HardenedBSD infrastructure updates, FreeBSD laptop support advancements, pkgsrc-2025Q1 release and more.
Releases
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BSDSec
OpenBSD Errata: April 1, 2025 (expat): Errata patches for libexpat have been released for OpenBSD 7.6 and 7.5. Binary updates for the amd64, arm64 and i386 platform are available via the syspatch utility.
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News
HardenedBSD March 2025 Status Report: Infrastructure and Development Updates: In March 2025, HardenedBSD focused on infrastructure improvements, including expanding power capacity and preparing for a mini-split HVAC unit. Development was quiet, but notable changes included stricter permissions in the src tree and disabling the retain option in jemalloc to mitigate vulnerabilities. The project also began research for supporting larger code repositories and resumed work on arm64 support. A call for donations was made to fund a crucial HVAC unit for cooling servers during the summer. Additionally, plans were announced to support different compiler toolchains, starting with Rust.
February 2025 Laptop Support and Usability Project Update Released: The FreeBSD Foundation has published its February 2025 monthly report for the Laptop Support and Usability Project. Key highlights include advancements in laptop sleep states, such as the development of the acpi_spmc power management driver, which enables deeper sleep states using S0ix and s2idle. Additionally, the project has expanded support for WiFi 4 and WiFi 5 on modern chipsets, allowing for high throughput rates. Efforts to improve compatibility with Linux WiFi drivers through the LinuxKPI layer are also ongoing.
pkgsrc-2025Q1 Branch Announced: 86th Quarterly Release: The pkgsrc developers have released the 86th quarterly branch, pkgsrc-2025Q1, featuring over 29,000 packages. Notable additions include Chromium 131.0.6778.204, Elm 0.19.1, and pytorch 2.5, while updates include XFCE 4.20 and PHP 8.4.5. The release also introduces support for multiple PHP versions and ends support for several platforms due to lack of use. Users with local PHP config changes will need to re-apply them to version-specific files.
Valuable News 2025-03-31: The Valuable News series provides weekly summaries of news and articles primarily focused on UNIX, BSD, and Linux systems. This edition highlights key updates, including FreeBSD 14.2 on ThinkPad X220, UEFI multiboot configurations, and developments in Rust-based tools for UNIX systems. It also covers hardware news, privacy tips, and updates on community projects.
The FreeBSD web-browsers available in 2025: The web-browser, an indispensable piece of software for all modern desktop Operating Systems, and FreeBSD is not excused this requirement. This video is looking at the browsers available for FreeBSD and GhostBSD in 2025.
BSD Now 604: Future looks back: The Future Looking Back At Us: Joanne McNeil on Cyberpunk, Why ZFS reports less available space, We are destroying software, FreeBSD 13.5 Overcomes UFS Y2038 Problem To Push It Out To Year 2106, 1972 UNIX V2 “Beta” Resurrected, Some thoughts on why ‘inetd activation’ didn’t catch on, If you believe in “Artificial Intelligence”, take five minutes to ask it about stuff you know well, and more.
Tutorials
Manage FreeBSD Jails Backup with NocoDB: The article discusses managing FreeBSD jail backups using NocoDB, a visual database tool. The author previously used a simple shell script to back up all jails but now employs NocoDB to selectively back up jails based on criteria stored in a database. This approach simplifies the process by allowing dynamic queries to exclude or include specific jails. The article provides examples of API requests to fetch and update backup information, including integrating with tools like bastille and rclone for local or S3 backups. The author highlights the efficiency and flexibility of this method, especially for managing a large number of jails.
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