I've read haven't really seemed to
apply, and seem to be from several years ago to boot.


Is there any tutorials or netbsd-specific pages I can read to get
started with?

I don't think there is a lot of ZFS NetBSD specific out there. I do
not have at present a decent setup to test ZFS the way it usually is
used in large storage appiances with many disks, vdevs and pools; I
have just one 32GB MSata device used for file systems and a 250GB disk
used for zvols, the latter either shared via iSCSI or used directly by
NVMM virtual machines. I do use occasionaly snapshots and have tested
send/receive, but that's all.



Thank you for your time

NetBSD ZFS basics?

[Michael Huff]

Hi

I'm playing with netbsd on virtualbox. Because NetBSD can't boot from 
ZFS (for now) I have two disks; a small one for the system and a larger 
one to put zfs and other things on.


I've figured out how to create and destroy pools and datasets; but I 
haven't been able to figure out how to keep the mounts (datasets?) 
between boots.


I've googled and most of the things I've read haven't really seemed to 
apply, and seem to be from several years ago to boot.



Is there any tutorials or netbsd-specific pages I can read to get 
started with?


Thank you for your time

Re: Can I use NetBSD as a desktop system?

[Michael Huff]

Any desk that has problems holding up a toaster[1] is a pretty poor desk 
indeed...


[1]https://www.embeddedarm.com/blog/netbsd-toaster-powered-by-the-ts-7200-arm9-sbc/
On 07/17/2017 10:45 AM, Edgar Pettijohn wrote:

Depends on the desk.

Sent from BlueMail 
On Jul 17, 2017, at 1:31 PM, SOUL_OF_ROOT 55 > wrote:



Can I use NetBSD as a desktop system?