FreeBSD Quarterly Status Report 4th Quarter 2021
This report covers FreeBSD related projects for the period between October and
December. It is the fourth of four planned reports for 2021, and contains 19
entries. Highlights include faster boot times, more LLDB work, a base OpenSSH
update, and more wireless development.
Yours,
Pau Amma, Daniel Ebdrup, John-Mark Gurney, and Joe Mingrone
━━━
Table of Contents
• FreeBSD Team Reports
□ FreeBSD Foundation
□ Ports Collection
□ Documentation Engineering Team
□ FreeBSD Website Revamp - WebApps working group
• Projects
□ Enable ASLR by default for 64-bit executables
□ Boot Performance Improvements
□ LLDB Debugger Improvements
□ NXP LS1028A/1027A SoC support
□ sched_getcpu(2), membarrier(2), and rseq(2) syscalls
□ Base System OpenSSH Update
□ VDSO on amd64
• Kernel
□ The AVX bug on amd64
□ ENA FreeBSD Driver Update
□ Intel Wireless driver support
□ Kernel Crypto changes to support WireGuard
• Ports
□ KDE on FreeBSD
□ FreeBSD Office Team
• Third-Party Projects
□ helloSystem
□ Containers & FreeBSD: Pot, Potluck & Potman
━━━
FreeBSD Team Reports
Entries from the various official and semi-official teams, as found in the
Administration Page.
FreeBSD Foundation
Links:
FreeBSD Foundation URL: https://www.FreeBSDFoundation.org
Technology Roadmap URL: https://FreeBSDFoundation.org/blog/technology-roadmap/
Donate URL: https://www.FreeBSDFoundation.org/donate/
Foundation Partnership Program URL: https://www.FreeBSDFoundation.org/
FreeBSD-foundation-partnership-program
FreeBSD Journal URL: https://www.FreeBSDFoundation.org/journal/
Foundation News and Events URL: https://www.FreeBSDFoundation.org/
news-and-events/
Contact: Deb Goodkin
The FreeBSD Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to
supporting and promoting the FreeBSD Project and community worldwide. Donations
from individuals and corporations are used to fund and manage software
development projects, conferences, and developer summits. We also provide
travel grants to FreeBSD contributors, purchase and support hardware to improve
and maintain FreeBSD infrastructure, and provide resources to improve security,
quality assurance, and release engineering efforts. We publish marketing
material to promote, educate, and advocate for the FreeBSD Project, facilitate
collaboration between commercial vendors and FreeBSD developers, and finally,
represent the FreeBSD Project in executing contracts, license agreements, and
other legal arrangements that require a recognized legal entity.
Here are some highlights of what we did to help FreeBSD last quarter:
Fundraising Efforts
We did it! We met our 2021 fundraising goal by raising $1,281,437!! On behalf
of the Foundation, I want to thank you for your financial support last year,
that will help us continue and increase our support for FreeBSD in 2022. In
addition, folks are already sending us their 2022 contributions, which is
incredibly heartwarming! We’ll start updating the fundraising meter for 2022 by
the end of January.
In this Quarterly Status report you’ll read about many of the areas we funded
in Q4 to improve FreeBSD and advocate for the Project (the two main areas we
spend money on). Check out reports on the externally funded projects like LLDB
support, Raid-Z Expansion, WireGuard, and wifi, as well as, internally
supported work like improved security, tier-1 architecture support, and
providing online opportunities to connect and educate the community.
If you want to help us continue our efforts, please consider making a donation
towards our 2022 fundraising campaign!
https://www.FreeBSDFoundation.org/donate/.
We also have a Partnership Program for larger commercial donors. You can read
about it at https://www.FreeBSDFoundation.org/
FreeBSD-foundation-partnership-program/.
OS Improvements
During the fourth quarter, Foundation staff and grant recipients committed 472
src tree changes, 98 ports tree changes, and 11 doc tree changes. This
represents 41%, 41%, and 13% of src, ports, and doc commits identifying a
sponsor.
You can read about Foundation-sponsored projects in individual quarterly report
entries:
• The AVX bug on amd64
• Crypto changes for WireGurard
• Intel Wireless driver support
• LLDB Debugger Improvements
• Base System OpenSSH Update
• sched_getcpu(2), membarrier(2), and rseq(2) syscalls
• VDSO on amd64
Here is a small sample of other base system improvements from Foundation
developers this quarter that do not have separate report entries.
kern.proc.pathname canonical hard link
Some programs adjust their behavior depending on which name was used for
execution. For these programs, it is often important to have a consistent name
