24 Plan 9 Boot Camp participants are at it this morning knocking out the first challenge

https://9p.sdf.org

#plan9 #research #unix #experimental #os #community

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A screenshot of the plan 9 drawterm client connected to 9p.sdf.org

#EuroBSDCon #RunBSD #Retrocomputing #Fanboi #StarStruck

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Marshall Kirk McKusick, Eric Allman, a couple of (much) younger BSD developers and myself hovering over an old open-frame PC build which is busy booting NetBSD. Sponsor pull-up poster for Entersekt/Modirum (my employer) in the background.

Advanced Programming the UNIX Environment

Some additional hints to set up your NetBSD environment for this class:

https://stevens.netmeister.org/631/vm-setup.html

With all sources extracted, familiarize yourself with ctags(1) et al to make browsing code a breeze:

https://youtu.be/TWog5NklSws

#apue #programming #unix #netbsd

Advanced Programming the UNIX Environment

Week 2: File Descriptors

To introduce the concept of file descriptors, let's start with a simple question: how many file descriptors can a unix process open? In the process we encounter different limits that may apply across the system, for a given user, or just a process.

https://youtu.be/h5A1OQjuCqk

#apue #programming #unix

Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment

Week 2: open(2) and close(2)

Having introduced the concept of file descriptors, let's look at what happens when we try to create a file, "create" an existing file, open an existing file, truncate a file, and look at the various other flags we can pass to open(2).

We also note the perhaps surprising number of ways in which open(2) can fail and take a look at openat(2) and TOCTOU defenses.

https://youtu.be/QnL4eYpb5Iw

#apue #unix #programming

Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment

Week 2: read(2)/write(2)/lseek(2)

In this video lecture, we will go into the details of the read(2), write(2), and lseek(2). We'll also do a few weird things with file descriptors, and take a look at how we can ensure I/O efficiency when making these system calls.

https://youtu.be/EUUPw8MOV_A

#apue #unix #programming

Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment

Week 2: File Sharing

In this final video lecture segment for our week 2 materials, we take a look at what it means when multiple processes access the same files and what the implications of that are on the syscalls we know. We conclude with a look at /dev/fd on different operating systems, including #NetBSD, #macOS, and #Linux

https://youtu.be/CAbUtc86ULw

#apue #unix #programming

The SDF Plan 9 Boot Camp FALL 2025 registration is OPEN and begins in one week!

https://sdf.org/plan9

Plan 9 is newer than Linux and addresses limitations Linux preserved from UNIX.

Come learn about the experimental Plan 9 operating system in a fun and friendly communal environment.

#plan9 #unix #research #hacking #learning

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an SDF plan 9 front sticker

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱/𝟬𝟵/𝟭𝟱 (Valuable News - 2025/09/15) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2025/09/15/valuable-news-2025-09-15/

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

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

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱/𝟬𝟵/𝟬𝟴 (Valuable News - 2025/09/08) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2025/09/08/valuable-news-2025-09-08/

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

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

Advanced Programming the UNIX Environment

Week 1: Introduction

This video covers a lot of the meta information (what do we do, why are we doing it, how are we doing it, syllabus, etc.). Some things have changed since I created the video (for example, we now have an AI policy: https://stevens.netmeister.org/631/use-of-ai.html), but most of it remains accurate.

https://youtu.be/BsB9Cg6yJc4

#apue #programming #unix

Advanced Programming the UNIX Environment

Week 1: UNIX History

We cover the early days at Bell Labs, USL vs BSDi, the birth of the BSDs and Linux, and how we got from Ken Thompson playing "Space Travel" on a PDP-7 to Unix running on your phone, fridge, and TV.

https://youtu.be/3H7SQWTR6Dw

Scroll along through it all here: https://www.levenez.com/unix/unix.pdf

#apue #unix #linux #netbsd #freebsd

Advanced Programming the UNIX Environment

Week 1: UNIX Basics

In this lecture, we provide a whirlwind tour of the Unix programming environment. In the process, we write a simple shell, a simple version of the ls(1) command, and two versions of the cat(1) command while learning about the Unix Philosophy.

https://youtu.be/w3spRzZ8bSA

#apue #unix #programming

Charles hacking through an intermittent single bit error on the PDP-7a getting closer to the problem.

https://icm.museum

#unix #vintagecomputing #retrocomputing #hardware #hacking

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Charles hacks away on the PDP-7a chasing a single bit error

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱/𝟬𝟵/𝟬𝟭 (Valuable News - 2025/09/01) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2025/09/01/valuable-news-2025-09-01/

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

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

It's that time of year again! The Fall semester is about to start, and I'm teaching "Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment". The syllabus and all course materials including all code examples is available here:

https://stevens.netmeister.org/631/

All video lectures are public and available for free on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@cs631apue/videos

If you want to follow along, I'll be posting lecture videos and related links in this thread throughout the semester.

#programming #unix #apue

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱/𝟬𝟴/𝟮𝟱 (Valuable News - 2025/08/25) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2025/08/25/valuable-news-2025-08-25/

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

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

A #Linux alternative? #Debian /Hurd shows microkernel #Unix dream is alive

#NetBSD

https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/18/debian_hurd_13/

This is AMIga Window Manager (amiwm) is a stacking window manager for the X Window System
https://www.lysator.liu.se/~marcus/amiwm.html Sadly it is not updated any more (last update was in 2010).

#unix #linux #history

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A screeshot of amiwm is an X window manager for Linux and Unix.

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱/𝟬𝟴/𝟭𝟭 (Valuable News - 2025/08/11) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2025/08/11/valuable-news-2025-08-11/

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

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

We're moving our PDP-7 running UNICS version 0 into our new mainframe gallery space next week. Come see the original UNICS (UNIX) operating system running on real hardware where you can compile your own HELLORD! in the B programming language.

Like what we're doing? Please consider supporting us at https://icm.museum

#unix #history #museum

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A DEC PDP-7 running UNICS version 0.

Happy #WorldEmojiDay!
Of course it runs NetBSD... on all of them.
💻 🖥️ 🍞 🎮 🚀 🛰️ 🗄️

How would you describe your #NetBSD setup using only emoji? => 🚩 ⚙️ 💻
#NetBSD #Portability #BSD #Unix

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱/𝟬𝟳/𝟭𝟰 (Valuable News - 2025/07/14) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2025/07/14/valuable-news-2025-07-14/

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

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

The Pig and her poster have been reunited. MissPiggy ran XENIX-11 at Microsoft from 1979 to 1987. These days, misspiggy runs Version 7 UNIX from which XENIX was derived and its disks are virtualized so they can run under simulation and the real hardware.

Please support our preservation efforts at https://icm.museum

We have a partial backup of MissPiggy and one day hope to run XENIX-11 on it once again.

#community #vintagecomputing #retrocomputing #unix #microsoft #history

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A 1979 Muppets poster featuring MissPiggy hanging on the side of a decdatasystem-570 named MissPiggy

Yay! Or maybe AIEEE! Seems like I'm giving a talk at #EuroBSDCon again this year!

Anyone who has been following me here for a while will know I'm a hopeless #retrocomputing nerd, and I will make no attempt at hiding it during my talk:

Dirty Tricks: Using nginx and Lua to thwart bots and skript kiddies

I'll (try to) show how you can protect your #BBS from drive-by portscans and your production systems from #DDoS attacks using all the wrong tools.

Dietary warning: may contain traces of floppies.

https://events.eurobsdcon.org/2025/talk/review/RHDFBQWZEVC833T3WDLDEXYFQVRWJKMN #FreeBSD #BSD #Unix #DOS #RunBSD

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱/𝟬𝟲/𝟯𝟬 (Valuable News - 2025/06/30) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2025/06/30/valuable-news-2025-06-30/

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

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

We're hosting 26 remote vintage systems running on real hardware, hybrid/emulation hardware and simulation. All of these historic operating systems allow guest access and members can request their own accounts.

Like what we're doing? Please consider supporting us today!

#retrocomputing #retrogaming #vintagecomputing #vax #alpha #unix

https://icm.museum

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A menu of 26 remote systems that are online.

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vintage running hardware connected to the internet

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A VAX, HP9000 and a DEC Alpha

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱/𝟬𝟲/𝟮𝟯 (Valuable News - 2025/06/23) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2025/06/23/valuable-news-2025-06-23/

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

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

i'd take this UI any day over garbage spyware like win11.

#unix #history #desktop

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Older HP-UX Unix desktop screenshot of CDE ( Common Desktop Environment ) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Desktop_Environment

The cake is not a lie.

Happy Birthday https://sdf.org !

#bbs #unix #community #happybirthday

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A birthday cake slice with SDF anime figures and SDF stickers

Latest 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 - 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱/𝟬𝟲/𝟭𝟲 (Valuable News - 2025/06/16) available.

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2025/06/16/valuable-news-2025-06-16/

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

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

The BSDCan streams can be found on Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/@BsdcanOrg along with recordings from earlier conferences.

Also see https://www.bsdcan.org/2025/ for livestream info

#bsdcan #bsd #conference #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #unix #development #devops #freesoftware #libresoftware

All of those things are absolutely wonderful and make many of todays software developers look ... spoiled? What I want, however - and what I love doing - is making this old hardware do stuff its makers never dreamt of, things that are as far removed from their time as possible. That's why I will, if #NetBSD permits, run bleeding edge BSD on a 286-on-486steroids, and why I run web+ftp+irc servers (yes, multitaskign) on one 286 and multiple BBS nodes on a 386 - like one used to do, of course.

I cannot state often enough how amazing it is that there's still software developed today that will work under such constraints.

#RunBSD #EndOfRant

https://github.com/ltning/sshbench

#unix #ssh #benchmark #shellscript #bourne #runbsd

#unix #NetBSD

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Picture of NetBSD X11 desktop with htop(1) and hot-babe CPU monitor.

#unix #runbsd #retrocomputing #486

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Console screenshot. Plaintext 80x50 mode, with screen(1) running htop(1) and neofetch(1), split horizontally.