https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2026/04/22/high-quality-chaos/ via https://mastodon.social/@bagder/116448188069484288 (2026-04-22) – not recent, but it's news to me.

From today's post about last month's Ottawa FreeBSD Developer Summit:

Michael Winser – Alpha Omega – The Changing Landscape of Open Source Software Security

AI has entered the chat

A frame from Winser's presentation:

Daniel Stenberg on AI in security ― sentiment over time

From Stenberg's blog post:

…

Everything is AI now

Almost every security report now uses AI to various degrees. You can tell by the way they are worded, how the report is phrased and also by the fact that they now easily get very detailed duplicates in ways that can’t be done had they been written by humans.

The difference now compared to before however, is that they are mostly very high quality.

The reporters rarely mention exactly which AI tool or model they used (and really, we don’t care), but the evidence is strong that they used such help.

We are not unique

I did a quick unscientific poll on Mastodon to see if other Open Source projects see the same trends and man, do they! Friends from the following projects confirmed that they too see this trend. …

Additional tag: AI

― #ai is currently not possible in (NodeBB) BSD Cafe Billboard.

https://wiki.freebsd.org/DevSummit/202606

Reddit posts for five recently published videos

LLM-driven kernel vulnerability research – Nicholas Carlini, Anthropic

Michael Winser – Alpha Omega – The Changing Landscape of Open Source Software Security

AI has entered the chat

FreeBSD Foundation Technology Team Update – Joe Mingrone

AI-assisted Vulnerability Discovery – Ed Maste

The Cloud Exists – Colin Percival and Gordon Tetlow

Originals

https://www.youtube.com/@FreeBSDMeetings

The Wine 11.14 development release is officially out now bringing with it an assortment of new features to improve Windows apps / games on other platforms.

• https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/07/wine-11-14-brings-improvements-for-directsound-bcrypt-freebsd/
• https://www.phoronix.com/news/Wine-11.14-Released
• https://gitlab.winehq.org/wine/wine/-/releases/wine-11.14

New WoW64 mode supported on FreeBSD.

No response to normal keyboard or mouse input at ttyv8, so login to a desktop environment is impossible.

Using Virtual Machine Manager to key Ctrl+Alt+F2 (pictured below) does not switch to ttyv1.

Weird.

This machine did previously work.

Comparison

I'm reminded of a bug that sometimes prevents use of vt(4) in VirtualBox, however I doubt that the root causes are the same:

• FreeBSD-RELEASE in VirtualBox: vt no longer visible when switching away from a desktop environment at ttyv8 : r/freebsd

True enlightment only comes from a truly free computing experience, probably! And while there is no nerd who lacks an opinion on Richard Stallman personally, likewise let none claim he does not practice what he preaches. Why, the very laptop in front of him was selected deliberately because it can operate with no binary blobs and no firmware you couldn't examine or replace with your own, and runs his choice of fully libre operating systems. The fact it has a Chinese MIPS64 derivative in it was undoubtedly just more compound on the heat spreader.

• https://oldvcr.blogspot.com/2026/06/working-around-dragons-with-lemote.html

A sequence of commands:

1. pkg upgrade -Fqy
2. pkg upgrade -U
3. pkg update
4. pkg upgrade -Fqy
5. pkg upgrade -U

Normally

If updates are available – and if there are no solver conflicts in response to the first command:

• all updates will be listed following the second command.

With the upgrade of pkg from 2.7.5 to 2.8.0_1

The second command is followed by:

• a prompt to run pkg update
• "Your packages are up to date."

– and the packages are not necessarily up-to-date.

For the truth, you must run pkg update and then again pkg upgrade …

https://www.redbsd.org/

… a FreeBSD-based distribution loaded with a curated red team and penetration testing toolkit, an XFCE-derived desktop, and VMware-ready images — built for operators who want a fast, stable alternative to Linux-based distros. …

https://greyprotocolsecurity.com/

RTFMv2 is the offensive security operations platform that combines structured checklists, automated scan integrations, and AI-assisted reporting—everything you need to finish assessments faster and with zero gaps.

This is neither an advertisement nor an endorsement.

I used RedBSD-1.20260713-amd64-installer.iso with Oracle VirtualBox 7.2.14 r174565 on Kubuntu 26.04:

1. allowed the default set of RedBSD packages
2. shutdown -r now
3. installed emulators/virtualbox-ose-additions-72 and enabled its two services
4. edited /boot/loader.conf and /etc/rc.conf to make SDDM and the desktop environment work with VirtualBox instead of VMware
5. enabled and started the two services for VirtualBox
6. service sddm restart

Security notes

RedBSD's provisioning scripts make choices that are convenient for an isolated lab but are not safe on an untrusted or internet-facing network:

…

Additional background

Six Reddit posts:

1. Red Team Oriented BSD OS : r/BSD (2026-06-15)
2. Red BSD scam or real? : r/BSD (2026-06-16)
3. RedBSD : r/freebsd (2026-07-10)
4. RedBSD: Um FreeBSD para cyberseguranca : r/FreeBSD_BR (2026-07-10)
5. RedBSD seems like only FreeBSD 15.1 : r/freebsd (2026-07-23)
6. RedBSD continued. First Run. : r/freebsd (2026-07-24)

Read these 2 announcements to see what was happening and what to do afterwards for fixups.
https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-announce/2026-July/000294.html

https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-announce/2026-July/000295.html

(06/04)

⇒ Linux 7.2 Will Be Able To Boot On Apple M3 Macs - But Far From Useful For End-Users

The upcoming Linux 7.2 mainline kernel is expected to be able to boot on Apple M3 devices including the M3-powered iMac and MacBook products. But before getting too excited it's still a long ways to go before it will actually be useful for any Apple M3 daily usage under Linux with the overall support at this stage still being very limited for these 2~3 year old Apple Macs…

• https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.2-Boots-Apple-M3

(06/05)

⇒ Linux 7.2 Continues Improving AMDGPU Support On POWER, ARM

In addition to AMDGPU finally seeing HDMI 2.1 FRL support in Linux 7.2, another change worth noting in this week's AMDGPU pull request is the continued work on enhancing the AMDGPU/AMDKFD kernel driver support for non-4K page size kernel builds. In particular this helps out with AMD graphics and ROCm for the likes of ARM and POWER…

• https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.2-AMDGPU-Non-4K

⇒ NVIDIA's Nova Driver Continues Being Built Up In Linux 7.2 Along With Other DRM Rust Code

Danilo Krummrich sent out the main set of DRM Rust subsystem changes on Thursday that are targeting the Linux 7.2 kernel. NVIDIA's open-source Nova driver continues seeing a bulk of the DRM Rust work as this modern successor to Nouveau continues taking shape.

• https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.2-DRM-Rust

⇒ More SpacemiT K3 & K1 Support Landing In Upstream Linux 7.2

In addition to Apple M3 Device Trees for Linux 7.2, the SpacemiT RISC-V SoCs are seeing some notable Device Tree improvements with this next version of the Linux kernel.

• https://www.phoronix.com/news/SpacemiT-K1-K3-Linux-7.2

Gentlefolk,

I brought myself back up to speed on FreeBSD by installing it on a T430 - ZFS and pkg install worked beautifully. Got Wayfire working, set up a jail to run a Luanti (Minetest) server. So far so good.

Now I'm working on the real challenge, bringing up a Poweredge R540 which will have raid-3 ZFS and many jails. And my first problem is right at the very beginning. I can install FreeBSD (15.0) from a USB stick just fine, but when I try to get the machine to boot...

(1) If I configure the 540 to boot from UEFI it cannot find the boot disk.
(2) If I configure the 540 to boot from BIOS, it finds the disk and boots just fine.

The Handbook is perhaps a bit out of date on this as it assumes BIOS, with a nod towards the possibility of UEFI. I'm guessing this problem has been solved many times over - could someone point me towards the solution?

Many thanks,

---WBTD.

26/07/18

⇒ NextBSD returns to dollop Apple source on FreeBSD

New maintainer revives the project with Darwin components, Gershwin, and Claude Code

• https://www.theregister.com/os-platforms/2026/07/18/nextbsd-returns-to-dollop-apple-source-on-freebsd/5273788

I recently visited a local YMCA branch and spotted a treadmill booting up... powered by OpenBSD.

A crazy discovery xD If I can power a treadmill with OpenBSD then I'll attempt any embedded project with it.

I have requested deletion of my Bugzilla accounts. I expect my name to change to devnull – not to be confused with other devnull users, at least one of whom has devnull in their email address.

In the Lounge in April:

… We're pro, not against. Supporters, not haters. Builders, not destroyers. …

With the same spirit of positivity, in May I wrote:

I'll continue to support users of FreeBSD in Mastodon, in r/freebsd, and elsewhere.

https://klarasystems.com/articles/native-inotify-in-freebsd/ – Mark Johnston

A seemingly simple file monitoring problem exposed deep limitations in FreeBSD’s traditional EVFILT_VNODE approach. This article explores how race conditions, scalability issues, and Linux compatibility challenges ultimately led to the development of a native inotify implementation for FreeBSD 15. …

@klarainc@bird.makeup (automated)

tl;dr I used wg(4), pf(4), and relayd(8), all OpenBSD native tools, to encrypt all inbound connections from a gateway VPS to my local home server. This also hides my local IP information and I managed it all without much hassle and pain.

I recently stood up a VPS running OpenBSD 7.9 on Vultr. The VPS is hosted in Chicago, Illinois, USA. I then took OpenBSD's native WireGuard driver, wg(4), to establish an encrypted tunnel to my local home lab server. Using relayd(8), OpenBSD's native reverse proxy, I can now forward virtual host connections to my home lab server, which has httpd(8) as a web server frontend. I used pf.conf(5) to configure OpenBSD's native fireweall, pf(4), which was incredibly easy.

The result is a secure gateway that routes all traffic via WireGuard to my local server, obfuscating its location and other IP information. This was done by simply configuring handful of system daemons. I've done some OpenBSD network configuration before, but this was the most work I've done. The best part, it wasn't that difficult, and all manual pages provided sufficient details to work with them.

Once I get my site set up I'll write up the experience and step-by-step instructions and share the page here.

New OpenBSD milestone unlocked; no intent to stop anytime soon

Happy hacking, hackers!

https://www.theregister.com/os-platforms/2026/06/18/freebsd-151-lands-but-desktop-dabblers-still-have-to-draw-their-own-gui/5257681

@lproven@social.vivaldi.net

Better laptop sleep and Wi-Fi support make the beastie more portable-friendly, but getting beyond the shell remains a DIY job

Tested with a Core i5-based ThinkPad X220.

Surprisingly:

… The handy optional desktop-installer script is still available, but as far as we can tell, it hasn't been updated for version 15.1 yet. In our testing, it couldn't correctly install a working desktop, and whatever desktop we tried, it failed without giving any visible error. …

Worked around, through manual installation of software, but I'm surprised that it happened.

Cross-post: r/freebsd

26/07/12

⇒ Leanpub Book LAUNCH Three Essays on NetBSD by Chris Pinnock

This book collects three essays I wrote in 2022 about the NetBSD operating system.

• https://leanpub.com/blog/leanpub-book-launch-three-essays-on-netbsd-by-chris-pinnock/

06/28

⇒ Linux 7.3 To Introduce DRM "Color Format" Property With AMD GPU Driver Support

While the Linux 7.2 kernel merge window is only ending later today to cap off the feature work on this next version of the Linux kernel, already for the Linux 7.3 kernel cycle later in the year there is one notable feature on the way: the DRM color format property is being introduced and being first supported by the AMDGPU kernel graphics driver.

• https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.3-DRM-Color-Format

⇒ Code That Built the Internet: The Impact of BSD, Part 1

Like the Spanish Inquisition, nobody expected the internet. Its earliest appearance (as ARPANET) took place in the same year—1969—as the comedy troupe behind the Spanish Inquisition quip, Monty Python. But during its first decade, the internet was treated as a convenience for file-sharing and a couple other applications; few observers anticipated how it would alter modern life until decades later. The major institution that brought computers into the internet age was the University of California at Berkeley, which created a version of Unix that they called the Berkeley Software Distribution and is now known as BSD.

• https://www.lpi.org/blog/2026/06/19/code-that-built-the-internet-the-impact-of-bsd-part-1/

26/07/04

⇒ How to fix Homebox 0.26.2 not starting on FreeBSD

After upgrading my Homebox jail yesterday from 0.25.2 to 0.26.2, the homebox service would not start anymore. Taking a look into /var/log/homebox.log, I got presented with the following error message:

• https://www.subnetspider.com/2026/07/04/fix-homebox-0-26-2-not-starting-on-freebsd.html