November is a hot month for new *BSD releases. First OpenBSD 3.8 on Nov1, then FreeBSD 6.0 on Nov4. All this after the recent Suse 10 release in September - I've got a whole lot of upgrading to do.
The long awaited fully SMP supported file system version has been released.
While a few parts of the system are still under the Giant lock, SMP performance is
up significantly. Lots of testing, many enhancements, and 6.0 is a stable release.
A summary of changes and links are available on the FreeBSD 6.0 Release page.
From: Theo de Raadt <deraadt@cvs.openbsd.org>
To: announce@cvs.openbsd.org
Nov 1, 2005.
We are pleased to announce the official release of OpenBSD 3.8.
This is our 18th release on CD-ROM (and 19th via FTP). We remain
proud of OpenBSD's record of eight years with only a single remote
hole in the default install. As in our previous releases, 3.8
provides significant improvements, including new features, in nearly
all areas of the system:
Go and get it! (Please remember to check the primary mirrors -- thanks)
A summary of features is in OpenBSD News. The full list of features and upgrades is linked here: OpenBSD 3.8 Released.
The first set of climate links are now up, but not yet organized into categories. I'll sort these out when I update with a new set of links. Just click on Climate Links.
I'm just back from the CopperCon25 in Phoenix where I presented my second report on the climate situation. In short, we know a lot of facts, but because the problem is so complex, we can't forecast the future with very much confidence. Check out the Climate section for links.
Read Climate Report 2005 #1 and come see #2 at CopperCon25. Check in the Climate Section for links.
A few weeks ago I had a breakin to my house. This caused me to spend time and money to put a security system in place. One of my choices was to record video on a system, which I pulled from my oldest system. That was replaced with the next oldest system and so on down the line.
The first system swap went fine. That was the end of the good luck. Just this AM I finally got my FreeBSD system back up in graphic mode, after a bad video card was replaced by an unsupported video card, which was finally replaced by an old faithful MGA Millenium PCI card just to get going. That doesn't include the replacement MB when I found the fancy Soyo Dragon 2 would not boot FreeBSD. Ten days lost on that one system. :-{
I still don't have the security system up as I have managed to disable my W2K Server as well in a disk upgrade. But I expect to setup the security and fix the W2KS over this weekend. After all my standard stuff is working, I get back to the damaged laptop with my presentation on it. Apologies for all the unplanned delays. [sigh]
My research continues into the climate prediction problem. Recently a few of scientists have found additional effects that happen as the climate adjusts to the additional CO2 and other pollutants put out by the US, Europe and now China. More in Climate.
Due to a case of the Traveler's Trots and damage to my laptop on the return flight, the PDF version of the report will be delayed a bit more. I'm still wrestling with the upgrade on my web management system, and hope to take two falls out of three. Just this short update for now.
I've just joined the climateprediction.net and set up a Pacific Northwest team to support the efforts to get a solid prediction. You can find out more by visiting a very new section of this web site - Climate.
It's been quite a while since I've posted, but not because I've abandoned the site. Local events, travel and too many things to work on have fully occupied my time. But now it's back to work - posting updates and writing. There's a bit of a backlog. :-}
Back in 2002, I wrote about the drive manifacturers dropping their warranties to one year, which reflected the price competition at that time. [Link] Now, with fewer drive makers, warranties have once again become a selling point. Read about new drive reliability options for home and small business, and the basics of offsite backup in Disk Drives and Backup.
Horus is a chip designed by Newisys that sits above a quad Opteron board and synchronizes those four caches with other Horus chips. Initial Horus chips will synchronize the caches on four quad processor boards, and dual core Opterons will enable 32 processors in a tightly coupled system.
Check out the reasons and links in New Processors.Squeak is a full-featured implementation of the Smalltalk programming language and environment based on (and largely compatible with) the original Smalltalk-80 system. Read more in Software News.
From: "Todd C. Miller" [Todd.Miller@courtesan.com]
To: announce@openbsd.org
We have just activated pre-orders for the OpenBSD 3.6 release, which
will be released and start shipping Nov 1, 2004. As always, those
who pre-order will receive their CDs first.
Check out the details in OpenBSD News.
NASA has chosen SGI® Altix® as the foundation of Project Columbia, an extensive collaboration with SGI and Intel Corporation that is expected to fuel scientific breakthroughs in space exploration, global warming research, and aerospace engineering. With Project Columbia, NASA plans to integrate a total of twenty 512-processor SGI® Altix® systems with a 500-terabyte SGI® InfiniteStorage solution to create the Space Exploration Simulator. More details and links in Supercomputer News.
From: "Jon Saxton"
To: os2-unix@mail.warpix.org
Reply to note from John Poltorak [jp@warpix.org] on Wed, 19 May 2004
13:11:07 +0100
> Does anyone know if I can run FreeBSD under OS/2 using SVISTA?
Check the answer in OS/2 News.
Late Announcement of FreeBSD 4.10-RELEASE I am happy to announce the availability of FreeBSD 4.10-RELEASE, the
latest release of the FreeBSD -STABLE development branch. Since FreeBSD
4.9-RELEASE in October 2003 we have made conservative updates to a
number of software programs in the base system, dealt with known
security issues, and made many bugfixes. See also the link for the 5.3 Stable release.
More details in FreeBSD News.
Warpstock 2004 is the eighth edition of the annual event. The Warpstock conference is a
gathering of OS/2-eComStation users, developers, and vendors from around the world
for the purpose of education and advocacy. Warpstock 2004 will be held at the Sheraton
Denver Tech Center Hotel, October 21st through the 24th. More details can be found at
OS2Updates. This is to announce the Eprints User's Handbook.
For a brief outline and links, check in OAI Updates. Read the full release in Software Updates.
Date: Thu, 27 May 2004 01:35:03 -0400
From: Ken Smith
To: freebsd-announce@FreeBSD.org
Subject: FreeBSD 4.10-RELEASE is now available
August 8, 2004: Warpstock 2004 Notes
May 17, 2004: FreeBSD March-April 2004 Status Report
From Scott Long:
2004 continues on with wonderful progress. Work continues on locking
down the network stack, ACPI made more great strides, an ARM port
appeared in the tree, and the FreeBSD 4.10 release cycle wrapped up.
See the long list of work done with a link to details in FreeBSD News.
May 11, 2004: Hubble Repair; New Saturn Pictures
It looks like all the public pressure has made NASA think again.
Now there is a discussion of a robotic repair mission, something that
should have been started long ago. Also, there are terrific pictures
from the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft of Saturn and the first image of
its biggest moon - Titan. Check out all the space news in Science News.
May 6, 2004: Finally, OAI-PMH Metadata for the Small Site
If you run a small site like BillsWrite, just over 100 files, setting up a small digital library
to offer metadata is overkill. Now we can use this new software to provide the metadata
keys for smart searching. Links and more info are in OAI Updates.
May 4, 2004: A Few Thoughts On The 10.5 Disaster Movie (Updated)
Disaster movies are a staple of the industry. I can recall "The Towering Inferno,"
"Posieden Adventure" and others of that ilk. All of these movies puport to show how well we
behave when death is hot on our path. And all of them suffer from the same flaws, 10.5
more than most. Read about what's wrong with 10.5 and disaster movies in general,
with some good news and a link at the end in
A Few Thoughts...
May 1, 2004: OpenBSD 3.5 Released; FreeBSD 4.10 Scheduled; Journals
OpenBSD:
From the OpenBSD announcement:
We are pleased to announce the official release of OpenBSD 3.5.
This is our 15th release on CD-ROM (and 16th via FTP).
Once again, the lists of new features and improvements are extensive.
Visit OpenBSD News for links.
FreeBSD:
Not to be outdone, FreeBSD has scheduled a 4.10 release for May 5.
Keep in mind that FreeBSD will slip this date rather than release with potential problems.
More info and links in FreeBSD News.
Journals:
The difficult access to older Journals has been fixed with updated links. Each Journal segment
ends with a link to the prior Journal, all the way back to when I started in December of 2001.
In addition, the Link Frame at the left now has direct links to the Prior Journals.
Enjoy.
April 24, 2004: Astronomy Day
Just one day? Well, astronomy can be an interest, a hobby, an avocation or a vocation.
For anyone at any age, astronomy can open up new worlds, literally. You don't even
need a telescope. Read more with links in Science News.
April 23, 2004: Unix-OS/2 FAQ
From: John Poltorak [jp@warpix.org] and Knut Stange Osmundsen [bird@anduin.net]
With the idea of putting together some sort of FAQ, I thought it would be
useful to compile a list of sources of info for building and using Unix
apps on OS/2. More info and links are in OS/2 Sitelist.
April 21, 2004: Free PE SciTech SNAP Graphics for OS/2
SciTech, in addition to their SNAP graphics support for almost all graphics cards and
their support of the free Watcom C++ and Fortran compilers, now offers a free personal
edition of the SNAP package for OS/2 and eCS users. I've used their SNAP packages
for years and strongly recommend them. Read the announcement and links in OS/2 News.
April 18, 2004: NASA to Test Space-Time Fabric; Einstein Online
Forty-five years after it was first proposed, NASA will launch Gravity Probe B.
The biggest challenge was the accuracy required by the mechanism that will
measure Einstein's "Frame Dragging."
A new web site will fill out the stories about this genius who 101 years ago gave
us E=MC2, opening up our ability to understand and use the power of the atom.
Read about both of these in Science News.
07Apr2004: Angstrom Delivers 2X Opteron Blades
Up to 260 Opterons in a rack is the highest density available for Opteron processors.
While supercomputers get most of the press, blade systems will be the core of future
data centers and utility computing efforts. Read more in New Processors.
April 6, 2004: Clean Up Bookmark Links
It is clear that the Science News and Super News links for 2004 have confused many people. This is my
fault for not recognizing that bookmarks, once made, rarely get updated. So many people are still linked to
the 2003 pages instead of the 2004.
Both of these links will be changed to point to a current page, with older pages linked in, similar to the way
the current Journal is linked to older Journal pages. This new link will remain stable so that Bookmarks will
continue to point to the current page. I apologize to all who were misrouted by the 2004 change.
Here is the new setup:
April 5, 2004: Video CDs For OS/2
Video processing is now almost common, and best of all, there is VCDGear for OS/2.
In addition to OS/2, there is support for Mac and several other OS, and earlier versions
included support for Be and other orphans. It's well worth the look. Check it out in
OS/2 News.
April 4, 2004: Missing Mouse Returns; Opera Can't Sing
The last week has been filled with hardware and software problems. The switch I was using
to select FreeBSD or what is now W2K was malfing and I replaced it with a new inexpensive two
system switch. After the switch switch, FreeBSD couldn't find the mouse, though W2K did. I tried
a number of things with several reboots, but no FreeBSD mouse. Running KDE without a mouse is
too slow, so after fixing other problems, I came back and remembered the mouse setup in /stand/sysinstall,
and the mouse was back.
My second attempt to use Opera on FreeBSD has now failed. On this latest restart, Opera gave me
a core dump. This is after running for several weeks and collecting a fair amount of my mail. I wasn't
completely happy with the interface, which dumped my four email addresses into a single pile, and it's
tendency to open windows when I didn't want them, but the core dump with no system changes other
than the mouse, makes this product unacceptable. I'm sure there are great mail packages out there,
but what I must have is reliability. I'll be using KMail right now and checking out others
when I can.
April 1, 2004: IBM Opens Up Power Architecture
IBM has surprised most of the players in this industry by opening up its prime processor
architecture, Power, to extensions from third parties, with foundry and software support from IBM.
This is a major change in the processor industry. Read more in New Processors.
March 29, 2004: Cold Fusion is Hot Again; NASA's Scramjet Breaks Mach 7!
I'm not surprised at this but most people will be. Cold Fusion (CF) has been debunked by scientists
and the scientific establishment, papers reporting valid results have been refused by the
science publications, the original scientisits who discovered CF were driven out of the country
and one died. It is now accepted by the Department of Energy that the CF results are valid.
NASA has successfully launched and flown a Scramjet, the X43, which is a supersonic combustion ramjet.
This is a crucial first step to building planes that can fly into space rather than be launched as a rocket.
Read about both events, especially the Cold Fusion (CF) article. CF has the potential to solve
both energy and environmental problems. Overview and links in Science News.
March 28, 2004: Processor Design and History Resource
This is the most complete reference of processor types that I have seen anywhere.
The home page has several links to other sources of information - see Great
Microprocessors of the Past and Present (V 13.3.0). It is the Table of Contents that is truly amazing.
It constitutes seven sections, each with several entries, plus six appendicies.
Read New Processors for an overview and links.
March 22, 2004: International Supercomputer Conference Update
Read about the Sponsors of the ISC and A Tutorial Overview from the ISC Newsletter
in Supercomputer News.
March 20, 2004: FreeBSD Status Update; SoftIntegration Supports Ch on FreeBSD
An excerpt from the FreeBSD-announce mailing list to whet your appetities for the
next release. A brief list of work in progress is included. Also,
SoftIntegration has released several Ch cross scripting tools for FreeBSD.
They are:
Get more info on status and links plus some third party tools in BSD News.
March 18, 2004: Science Portals Updated; Ten Reasons to Save Hubble
I've added a brief comments to the portal sites plus the main NASA Portal.
Check out the Science Index Portals.
Here are Ten Good Reasons why we should save the Hubble Telescope:
Here's four ways to let NASA know you want to save Hubble:
Postal mail:
Office of Public Outreach
Space Telescope Science Insititute
3700 San Martin Drive
Baltimore, MD 21218
Fax:
410.338.4579
Phone (leave a voicemail message):
410.338.4444
Register your opposition at Save The Hubble.
March 15, 2004: Save The Hubble Telescope
The original decision by NASA to not service the Hubble again because of perceived risks
has raised a storm of protest. Now you have a chance to add your voice to the chorus of
those who want Hubble maintained. In addition to the scientific discoveries which Hubble
has already delivered, the Hubble photographs are beautiful and incredible. Many
people use them for desktop background and some have even printed them out in color for
mounting as a print.
Help save Hubble - register your opposition at Save The Hubble. When you are done, check out the recent
Hubble deep sky photo and other links in Science News.
You can find more on Science in the Science Index. For more pictures, check out the
Astronomy section of Physics Science Index.
March 15, 2004: OS/2 Site List Update
I've added a couple of very good sites to the site list. They are the Zope port for OS/2,
The OS/2 Unix Ports and Porting site, and the OS2 Warp be site which has an excellent
set of hardware and software support sections. All three are worth more than just a casual look.
Check out the links in the OS/2 Sitelist.
March 12, 2004: Processor Evolution Will Continue
Intel's Itanium has killed off some high end processor chips that were
doing well before Intel's massive publicity attack that promised the moon.
There is an article on what may have been Intel's aim in The Inquirer - kill off competing
high performance processors. But that doesn't seem likely after ten years
and a billion dollars invested. Read what I think Itanium is aimed at next
in Processor Evolution Will Continue.
11Mar2004: Open BSD Support Update
Those using OpenBSD 3.4 who have not recently updated their code now have several
reasons to do so. All critical fixes have been applied to current, so download that at
OpenBSD CVS, or get the 13 current patches at the Errata and Patch List.
OpenBSD supports several processor types - check the list and links at OpenBSD News.
March 10, 2004: Hubble Images 13 Billion Year Old Galaxies
Hubble, a telescope with no planned life support because of 'risks', continues to
make new astronomical discoveries with its upgraded cameras. The latest picture
is a composite from two cameras, which took one million seconds of exposure over
three months time. Now that's patience with a camera!
More info and links in Science News.
March 9, 2004: CERN Celebrates 50 Years of Physics Research
CERN, the European research consortium, has been in the business of studying the
nucleus of the atom and its components for fifty years. CERN is currently building
the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the largest physics experiment ever, planned
for operation in 2007. It will generate terabytes of data every day.
More info and links in Science News.
March 4, 2004: SAGA - System for Automated Geographic Analysis
SAGA is a GIS system designed for implementing automated GIS processing.
This looks to be an innovative approach for GIS systems and will open up
new application possibilities. Read more in the GIS Index.
March 2, 2004: Rosetta Science Probe Launches; XFree86 4.4.0 Released; Dual Desktop Processors
Third try's a charm, and Rosetta is on it's way to land a probe on an asteroid.
Rosetta is to examine the earliest materials in the solar system to find the origin
of life on earth.
Read more about Rosetta in Science News.
XFree86's new release will be a big boon for users of late model Intel motherboards
with integrated video, and those who use IPV6. Also there are a number of OS related
improvements for Mac, Darwin, FreeBSD, NetBSD and SCO 5.0.7.
Read more in Software Updates.
Both AMD and Intel have plans for dual processors starting in late 2004.
Desktop duals will become available in 2005. Read more in New Processors.
March 1, 2004: Three Space Science Updates; Global Supercomputer Links Up
The Cassini spacecraft has visited asteroids and Jupiter, now it is nearing it's primary destination -
Saturn. What has gone before is prologue, now the main event begins. Plus, JPL is the home to our
exploration of the solar system and beyond. Take a look at JPL's Planetary Photojournal and
another look at the Spitzer Space Telescope. Also, check out the questions that are being raised about
why the universe is expanding faster. Is Dark Energy Real?
Read more with links in Science News and Updates.
A new high speed channel now links the world in research. Gloriad
is a 155 Mb/s ring spanning research institutes in the three countries.
Read more in Supercomputer News.
February 28, 2004: KDE 3.2 Released; RWT Interviews SGI on Altix Architecture
KDE is a powerful desktop, one which has become my standard on any
*nix workstation. The upgrade from 3.1.3 to 3.2 may not be numerically
impressive, but the range of improvements is very large. Read more in BSD News and Updates.
Real World Technologies has an excellent interview on the design and upgrades of the
SGI MIPS, later Itanium supercomputer. It includes good descriptions and diagrams of the
NUMA (Non Uniform Memory Access) architecture in the design, and its benefits.
Read more in Large System Notes.
February 26, 2004: FreeBSD 5.2.1; More on Personal Experiences
There has been substantial activity on the developing 'New Technology'
of FreeBSD version 5. Since the release of 5.2, hundreds of improvements
have been made and rolled into an updated ISO. Check out the overview in
BSD News and Updates.
A lot of activity has happened behind the scenes of BillsWrite because
I have been preparing for a number of upgrades, which will be the basis for
a bunch of new things to come. I'm not ready to announce the new stuff, but
I thought it was time to update my earler systems overview.
Read about the great upgrade caper in Personal Experiences II.
February 20, 2004: Science and GIS Indexes Updated
The Science Index has updates in five of the eight sections - lots of new links for
anyone interested in science. The GIS Index (Geographic Information Systems) also
has some new items in the education section.
February 18, 2004: Intel Announces 64 Bit Xeon - Big Surprise Elsewhere
The worst kept secret in decades were the 64 bit extensions for Intel's
Pentium and Xeon processors. You can read in New Processors 2Feb2004 why I knew Intel
had no choice. But there really is a big surprise here, one which won't get
much press. What is it? Read more in New Processors.
February 16, 2004: Firefox for OS/2; Prescott No Upgrade
Firefox 0.8, renamed from Firebird, is now available for OS/2. Links in
OS/2 News. Intel's new Prescott, the latest
Pentium on 90 nm, is a disapointing chip. Not as fast as Northwood, but more
power. Read why I think this is happening in New Processors.
January 30, 2004: ISC2004 Call For Papers; OpenGIS Standards
ISC2004, the International Supercomputer Conference now
in its 19th year, has issued a call for papers in three HPC areas, with the selected authors
to be awarded the first-ever ISC Award sponsored by AMD.
Read more in Supercomputer News.
The Open GIS Consortium, home for the OpenGIS Standards and many supporting efforts,
has been added to the Geographic Information Systems links under Explore GIS Standards.
January 28, 2004: Eprints User's Handbook
From: Stevan Harnad [harnad@ecs.soton.ac.uk]
To: EPrints Underground List [eprints-underground@ecs.soton.ac.uk]
January 28, 2004: Update on Grids Center
GRIDS Center stands for Grid Research Integration Deployment
and Support Center. This NSF supported center for Grid systems is a good place to
bookmark. Check out the latest info in Grid News and Updates.
January 27, 2004: More OAI Links; Mozilla 1.6 for OS/2
From the OAI-General mailing list, we get another useful set of links for OAI
resources. Check out OAI Updates.
Mozilla 1.6 is now available for OS/2 and eCS. Also a link to an OS/2 resource
site in OS/2 Updates.
January 26, 2004: Teragrid Goes Live; Globus World 2004
We kick off Supercomputer News 2004 with the announcement that the first
phase of Teragrid construction is done and operational. Also, Globus World
2004 is over, but there are links to the site for announcements.
Check out Supercomputer News 2004.
January 24, 2004: Open Archive Initative (OAI) Updates
OAI has had two recent announcements of general interest, which I have
copied here for reference. They are:
Other OAI information and links are pointed to by "Open Archive Initative Links"
at the top of the page. Check out OAI Updates in the Digital Library section.
January 23, 2004: Free GIS Software List Updated
Now there are four software packages supporting GIS, with a brief description
and links to the home pages. Check out the Free Software in the new
Geographic Information Systems page.
January 22, 2004: Writer/Consultant Available
I am looking for new writing and consulting assignments. Take advantage of my forty years of
experience in the IT industry to help guide your company's IT future. Check out a brief outline
of my experience in the left frame "About The Author." Email an inquiry to me at bwrite at ywave
dot com. Also, if you know of publishers looking for articles similar to what you see on
my site, contact me at bwrite at ywave dot com. Please include 'Writer' in the subject line.
January 22, 2004: Geographic Information Systems - Updated Page
A GIS isn't a typical Digital Library, it is a database with spatial information included.
I've added a good clarifying quote from the GIS Monitor, a very informative weekly
newsletter. Reading this newsletter has made me aware of, to put it politely,
just how underinformed I am about GIS. The new GIS section has links to help
you explore the possibilities. Check out the links on Learning, Data, Standards
and Free Software in the new Geographic Information Systems page.
21Jan2004: Software Release Codes; How The Computer Revolution Started
Every company or person who writes software has a series of releases that
have a common set of code names, but these codes have no official definition.
Find out what the real meanings of those Alpha, Beta and RC code names are in
Analysis and Commentary.
I remember two World Series games I watched, 52 years apart, and how computers
have changed our world in that time. See "A Quiet Revolution," my view of what
differences computers have made. At the very least, without computers I would have had
to get a real job. :-}
January 15, 2004: Open Watcom C++ and Fortran Release 1.2
Subject: [announce.openwatcom] Open Watcom 1.2 Now Available
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 11:53:00 -0800
From: stevew@scitechsoft.com
To: announce.openwatcom@list.scitechsoft.com
Open Watcom 1.2 Now Available
-----------------------------
Open Watcom 1.2 has been released. This update includes a number of
eagerly anticipated fixes and enhancements and can be downloaded, free
of charge, from the Open Watcom web site at:
http://www.openwatcom.org/
Open Watcom can also be purchased on CD, which includes all of the
source code, as well as SciTech s installers for OS/2 and Windows.
Support for the update will be handled exclusively through the Open
Watcom newsgroup and Bugzilla.
January 14, 2004: FreeBSD 5.2 Released for Tier-1 Including AMD64 (Updated)
Here is an excerpt from the full release:
It is once again my great privilege and pleasure to announce the
availability of FreeBSD 5.2-RELEASE. Building upon the success of
FreeBSD 5.1, this release includes:
The updated full release is in BSD News and Updates.
January 2, 2004: Stardust Probe Today; How The Computer Revolution Started
The Stardust space probe flys by comet Wild 2 today. This will be in the news and
on NASA TV, and probably the Discovery channel. Check out our first ever mission to
sample and return with comet dust, the stuff of stars. Read more with links in Science News.
I woke up this morning remembering two World Series games I watched, 52 years apart,
and how our world has changed in that time. See "A Quiet Revolution," my view of what
differences computers have made. At the very least, without computers I would have had
to get a real job. :-}
January 1, 2004: Space Probe Reminder
On January 2nd, the Stardust mission will
flyby the comet Wild 2 and return samples to earth Jan 16, 2006. Then, on Jan 3rd
and Jan 24th 2004, two Mars Rovers will land on Mars. Read more with links in Science News.
Site Journal: October thru December 2003
Contact Info: To contact the author, click on the mailto link below.