as @fcambus points out, it's pretty easy to add some of your own snazzy ASCII art to the bootloader: https://www.cambus.net/customizing-netbsd-boot-banners/
10.0 will have a little bit of fun ASCII art by default
Public Annual General Meeting: Saturday, May 21 2022, at 14:00 UTC, in the #netbsd-agm channel on irc.libera.chat. There will be various presentations about NetBSD, and a moderated Q&A session.
See you there π
PPPoE security advisory from yesterday
A developer accidentally sent a PGP-encrypted announcement out by email, so here's the plaintext version: https://cdn.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/security/advisories/NetBSD-SA2022-001.txt.asc
The short version: If you're using a pppoe(4) interface, upgrade your kernel to the latest snapshot of 9_STABLE, 8_STABLE, or CURRENT.
If you haven't configured a pppoe interface, or don't know what this pppoe stuff is, you can safely move along.
UDF file system facts, part 2
The NetBSD UDF driver is used on the PlayStation 4 and 5. Unfortunately bugs we fixed in the past have got in the way of people hacking their PlayStations. Sorry everyone. π
UDF file system facts
In 2021 we funded a fsck_udf command to recover corrupt UDF file systems, which was completed by reinoud@.
UDF's important because it's open and patent free. It's usually used on DVD/BR, but it can be used on anything else too.
It supports Unix permissions, unlike FAT. Unlike exFAT, it's patent-free for everyone, not just Windows and Linux.
Most OSes support UDF 1.02, but in NetBSD we support R/W up to version 2.60.
Consider formatting your shared drives with UDF. π
Since Iβm getting a little attention, I should probably post my coffee mug too. To be honest, my only real exposure to #netbsd so far has been the SDF, but Iβve been a fan for a long time π. Always happy to raise awareness.
Some statistics on what will become NetBSD 10.0
Performance: Some benchmarks show 3x or more improvement over 9.0 on multi-core systems
Device drivers: 19+ new, 13+ significantly extended, 13+ removed (mostly non-Ethernet wired networking that's fallen out of use!)
Userspace programs: 5+ new, 20+ significantly improved, 1 removed.
Quality assurance: 2000+ new test cases, 2 new kernel sanitizers, several complete kernel-wide audits.
Time: Nearly three years π
Very cool to see @netbsd here on SDF #mastodon ! SDF is the largest NetBSD site in production and we've been running it since the 1.2 release while we were on DEC Alpha and currently on 9.x x86_64 Thanks to Eric Schnoebelen (RIP), Christos Zoulas, ryo (rsh), Masa Saitoh and ebijun as well as others for the support over the years!
We make a fast and secure open source Unix-like operating system for all of your computing devices, whether they be Raspberry Pis, EdgeRouters, ThinkPads, servers, or SPARCstations. Check the about page: https://www.NetBSD.org/about/
We pioneered cross-platform package management with #pkgsrc, anykernels, and TCP/IP in space.
Not cross-posted from the bird website ;)