Rhyous

Yes, the new versions released.

Read more here:
http://www.freebsdnews.net/2011/02/25/released-freebsd-8-2-release-and-7-4-release/

Microsoft is not going to allow GPL onto their phones.
Microsoft Bans Some Open Source Licenses from WP7 Marketplace

Microsoft has stated that its Windows Phone 7 marketplace will reject any apps that use the GPL (GNU General Public License) and similar licenses.

…

“The Windows Phone Marketplace supports several open source licenses, including BSD, MIT, Apache Software License 2.0, MS-PL and other similar permissive licenses.  We revise our Application Provider Agreement from time to time based on customer and developer feedback, and we are exploring the possibility of modifying it to accommodate additional open source-based applications in upcoming revisions.”

Microsoft is doing the right thing and cannot be blamed in the slightest. The GPL is often termed a viral license and for good reason. Once you use it in your code everything is infected by it. Others say it is a spiderweb license, that once you are in the spider’s web, you can’t get out. The BSD license instead of the GPL is probably the single biggest reason to use FreeBSD over Linux, especially for enterprise business such as Microsoft, Apple, and others.

I don’t like the entrapment of the GPL. Students often first encounter the GPL in college, where they hear that the GPL is free and start using it. Only later do they realize they are trapped. Some don’t mind, wish they would have understood the license better.

Here is a simple rhyme to remember which license to use:

If you want your software to really be free,
    license it with BSD.
If you want your software to be in license hell,
    use the GPL.

This post shows that Microsoft feels the same as many of us who are anti-GPL.

Obviously they don’t want to have those who write their apps ever accidental depend on another app, only to find out the app they depended on is GPL, so their entire work must be GPL as well. They are doing what humanity tries to do with any virus, eradicating it and prevent infection by eliminating the virus, just as we have done with small pox, from the world.

For more information on the differences between the BSD License and the GPL, read this post.
Differences between the BSD/FreeBSD Copyrights and the GNU Public License (GPL)

I didn’t write this post, a blogger named Keith did, but I am definitely going to link to his work on his blog.

Backing up PostgreSQL databases nightly on FreeBSD

He did a good job editing this script to backup postgresql on FreeBSD. While he does say he got some of it from another site he found on using Google…

…Using Google I found a generic script, after some custom tweaks for FreeBSD I had the script I wanted.

…so some of the work should be attributed elsewhere. I want to thank him for the work he did. This was something that was on my to do list and now it is pretty much done for me.

Here is the script he posted.

#!/bin/sh
# Location of binaries
bin="/usr/local/bin"
# Location of the backup logfile.
logfile="/data/backup/postgres/postgres.log"
# Location to place backups.
backup_dir="/data/backup/postgres"
username="pgsql"
database="template1"
touch $logfile
timeslot=`date +%H-%M`
databases=`$bin/psql -h localhost -d $database -U $username -q -c "\l" | sed -n 4,/\eof/p | grep -v rows\) | awk {'print $1'}`

for i in $databases; do
        echo "Backup and Vacuum complete at $timeinfo for time slot $timeslot on database: $i " >> $logfile
        $bin/vacuumdb -z -h localhost -U $username $i >/dev/null 2>&1
        j="60"
        while [ $j -ge 0 ]
        do
                temp0=`expr $j - 1`
                temp1=$j
                j=`expr $j - 1`
                if [ $temp0 -lt 0 ]
                then
                        suffix0=""
                        suffix1=".0"
                else
                        suffix0=".$temp0"
                        suffix1=".$temp1"
                fi
                if [ -f $backup_dir/postgresql-$i-database.gz$suffix0 ]
                then
                        echo "Renaming postgresql-$i-database.gz$suffix0 to postgresql-$i-database.gz$suffix1"
                        mv $backup_dir/postgresql-$i-database.gz$suffix0 $backup_dir/postgresql-$i-database.gz$suffix1
                fi
        done
        if [ $i != 'template0' ]
        then
                $bin/pg_dump -U $username $i -h 127.0.0.1 | gzip > "$backup_dir/postgresql-$i-database.gz"
        fi
done

Here is what I like about his script:

1. Variables are used at the top of the script that are easily modifiable.
2. It backs up all databases without having to list the databases, so you don’t have to update the list with every new database.
3. It does compress using gzip the databases, so uses as little space as possible.

Here are some ideas for future enhancements to the script

1. The gzip compression level as a variable up top. The default gzip compression level is 6 and 9 could make the file significantly smaller with large databases, while 1 would be faster for machine with weak processors.
2. Database to exclude from the backup.  I like the idea to get them all by default, but sometimes you have a test database you just don’t care about and you don’t want a nightly backup of it.
3. I don’t see the password in the script, and I am not sure how it is authenticating without it, maybe a password feature needs to be added.

BSD Magazine February Issue released.

Download it here:

http://bsdmag.org/magazine/1638-zfs-and-freebsd

GhostBSD 2.0 – Beta 2 Review

Today I downloaded GhostBSD 2.0.  GhostBSD 2.0 is a live CD that you boot off and your operating system loads to a desktop environment from the CD itself.

It is a CD not a DVD. It was 645.3 MB.  That fits one a single CD.  So it is still small and downloaded rather quickly compared to multi-gigabyte DVD images.

The Good

It didn’t take long to find some good features.

1. VMWare resolution wasn’t too bad 1280×720.
2. Decent backgrounds
3. Thunderbird setup to take your account immediately and the autodetect is cool.
4. Firefox worked first time.
5. Has AbiWord and Gnumeric Spreadshet installed.
6. Has burning software
7. As a CD ISO, it is still small and downloaded rather quickly compared to multi-gigabyte DVD images.

What Needs works

The first thing that needs work is this review.  I didn’t test much.  I booted, and looked at features, but as I only use a Live CD when something goes terribly wrong and nothing has, I didn’t really do anything too geeky.  So let me just say there is much more to review.  But here are some things I noticed in just my short time clicking away at this.

There wasn’t much bad to speak of that was bad. I had to get nit picky.

1. There was a problem that delays boot related to the hostname.
2. No Flash 10 in Firefox, though the linux kernel was there.
3. Thunderbird is not configured to open links with Firefox by default.
4. pkg_info shows the pages but says that the package info is corrupt for every package installed.

Other FreeBSD Live CDs

• Frenzy – A much smaller CD. Here is a quote from the home page: Frenzy is a “portable system administrator toolkit,” LiveCD based on FreeBSD. It generally contains software for hardware tests, file system check, security check and network setup and analysis. Size of ISO-image is 200 MBytes (3″ CD)
• FreeSBIE – No longer maintained

I didn’t install Frenzy and I have never used it, so I cannot compare it.  However, it is supposedly only 200 MB, which leaves me wondering what it has.

FreeSBIE has been useful in the past, but is no longer maintained.

The Conclusion

GhostBSD 2.0 is the FreeBSD live CD that I currently recommend. I first came across it when it was 1.5, and 2.0 shows it moving forward quite nicely.

Hopes for the future

I do believe there is a place for them to hook into pc-sysinstall and create an installer.  There is not a GNOME-based FreeBSD distribution that I know about, though PC-BSD might add GNOME as an option, but many of the GNOME users would probably jump on this if an installer was built. They may even convert me from KDE to GNOME.

Over at FreeBSD News, they have a survey asking what version of FreeBSD you are using.

Take a moment and hit this link and enter your FreeBSD version.

You have heard of options during install, but have you ever thought of swapping out the Kernel? Maybe, for a similar kernel with a different configuration, but what about a completely different kernel, say a Linux or FreeBSD kernel? Well, Debian has thought about this for quite some time, and with their new release of Debian 6, they now have a

Quote on Slashdot: “After two years of work, the Debian Project has announced the release of Debian 6.0. ‘There are many goodies in Debian 6.0 GNU/Linux, not the least of which is the new completely free-as-in-freedom Linux kernel, which no longer contains firmware modules that Debian developers found troublesome,’ says blogger Brian Proffitt. And in addition to Debian GNU/Linux, Debian GNU/kFreeBSD is introduced as a technology preview. ‘Debian GNU/kFreeBSD will port both a 32- and 64-bit PC version of the FreeBSD kernel into the Debian userspace, making them the first Debian release without a Linux kernel,’ says Proffitt. ‘The Debian Project is serious about the technology preview label, though: these FreeBSD-based versions will have limited advanced desktop features.’ The release notes and installation manual have been posted, and installation images may be downloaded right now via bittorrent, jigdo, or HTTP.”

Since FreeBSD is my platform of choice, this idea sounds pretty good to me.

This isn’t hte first time I have commented on this Debian GNU/kFreeBSD release. However, it is in the new again and it is interesting to say the least.

Hey all,

I am trying to get my Microphone to work on my Lenovo T61p.

Problem

If I talk into my microphone while capturing sound, when I play back, I cannot hear my voice.

Troubleshooting

Let me answer some questions for you:

Does the sound work?
Yes. The sound card works great.

Does the hardware work?
The Microphone works well if I boot to windows 7. I have a hard drive with Windows 7 that used to be in this laptop.

What tools am I using to capture sound?
audacity
xvidcap

Can I get any sound to record?
Yes. If I tap hard with my finger on the microphone, the taps are caught, though faint, by both audacity and xvidcap.

What have I done?

Read the Handbook.
Read the man pages for mixer and snd_hda

1. Loaded and unloaded snd_hda.ko and sound.ko
2. Changed every mixer setting there is.
3. Tested tapping and yelling into the mic, tapping barely registers.
4. Test hardware on Windows 7, works.
5. Checked systctl -a |grep snd and sysctl -a |grep hda
6. Changed the mixer to use monitor instead of mic.

Resolution

Well, it was the last step. Once I changed the mixer to use monitor instead of mic, it worked like a charm.

mixer -rec monitor

mixer monitor 35:35

I am installing PC-BSD 8.2 RC2.

I really love that I can just choose ZFS as the file system and I don’t have to really make a huge effort to get it to work.

I found polish issues, but nothing serious yet.

Take a moment to install and share your experience here:

http://forums.pcbsd.org/showthread.php?p=85374&posted=1#post85374

So my networking on my host has been extremely slow and choppy on my VM guests. I read somewhere to not use NAT but when I tried to turn off NAT, I could never get and IP address. Turns out that was the fault of lagg.

I have disabled lagg and configured my VMs to use bridging mode and suddenly my host is extremely fast.

Also, when I accidently configured my VM to use iwn0 instead of wlan0, the system hung, followed by a reboot.

So lets sum up the three tips for using VirtualBox on FreeBSD:

1. Don’t use lagg on the host.
2. Don’t use NAT.
3. Don’t configure the guest to use your wireless device using iwn0, but make sure to use wlan0.