My favourite experience regarding Wii homebrew so far has to be NetBSD. I wanted to use my Wii as a computer for a while now, and NetBSD being available as an operating system you can install and get going on an SD card and a Wii with the HBC is definitely the highlights of my Wii homebrew experience. I don't use my Wii much at the moment, as I don't even have a monitor I can use for my Wii yet, but I have used it for a while on a TV and it was nice.

Networking is a bit hard, at least on the Wii however. I tried to get WiFi included in as a Wii image of NetBSD to burn, this was during my time on FreeBSD, and I just couldn't compile it. I was doing something weird where I would alternate between GCC and clang but that would have been a waste of time once it got to booting.

Other than that, it was nice writing a fetch program entirely written in C using vi and man pages to get by. It was a nice break from writing things without an LSP to help, although I still love using modern features many editors provide, obviously excluding AI, so I will stick with that. I also found that Lua existed on it which definitely helped whenever I didn't want to write C.

First *BSD post in a while, as I forgot to talk about the time I used NetBSD. I'll probably talk about Linux more at some point but I wanted to talk about *BSD a little again. Try NetBSD if you get the chance!

#netbsd #homebrew #wii #tech #computers #programming

Just another honest weekend's work keeping an up-to-date browser working... On the other hand, the most trackable user agent in the world. #netbsd #sparc64 #palemoon

Alt...

Pale Moon 33.89.1 rendering a duckduckgo search for "user agent" on NetBSD/sparc64. sysctl output shows that the machine is a Blade 100 with an UltraSPARC-IIe at 550MHz.

@golemwire

> Nice. (Two batteries? What kind of computer is it?)

It's a #thinkpad X260. They went from external-only batteries, to hybrid internal/external, to now internal-only batteries. I have one of each: x200, x260, x390, respecively. XD

> Cool to hear. I always heard that #Wayland was architected in a Linux-specific way (though I don't know how that could be, for a window protocol).

It was, sadly. #FreeBSD is the most linux-ish of the three major BSDs, so it got wayland support first. I think it's experimental on #OpenBSD, and not yet working on #NetBSD, last I heard.

Folks who say stuff like, "Hey, why doesn't NetBSD have Wayland working yet???" really frustrate the crap out of me. It's a teensy project with an annual budget of like $50k. It's not your mega kernel that's funded by the pocket money of trillion dollar gigacorps, shut up.

> I'd imagine most graphical BSD software is designed for X11. Did you have to compile e.g. foot from source? ;)

No, foot's a package. Just install and go. ;)
(At least on FreeBSD. I haven't tried Wayland on OpenBSD yet)

Finally! I'm exhausted all RAM on my homelab server, trying to install some python 3.13 things via pip, which involved compilation of some C++ things from sources

At least, I'm checked that kernel successfully kills some random processes, when it got OOM. Was very surprised, when I received some notifications on my phone about dead PostgreSQL, sshd and main nginx, lol

Still has no money to install the maximal amount of memory to my home server — 4 Gb (max for Intel Atom N2800 1866 MHz)

#homelab #NetBSD #OOM

Alt...

Part of dmesg from my NetBSD box with some messages about OOM-killed programs: Veriexec: Mismatch. [/home/dragdn/bin/smarthome.sh] UVM: pid 8485.8485 (sshd), uid © killed: out of swap UVM: pid 18496.18496 (cclplus), uid 1001 killed: out of swap UVM: pid 17960.17960 (cclplus), uid 1001 killed: out of swap Veriexec: Mismatch. [/home/dragdn/bin/smarthome.sh] Veriexec: Mismatch. [/home/dragdn/bin/smarthome.sh] UVM: pid 2137.2137 (nginx), uid © killed: out of swap UVM: pid 8777.8777 (ccl), uid 1001 killed: out of swap

Someday it will be interesting to look at the minimum requirements for the RISCV version of #NetBSD — maybe it will fit into Tangnano20k #fpga?🤪

I wonder how many other #NetBSD devs got this spam?

Hello Stephen,

Many companies are using AI to reduce routine work and accelerate decision-making.

Is NetBSD planning to implement AI initiatives this year? We support teams in starting with small pilot projects that demonstrate their value before scaling.

Open to a quick chat?

Best regards,
Andy C
Devsinc

P.S. Simply reply with 'Stop' to opt out.

@uastronomer Possibly I disappoint you, but looks like the same situation with almost every binary package distribution. For example, if I try to install #Qemu to the **headless** server running #NetBSD , just to run some other OSes in the console mode, the dependencies bring to me:

- SDL2 and SDL2_image
- flac, giflib, lame, libjpeg-turbo, libogg, libopus, libvorbis, libwebp, mpg123, tiff — like I'm want to operate with images and audio files, not to launch some virtual machines
- spice-server, while I'm not planning to use it.
- wayland and wayland-protocols -- no comments

As @TomAoki stated one time on my ramblings about the same situation in the #FreeBSD world: "many of opensource audio and/or multimedia apps are developed on any of Linux distros, not on *BSD, thus, to minimize mandated works of porters / maintainers / commiters, depending on what upstream depends by default is the only feasible way not to cause toooo long delay from upstream".

I lost link to his toot on the old account, but I have a screenshot: https://eugene-andrienko.com/assets/static/tomaoki.png

One way to get rid of unnecessary dependencies — build necessary programs by yourself, looks like…

Alt...

drag0n-server# pkgin install qemu pkg_summary.bz2 100% 3935KB 67.8KB/s 00:58 calculating dependencies...done. 36 packages to install: SDL2-2.32.10 SDL2_image-2.6.3nb6 capstone-5.0.6 dtc-1.7.2 fftw-3.3.10nb2 flac-1.5.0nb1 giflib-5.2.2nb1 gmp-6.3.0 hicolor-icon-theme-0.17nb1 jbigkit-2.1nb1 lame-3.100nb7 lerc-4.0.0 libcbor-0.13.0 libepoll-shim-0.0.20240608 libgcrypt-1.11.2 libgpg-error-1.55 libiscsi-1.19.0 libjpeg-turbo-3.1.2 libogg-1.3.6 libopus-1.5.2 libsamplerate-0.2.2nb5 libslirp-4.7.0nb2 libsndfile-1.2.2nb2 libssh-0.111nb2 libtasn1-4.20.0 libusb1-1.0.29 libvorbis-1.3.7 libwebp-1.6.0nb1 libxkbcommon-1.7.0nb6 mpg123-1.33.2 qemu-10.1.0nb1 snappy-1.2.2 spice-server-0.15.2nb1 tiff-4.7.0nb3 wayland-1.23.0nb7 wayland-protocols-1.45 0 to remove, 0 to refresh, 0 to upgrade, 36 to install 107M to download, 898M of additional disk space will be used nroceed ? [Y/n]

I just wanna write silly softwares for #NetBSD and #plan9 that will be used by early 22th century post-apocalyptic survivors.

This is how I originally got into #OpenBSD and one of the reasons I now use it so heavily (aside from the security & best-practices focus.)

In the late 90's, I had installed #NetBSD on a #Macintosh #LCIII. In the late aughts, I had a PowerMac G4 that I wanted to run haproxy on, so tried to install NetBSD. I was struggling with Open Firmware, trying to partition, etc., so I decided to try OpenBSD. It was was easy, painless, and had an haproxy package. Ran it for years.
https://mastodon.bsd.cafe/@jhx/115599420760527062

@jaypatelani

Please tell me you've fixed it. It's been two years, #FreeBSD is about to drop 32-bit ARM, and I've got a bunch of these cute little machines!#netbsd

https://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-arm/2023/09/11/msg008384.html

Alt...

Orange Pi Zero. with ethernet on board

@stsp @nlnet #NetBSD should also apply for funds. :)

@gelatin @wyatt Uhm, are you sure about that? Because I have php on my server and it eats 0.0% of CPU and ≈90 MB memory in use when the corresponding service are not in use

#php #netbsd

Alt...

drag0n-server$ ps -axo %cpu,rss,command | grep '[0-9. ]php' 0.0 1772 php-fpm84: master proces 0.0 8804 php-fpm84: pool rss-brid 0.0 10940 php-fpm84: pool rss-brid 0.0 1508 php-fpm84: pool rss-brid 0.0 10816 php-fpm84: pool rss-brid 0.0 11180 php-fpm84: pool rss-brid 0.0 1512 php-fpm84: pool rss-brid 0.0 11156 php-fpm84: pool rss-brid 0.0 11168 php-fpm84: pool rss-brid 0.0 10640 php-fpm84: pool rss-brid 0.0 10760 php-fpm84: pool rss-brid drag0n-server$ ps -axo %cpu,rss,command | grep '[0-9. ]php' | awk '{ s += $2 } END { print "sum: ", s, " kb" }' sum: 90256 kb

Fosdem 2026 : BSD, illumos OpenZFS & bhyve devroom

Don't forget, you only have a week to submit your talks ! The deadline is the December the1st. ⏰

https://people.freebsd.org/~rodrigo/fosdem26/

#fosdem2026 #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #Illumos #zfs #bhyve

@AnachronistJohn I don't seem to be able to get the wifi adapter to show on the Pi 400. I tried switching to "eMMC2 SDHCI" on the boot settings and making symlinks to 43455 and 43456 but still... nothing. Any ideas?
#netbsd

I'm trying to install #NetBSD on a Raspberry Pi 400. The display gets a signal but doesn't show anything.

Have a great Friday everyone in the #BSD community! 😎 (The weekend is almost upon us!)

...and don't forget:
#RUNBSD

#FreeBSD #OpenBSD #NetBSD

@fedops @selea what's that? #NetBSD, you say? 😆

#DebianRocks

Static Web Hosting on the Intel N150: FreeBSD, SmartOS, NetBSD, OpenBSD and Linux Compared

https://it-notes.dragas.net/2025/11/19/static-web-hosting-intel-n150-freebsd-smartos-netbsd-openbsd-linux/

#ITNotes #freebsd #illumos #jail #linux #netbsd #openbsd #ownyourdata #server #smartos #sysadmin #zoneshosting

📢 NetBSD 11.0 release is imminent!

Release is getting a massive upgrade. Community need your help to ensure it runs smoothly on everything from modern servers to vintage workstations.

✨ What to test:
• Improved RISC-V Support
• ZFS & Kernel stability
• Your favorite pkgsrc tools

🔥 The Challenge: #RunOnAnything. Install the Beta on your most interesting hardware and show us the results!

⬇️ Grab the latest NetBSD 11 binaries here:
https://nycdn.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/netbsd-11/latest

#NetBSD #BSD #OpenSource #Unix #BetaTesting #RetroComputing #RunBSD

@vtrlx BSDs do not have "flatpaks", they typically build from source. Flatpak is packaging medium, whereas BSDs have binary packages and packages built from source (#NetBSD pkgsrc, #FreeBSD ports).

Hey Microsoft Outlook!
I'm running latest Mozilla Firefox ESR, 140.5.0 on NetBSD... that was released a couple of days ago!

I would not call it a legacy browser!

#firefox #netbsd #pkgsrc

Alt...

Microsoft Outlook web page that shows errors like ErrorOwaBasicUnsupportedLegacyBrowser and some SyntaxError due using Firefox on NetBSD (probably they do not known about NetBSD and relies on only known User-Agent:-s).

Setting `general.useragent.override` in `about:config` to `Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:140.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/140.0` (changing from NetBSD to Linux) does the trick.

But it's not nice!

#firefox #netbsd #pkgsrc

RE: https://mastodon.social/@nixCraft/115566280074527897

"Just" 270 MB for...an idle server?
Debian is still a great distribution but let's measure the ram consumption of a freshly installed *BSD or Illumos based server. The numbers are totally different.

#RunBSD #illumos #FreeBSD #OpenBSD #NetBSD #DragonflyBSD

Are you working on something involving a BSD system that you would like to share with others?

The Call for Papers period is open for AsiaBSDCon until November 30th, 2025 and for BSDCan until January 17, 2026.

Check out the websites linked in the article, and get that submission in!

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 or https://bsdly.blogspot.com/2025/11/what-is-bsd-come-to-conference-to-find.html #asiabsdcon #bsdcan #bsd #dragonflyBSD #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #conference

Last week I had a chat with a colleague who is highly specialized in Microsoft solutions. Young but not too young, smart, not very up to date simply because he has little time for anything else. His specialization depends entirely on where he works, not on personal interest. Lately he seemed a bit disillusioned with some choices made by "other operating systems", and he was starting to consider moving his personal projects toward Microsoft as well, since he already had the experience. Still, he said it with boredom. With the attitude of someone who is tired of wasting time.

He had heard of the BSDs but had never tried installing them. He was convinced that there were no decent hypervisors outside the Linux world and that KVM belonged to Linux alone. I had the terrible idea of showing him the BSDs, how great bhyve is, and how nvmm on NetBSD uses qemu underneath, making it almost a replacement for KVM in many setups. He lit up with the look of someone waking up from a long sleep. I also had the terrible idea of showing him illumos and its distributions. He had no clue it existed and thought old, great Solaris had been dead for years thanks to Oracle.

He called me a little while ago. He was furious. He spent the whole weekend doing tests and now he has no idea what to use among FreeBSD with bhyve, NetBSD with nvmm, and illumos with bhyve or kvm. He is slowly starting to explore jails and illumos zones. He was annoyed (in a positive way) because now he does not know what to pick since everything feels so different from what he was used to, and he found advantages in each option.

I am obviously happy about it, but I also wonder: instead of reinventing the wheel every time, would it not sometimes be better to simply broaden our horizons?

#IT #SysAdmin #OperatingSystems #FreeBSD #Linux #NetBSD #OpenBSD #DragonflyBSD #illumos #SmartOS #OmniOS #OpenIndiana #Tribblix

Finally got around to writing a proper Wii boot loader for #NetBSD so I don't have to copy kernels to the FAT partition anymore.

The boot loader builds entirely from the NetBSD source tree using libsa + libkern and can access msdos/ffsv1/ffsv2 partitions on the SD card via MINI IPC.

TODO - find some way (without a keyboard) to be able to tell it to boot a backup kernel.

#NetBSD 🚩

@philpem I got the source in around 1999 after it was ported to #FreeBSD and I got it working on #NetBSD. I don't think it came via RISCiX, I think the chronologies wouldn't work

Which of the usual suspects will have the first dmesg sent in from the new Steam cube computer machine thingie, #OpenBSD, #NetBSD, or #FreeBSD?

Since, one Java application (OpenHAB) is used on my #NetBSD server I met with huge swap usage — always near 512 Mb of swap was used. This wasn't good, since I'm using SSD — I was afraid that my old SSD will wear out and die, but for now I don't have money to buy a new SSD disk

Tweaked Java initial and max heap sizes (-Xms, -Xmx) and some settings for GC, to call it more often in trade of OpenHAB responsiveness — obviously it didn't help. Then I tweaked NetBSD memory management to force system to use swap only if RAM is almost full — by this cool guide: https://imil.net/NetBSD/mirror/vm_tune.html

And it doesn't help too. Suddenly for me, but looks like these settings were applied to the kernel after reboot, not after call to sysctl.

So, for now I have a system with 800-900 Mb RAM in use and ZERO swap in use

#BSD #memoryManagement

RE: https://mastodon.bsd.cafe/@gumnos/115551343732704834

This is a great post.
It's not "against" something - it just explains why Tim prefers to use the BSDs.

#RunBSD #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #DragonflyBSD #IT

This Isn't a Battle

After reading a post describing the FreeBSD community as 'toxic', I share a different perspective. This isn't a battle. It's a reflection on coexistence, the original Open Source spirit, and the quiet richness of taking a different path.

https://my-notes.dragas.net/2025/11/14/this-isnt-a-battle/

#MyNotes #IT #SysAdmin #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #Linux #OpenSource

Kind of silly but I added support for the Wii's AES engine to #NetBSD today. The Wi-Fi stack can use it along with the cryptographic disk driver cgd(4).

A quick test of cgd(4) on a USB flash drive in AES-128-CBC mode shows 4.4 MB/s with the software implementation and 15 MB/s with hardware acceleration.

https://mail-index.netbsd.org/source-changes/2025/11/11/msg158907.html

RE: https://mastodon.social/@pitrh/115509098143295810

The BSD conferences are magical. The atmosphere is friendly. It's a family - a good one - with different views but a common goal: making great things, making smart choices in a positive environment.

#RunBSD #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #EuroBSDCon #BSDCan #AsiaBSDCon

New #NetBSD https://releng.netbsd.org/bulktracker/ release for those who celebrate :)

https://github.com/bsiegert/BulkTracker/releases/tag/v2025.11

Hey #NetBSD 🚩community! There's been discussion over the years about whether the NetBSD project should have its own unique mascot (separate from the general BSD Beastie).

I outlined a proposal for one back in 2021, including some concepts:
https://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-advocacy/2021/01/21/msg000828.html

What's the general feeling today? #RunBSD #OpenSource #FreeBSD #OpenBSD #DragonflyBSD

Lil guide about OpenHAB4 installation into the NetBSD sandbox.

https://eugene-andrienko.com/it/2025/11/07/install-openhab4-to-netbsd.html

#NetBSD #OpenHAB #HomeAutomation

"What is BSD? Come to a conference to find out!" It's where the Internet comes from!
https://nxdomain.no/~peter/what_is_bsd_come_to_a_conference_to_find_out.html
https://medium.com/@peter.hansteen/what-is-bsd-come-to-a-conference-to-find-out-06acd7d77fd8
https://bsdly.blogspot.com/2025/11/what-is-bsd-come-to-conference-to-find.html
#BSD #Unix #FreeBSD #OpenBSBD #NetBSD #DragonFlyBSD #Freesoftware #Libresoftware #BSDlicense #permissivelicensing

But VNC'ing into a small #NetBSD VM and launching X11 and Xeyes is really funny.

I missed Xeyes for some reason... 👀

#Stephen made a new video about #NetBSD :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RjuWSUnxug