Lmst

Reading this doco on #Debian with ZFS for the root and even part of the boot filesystem …

https://openzfs.github.io/openzfs-docs/Getting%20Started/Debian/Debian%20Bookworm%20Root%20on%20ZFS.html

… I am struck by two things:

1. PC-BSD 10 back in 2016 was doing doing all of these manual steps automatically in the installer. All of those separate filesystems and special options for /usr and the like were just installer defaults in PC-BSD. It even had GRUB configured so that it did the right things, *and* worked with beadm.

2. The IXsystems people, who did PC-BSD and later TrueOS, switched to Linux years ago. Why hasn't their demonstrable expertise in making installers and GRUB do all this with ZFS been harnessed?

#PCBSD #TrueOS #Debian #ZFS #IXsystems

Fun Fact: At the end of 2008 / beginning of 2009, I bought a mini laptop — an Acer Aspire One, on sale because no one wanted them. Windows didn’t run on it for even a minute, but every other OS did. Including a version of "Hackintosh", which actually led me to get a MacBook Pro a few months later (which my parents are still using). It ran quite well.

But the OS that worked best and longest on that little guy was PC-BSD. I truly did everything with it. When I was flying around Europe during the most hectic years of my life, it was my trusty companion - always ready, always in my backpack. I have a special memory tied to it that will always make it dear to me, but it’s a private one 😃

Oh, I almost forgot the Fun Fact: its hostname was always "acerone" - from Acer (Aspire) One, of course. But in Italian, "acerone" sounds like "big Acer", and considering its micro size (9 inches), it was truly ironic.

#Memories #PC #FreeBSD #PCBSD #Acer #NetBook

@AudeCaussarieu Nope, pour les 3 !
BSD est une autre famille de systèmes d'exploitation sous licence(s) libre(s) :
#OpenBSD
#FreeBSD
#NetBSD
#DragonflyBSD
#PCBSD
etc.

Laquelle a le pouvoir de servir ? 😈

:freebsd: :openbsd:

@ploum

@scottjenson I read the page, then boosted, without knowing who you are. Then checked your profile. Oh, my.

I was a huge fan of Macs, the HIG in particular, for more than twenty years.

Thank you. Thank you.

Apple's lie about Yosemite – no, the title bar of Safari (my favourite software) did NOT present the title – was the thin end of what I perceived to be unacceptable degradation of the Guidelines. Driven, I suspect, by management, not by the human end users.

When the audiences at and after WWDC simply smiled, applauded, and lacked the bravery to call out the spoken lie – a URL falsely described as a title, whilst the new Safari was on-screen – I knew that the slide downhill would be irreversible.

Fandom ended. Mavericks was the end of the line, for me. I switched to PC-BSD.

#Apple #MacOSX #Mavericks #Yosemite #Safari #PCBSD #TrueOS #FreeBSD

I have realised that BSD OS' are getting right royally screwed for desktop hardware support and driver development.

#BSD #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #TrueNAS #TrueOS #PCBSD #MacOS #XNU #Darwin

#TrueNAS is dead [1].

Long live #XigmaNAS [2].

After @iXsystems disappointments with #PCBSD or #TrueOS they now plan to do the same with #FreeNAS successor #TrueNAS. Being #FreeBSD based was ONLY reason I recommended it.

[1] https://theregister.com/2024/03/18/truenas_abandons_freebsd/
[2] https://xigmanas.com/

(...continued)
Other service managers also supply service definitions that run these services. Mark Heily's relaunchd does, for example:

https://github.com/mheily/relaunchd/blob/master/manifests/pcbsd/daemons/org.pcbsd.syscache-daemon.json

There are no doubt others, that I am not aware of.

I recommend that you disable these services whatever service management system you use.
#PCBSD

(...continued)
PC-BSD/TrueOS runs these things out of the box, itself, of course.

These services are enabled/disabled with settings in /etc/rc.conf.pcbsd which you will need to adjust if you are using that, or override in /etc/rc.conf.local:

syscache_enable="NO"
appcafe_enable="NO"

I have ensured that the external configuration import system in the nosh toolkit also ignores these settings, in the forthcoming service fix. Set them to "NO" anyway.

#PCBSD
(continued...)

(...continued)
My nosh toolkit has service bundles for these services, and enables them if you set it up for PC-BSD/TrueOS. I have changed this to disabled, as a service fix in the next release.

For a local fix, use a /etc/system-control/presets/20-TrueOS.preset file to preset to disabled all of these services:

disable syscache.service
disable appcafe-*.service

Then explicitly stop and disable the various services with system-config stop and system-config disable.
#PCBSD
(continued...)

(...continued)
Some PC-BSD/TrueOS repositories on GitHub have been marked archived. However, this particular one is gone completely, as also is the account that owned it.

It is completely hijackable, and the PBI utility will merrily try to pull and use stuff from it, with superuser access.

If you have an old PC-BSD/TrueOS machine that is running or could be run, I recommend disabling all syscache-daemon and appcafe-* services.

There is no alternative GitHub repository.

#PCBSD
(continued...)

Details:

The appcafe-* services rely upon the wholly undocumented (and no longer source-available) syscache-daemon program, which is run as a syscache service by stock PC-BSD/TrueOS, and also set up as a service by several service management systems, mine and other people's.

The syscache-daemon program itself regularly spawns the PBI update utility, which in turn pulls, or at least tries to pull, information about packaged applications from a GitHub repository.

#PCBSD
(continued...)

It's still going to be a while until I can get a new release of the #nosh toolset out. There are at least two machines that need replacement parts, still.

So a small security announcement.

I'm presetting the syscache and all appcafe-* services to disabled in the next release, and I advise that you disable any such services on any old PC-BSD/TrueOS machines that you may have, whatever service management is in use.

PBI pulls from a GitHub account that was deleted and is hijackable.

#PCBSD

Just remembered ny second pc, a p3 with an 810e mobo, 64MB(friends were questioning my logic on getting such large amounts) of ram, 10 GB quantum hdd. Had erased and installed all the flavors of #Gnu/Linux(started with RH 5), freebsd(failed many times), #openbsd(never failed), #Qnx(very fast), #Minix 2.0(from 10 floppies), #Beos(fond memories of the look and the speed), #pcbsd, #freedos, #msdos, #win95, #win 98, #win me, #win nt, #win 2k, #win xp. Never did the pc give up. Then gave it to a friend. Present situation....????