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$ uname -a
FreeBSD kadath 9.1-RELEASE-p3 FreeBSD 9.1-RELEASE-p3 #1 r250201: Fri May 3 16:42:42 MEST 2013 root@kadath:/usr/src/sys/amd64/compile/KADATH amd64
$ uptime
5:43PM up 5 mins, 1 user, load averages: 0.72, 0.89, 0.45

Lessons learned:

• If you want to use ada devices instead of the old ad devices, don’t forget to add “device ahci” to your kernel config!
• /etc/rc.d/netwait now takes properly care of slow network interface startups
• xterm doesn’t register in utmp/wtmp any more — a PR has been filed in 2012 but was never solved.

Apart from that, there’s so far not much else to say. It’s running and didn’t crash yet. I guess that’s a good thing.

Found the culprit for the failed /usr/src upgrade. The kernel config file for my custom kernel was to blame for it.

easy solution:

• mv /usr/src/sys/amd64/conf/<CUSTOM_KERNEL> /root
• rm -rf /usr/src
• svn checkout http://svn.de.freebsd.org/base/releng/9.1 /usr/src
• cp /root/<CUSTOM_KERNEL> /usr/src/sys/amd64/conf/

Next steps:

• build custom kernel, reboot
• install nvidia-driver
• update borked ports (the ones which linked against obsolete libraries when rebuilding them in the first place)

Upgrading the ports is mostly finished.

Some further problems I ran into:

• For an unknown reason, the system and kernel sources were not installed
• freebsd-update left over some 8.2 libraries in /usr/lib, causing all kinds of funny things to happen while upgrading the ports (i.e. programs linking against both the old and the new version of a library)
• All ports dependent on the kernel or system sources failed to build for obvious reasons
• opencv build failed with obscure python errors. It’s only needed for blender, so I took the easy route and removed opencv and blender altogether. Maybe it compiles cleanly after I’ve gotten rid of the old stuff in /usr/lib

After having neglected my FreeBSD installation for way too long, today I decided to bite the bullet and do a major upgrade. More and more ports didn’t support 8.2-RELEASE any more, so it was high time to change to something newer.

I decided against 8.3 and went all the way to the latest 9-RELEASE, 9.1p3. The Upgrade so far ran pretty smooth apart from some merging issues of some heavily modified config files and some minor woes after the installation.

What has been done so far:

• I replaced my custom kernel by the generic one before the upgrade to minimize manual interventions during the upgrade
• rebooting with the generic kernel to make sure the system is booting properly
• # freebsd-update -r 9.1-RELEASE
• wondering why it complains about “integrity checks failed” and claims “Cowardly refusing to proceed any further”
• reading the release notes
• # sed -i ” -e ’s/=_/=%@_/’ /usr/sbin/freebsd-update — as mentioned in the release notes
• re-run freebsd-update -r 9.1-RELEASE
• nodding in agreement to the automatic merges, doing manual merges where the automatic ones failed
• # freebsd-update install
• # init 6
• # freebsd-update install (again)
• # rm /var/db/pkg/pkgdb.db ; pkgdb -Ffuv (followed by uninstalling obsolete or superseded ports)
• # cd /usr/ports ; svn update /usr/ports ; make index ; pkgdb -u ; portsdb -u
• # portupgrade -af (currently running)
• # /etc/rc.d/cron restart to get rid of May  1 14:15:00 hostname /usr/sbin/cron[66803]: in openpam_load_module(): no pam_nologin.so found
• creating an additional ssh key: # /usr/bin/ssh-keygen -t ecdsa -f /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key -N ” because sshd complained: May  1 14:22:28 hostname sshd[73020]: error: Could not load host key: /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key
• Waiting for portupgrade to finish

To be done:

• run freebsd update install for a last time after all ports have been upgraded
• check if sendmail still works properly with my heavily modified old config
• check why “su” complains when being connected via ssh about not being able to open /etc/termcap even though the link exists and points to the existing  /usr/share/misc/termcap. Oddly enough when being logged in locally, it doesn’t complain.
• rebuild a custom kernel again

I noticed a few people are still looking up my almost 3 year old post regarding Samba performance tweaks on FreeBSD.
Here’s a quick update on this one. The sysctl values are still valid, but smb.conf seems to work better with these settings:
use sendfile = yes
strict locking = no
min receivefile size = 16384
aio read size = 16384
aio write size = 16384
;aio write behind = true
The commented out last line considerably speeds up write operations, but be aware that it can cause file corruption, especially when your network isn’t the most reliable or when your samba client is behaving funny.

What kind of world are we living in, where computer people don’t even know any more what a VT100 is?
The following posting in comp.sys.dec made me sad:
Thu, 22 Nov 2012 08:31:00         comp.sys.dec             Thread   57 of   57
Lines 7                          DEC VT 100 Box            No responses
<mail address obscured for privacy>@gmail.com

Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec

I have an old piece of test equipment that I am trying to find out some information on. What it does, name, etc. It has a model # of 70-17562-00 but not much else. Do you know where I could find info on it? Is it worth anything or is it scrap?  I am going to list it on e-bay and would love to know more about it.
thanks for your time and help.
John

A stormy morning. A few minutes after the picture the sky turned solid gray with a thick blanket of stratus clouds.

A closeup. A nice example of Cirrocumulus stratiformis undulatus:

A wideangle view, right before the stratus cloud cover rolled in. The cirrocumuli were dissolving already, but you can still see the multiple wave patterned layers they were forming. Clouds like that mean a good chance of rain or snow in the next 10 hours, and sure enough there’s rain foreseen for tonight.

Today’s evening sky:

Access Denied

The site: http://www.heise.de/foto/galerie/OccupyBerlin-Mann-vor-Polizisten-ed41191a61de9d4440a45b884531eb9c/ is blocked because the European Commission web filter identified it as “Nudity”

On one hand the European Commission made a big fuss after Fukushima and they’re suggesting their member states to pull out of nuclear power, and in the same breath they’re doing this:

(Picture taken at August 9th, 2012 in one of the Commission’s buildings in Luxembourg)

I am disgusted.

keep looking »