Mastodawn

vermaden Dec 4, 2024

Its AGAIN the problem that FreeBSD project does not want to solve - for the short 3 months period (when 14.1 is still in support) the packages for 14.2 - including kernel related packages such as drm-kmod - are built against 14.1 kernel sources ... which give result such as yours.

The solutions are:

- do not upgrade to 14.2 when 14.1 is in support + 1 week so new packages in 'latest' branch gets build

- rebuild 'drm-kmod' packages from Ports:
# make -C /usr/ports/graphics/drm-kmod build deinstall install clean

- use GhostBSD as 'base' for desktop - I mean use GhostBSD repositories and kernel - they always build packages against the RIGHT sources.

I try to at least 'force' FreeBSD related people to switch 'latest' branch to always build against the latest FreeBSD - 14.2 now - and to keep 'quarterly' on older still supported for 3 months - 14.1 in that case ... but they would not listen to me.

Graham Perrin Dec 5, 2024

Stop spreading jumped-up misinformation about the FreeBSD Project not wanting solutions.

If you want a pointer, to evidence, you could begin by showing some fucking respect.

Graham Perrin Dec 7, 2024

We might partly clear the air with as few as two posts.

(1) Our use of foul language.

@vermaden, your headline use of "Fuckup" was acceptable in many places – including the official forums for the FreeBSD Project, where the headline would have been prominent, for a while, on the front page.

Your foul-mouthed headline did not belong on the front page of the FreeBSD subreddit. Perhaps you were unaware of removal. Most remarkable: the certainty that you responded to someone else's comment whilst ignoring a moderator plea to use an alternative title.

To anyone who reads this post (1) from me: please be patient for a second post, which might explain the anger that drove my recent foul-mouthed message in BSD Cafe.

Graham Perrin Dec 9, 2024

(2) Your ignorance of the Technology Roadmap for FreeBSD.

You promoted the map – as valuable information.

The FreeBSD Foundation promotes the map – prominently, and frequently.

Within the map:

― the first focus area describes release-specific overlays.

Your shouting on 4th December not only demonstrated ignorance, it also devalued and mis-portrayed the FreeBSD Project in a way that was guaranteed to offend any number of people.

Now: we can not guess how many people will read – and believe – your ignorant, offensive post. We can not guess how many people will read the boosts of your ignorant, offensive post.

There's more, however I find it difficult to compose this second post without a resurgence of anger. I have made countless mistakes in the past. Some mistakes are easier to correct than others, especially where pride is involved.

Please do the honourable thing.

#FreeBSD #upgrade #misinformation

vermaden Dec 9, 2024

If you really want another answer from my side - then here you are - but you are not gonna like it.

If it was known in the FreeBSD project that its gonna be broken again - why message such as this one was NOT added to Release Notes?

[WARNING:BEGIN]

In the last minutes of 14.2 release process we found a bug that fixing will temporarily break (for 3 months) all kernel related pkg(8) packages (like drm-kmod or virtualbox for example) because of the way FreeBSD project organizes its package building repositories and support cycles. FreeBSD project is working on a solution that hope to prevent such problems in the future.

[WARNING:END]

I did not saw anything like that in the Release Notes.

... and you are making more drama out of this then #Netflix could have ever dream of.

TomAoki Dec 9, 2024

@vermaden @grahamperrin
There's release errata (Open Issues section).
https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.2R/errata/

FreeBSD 14.2-RELEASE Errata

FreeBSD is an operating system used to power modern servers, desktops, and embedded platforms.

The FreeBSD Project

vermaden Dec 9, 2024

Thanks, missed that.

Seem I need to start mention to everytime check ERRATA now after checking Release Notes.

TomAoki Dec 9, 2024

@vermaden
Usually, IIRC, release errata used to be a skeleton (space holder) at the beginning and updated as time goes by (with issues found and/or fixed by patch releases [-p*]).

But as users of graphics/[nvidia-]drm-[510|515|61]-kmod ports increased, the more screams are heard on point releases. So release engineering team were forced to write something about it.

And, as my prediction, release note is not a good place to do so, as this is clearly an issue with how pkgs are built and provided.

What was needed in release note would be, IMHO, pointing there's an open issue described in release errata. Preferrably at Abstract or at the top of Introduction, because Security and Errata section is for "fixed issues until previous release".

Announcement

– the phrases "known problems" and "please see"

– third link: errata

– near the head of the page.

TomAoki Dec 14, 2024

@grahamperrin
Yes. I've picked the errata URI from there.
But even though it's there, many screams on forums.freebsd.org.
This would mean the link alone is insufficient.
And this would be because, in many releases, errata were just skeletons to add information "later", and didn't read at the early phase, then, forgotton.

Graham Perrin Dec 14, 2024

@TomAoki re: "many screams on forums.freebsd.org"

Thanks, I avoid the place, since I quit, now I see <https://forums.freebsd.org/posts/681980> on page 1 of 4.

The word "petrol" comes to mind.

Discussion: FreeBSD 14.2-RELEASE Available

freebsd-14-2-release-available.95937 https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.2R/relnotes/ Some parts, I found notable: Depreciated and Removed Drivers: agp(4) has been planned for removal in FreeBSD 15.0, and the man page now states that it is deprecated. 92af7c97e197 syscons(4) has been planned...

The FreeBSD Forums

TomAoki Dec 14, 2024

@grahamperrin
And some more threads. People requiring help often forgets to search, or searching with multiple variations. Maybe too worried to recall it. So multiple threads for exactly same topic appears in short terms.

Graham Perrin Dec 14, 2024

@TomAoki XenForo in The FreeBSD Forums disallows seeking phrases such as:

14.2

– and I doubt that allowances will be made.

The standard response to limitations of XenForo is along the lines of LMGTFY, which is not amusing in a FreeBSD context, because Google is not reliable.

https://mastodon.bsd.cafe/@grahamperrin/113652040123315453

Graham Perrin (@[email protected])

freebsd.org and search engine failures https://old.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/1he61iu/freebsdorg_and_search_engine_failures/ #FreeBSD

BSD.cafe Mastodon Portal

TomAoki Dec 14, 2024

@grahamperrin
Not sure about the limitations...
And yes, your sample seach (links) returns incorrect results. Silly.
Possibly ":" in non-URI contexts being hazardous for G*?

Graham Perrin Dec 14, 2024

<https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/xenforo-allow-seeking-three-character-strings.83135/#post-544567>

I thanked DutchDaemon for allowing three-character strings.

I assume that the 14 part of 14.2 is treated as a two-character string, which will never be allowed.

Solved - XenForo: allow seeking three-character strings

A question for the XenForo service administrators here. Please, can you enable support for three-character strings? I'm on my knees. Begging. Thanks (… and NB, for all readers, the question here is XenForo feature-specific, so Google is not an answer; neither is DuckDuckGo … and so on)...

The FreeBSD Forums

TomAoki Dec 14, 2024

@grahamperrin
Is it allowed if it is considered as numeric, not a string?

Graham Perrin Dec 15, 2024

@TomAoki I have no idea, sorry, you might find an answer (but not ask) at <https://xenforo.com/community/>.

NB DutchDaemon's shot of what was, I guess, a GUI to MySQL.

XenForo community

Forum software by XenForo

XenForo community

Graham Perrin Dec 16, 2024

@TomAoki at <https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/possible-solution-to-the-drm-kmod-kernel-mismatch-after-upgrade-from-bapt.96058/> I see some things that could be corrected or improved.

I'll summarise in Reddit in due course. In the meantime, people may take a hint from part of <https://mail-archive.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?be9146d1-a895-4e52-91c1-85186bb86cbe>.

With all that's past, and ongoing, readers might begin to understand why I object so strongly to things such as:

― describing developers as jerks

― describing the FreeBSD Project as not wanting to solve a problem, that was (still is) a quite despicable lie.

Examples of the truth:

― <https://old.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/1h59yk6/freebsd_142release_now_available/m04h9c4/> (3rd December) Colin attending to release discussions on the day of announcement whilst at an airport, and then <https://mastodon.bsd.cafe/@grahamperrin/113651368822521287> his 4th December report from attendance at the multi-day AWS re:Invent 2024 event, which was relevant to FreeBSD and coincided with release of 14.2

― <https://bsd.network/@dvl/113647872604140584>

And so on.

Cc and respect to @joel

#FreeBSD #respect #developers #thanks

Possible solution to the drm-kmod kernel mismatch after upgrade from Bapt

There are a lot of threads on this subject. It's a thorny problem that often comes up after upgrades from a minor version that has not reached EOL yet. bapt@ has posted a solution to freebsd-ports: https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-ports/2024-December/006997.html

The FreeBSD Forums

TomAoki Dec 16, 2024

@grahamperrin @joel
And me too posting DRM related things on most threads without the info I've found. They should be a "single" thread, though, regarding its technical details.

And complaining users should know it is impossible for small project like FreeBSD project to test all up-to-date, latest hardwares. To do so, ALL responsible key persons of ALL hardware manufacturers SHALL pop into FreeBSD project as developers/testers. Just a dream for now, unfortunately.

Graham Perrin Dec 16, 2024

@TomAoki multiple separate overlapping of-topic discussions are inevitable at times such as this.

Partly off-topic, one of the things that I love about Discourse is the automated cross-referencing (linking) when quoting from one topic in another. Readers can be aware of the spread of things, with zero fuss.

There can be no cure for the few people who will not tolerate Internet links (to external content, beyond the bubble of The FreeBSD Forums).

That aside: a shift from XenForo to Discourse could, slowly but effectively, cure a fair amount of what's problematic – without admin/moderator intervention. True: the most hostile offenders might, in the early months of a transition, abuse the aspects of Discourse through which moderation is automated.

The optimist in me believes that Discourse is mature enough for such abuse to become apparent, and then easily stamped out. Result:

― a better community, for everyone.

Food for thought, <https://forums.truenas.com/>:

― the result of a swiftly executed, effective move from XenForo to Discourse.

#FreeBSD #iXsystems #TrueNAS # #Discourse #XenForo #forums #forum #discussion #abuse #troublemakers #narrowminded #clique #hostility

TrueNAS Community Forums

TrueNAS Community Help and Discussion

TrueNAS Community Forums

TomAoki Dec 16, 2024

@grahamperrin
Oh, looks nice!👍

Graham Perrin Dec 16, 2024

I can not downplay end users' frustrations with the kernel module (kmod) package build scenario that preceded the recent flurry/hurricane of activity through which spoon-feeding, largely by the FreeBSD Project, has begun.

What irks me is, the popular assumption that the Project should have provided everything. I mean, everything, whilst the Foundation pleads politely – repeatedly – for donations. The year during which attraction of sizeable investments has astounded me, but still, we're short of target figures (and I can not assume that a colossal lump sum to plug a gap will fall daintily from the air, as it has in some past years, for the 2024 budget).

The popular assumption of absolute entitlement, when it should have been ENTIRELY possible for a few imaginative members of communities to collaborate – to provide a complementary service.

Imagine: a complementary, community-driven kmods repo for just one architecture/platform, for just one version of the OS. This would have set a good example. Excite people, positively, to do more. To do good.

Essentially: be nice.

Gain colossal #thanks (not necessarily on a Tuesday in BSD Cafe).

Imagine: a place, an extraordinary Mastodon instance perhaps, where communities overlap.

Rewind. History. Did we have hordes screaming about the Project not providing torrents? No. Simple. We have respectable torrents that are not Project-provided – and the vast majority of people are entirely happy with this somewhat unofficial arrangement.

Fast-forward. Some awkwardness.

Now, people can know why my "no particular order" at <https://mastodon.bsd.cafe/@grahamperrin/113627357280256078> was a lie with regard to the second thing there: torrents. Big #thanks to those people.

Me being #uppity here, today, does not dilute the Tuesday #thanks there.

Peace

cc @lproven @emaste @stefano @FreeBSDFoundation @TomAoki #FreeBSD #community

Graham Perrin (@[email protected])

In no particular order … Eric Turgeon – for package repositories, and more. John-Mark Gurney, Vincent Milum Jr, and others – for FreeBSD-related torrents, seeds, and so on. Thomas Hurst – for FreshBSD. Dan Langille – for FreshPorts. Lucas Holt – for MidnightBSD. Dmitry Salychev, Grégory Reinbold, Lars Engels, Marcel Kaiser, and Mehmet Mert Gunduz – for NomadBSD. Shawn Webb – for co-founding HardenedBSD. JT Pennington, Ken Moore, Kris Moore, and others – for PC-BSD, Lumina Desktop, TrueOS, TrueNAS, and more. Bob Bruce, David Greenman, Jack Velte, Jim Mock, Jordan Hubbard, Murray Stokely, Pat Rietz, Rod Grimes, Theresa Elam, and others – for FreeBSD Mall, formerly known as Walnut Creek CDROM, and more. Thom Holwerda – for OSnews. Jesse Smith – for DistroWatch.com. Stefano Marinelli – for BSD Cafe, and more. Liam Proven – for no bullshit, by him on, you know. pfSense of humor – for an excellent sense of humour, and more. I'm tempted to say "nothing more", but that'll be stretching his sense of humour. Too far. The shortlist above should be much, much longer. Eye-wateringly long. The full list would take so long to compile that Wednesday will arrive in all time zones on planet Earth before I finish. Fact: if I don't click 'Post' ― now ― I'll make myself late for work. Again. E&OE #ThankYouTuesday

BSD.cafe Mastodon Portal

TomAoki Dec 16, 2024

@grahamperrin @lproven @emaste @stefano @FreeBSDFoundation
Just my thought, what should be prioritized would be chosen by:
*How many users (including non-newbies) are affected?
*Does it meet the philosophy of the project?
*Does it feasible (in budgets, human resources, ...)
Not everything.😉

Liam Proven Dec 16, 2024

@TomAoki @grahamperrin @emaste @stefano @FreeBSDFoundation

I do not understand what "does it feasible" means. :-(

I upgraded FreeBSD 13.3 to 14.0. It broke X.org on 2 testbed laptops.

As a direct result I skipped testing or writing about FreeBSD 14.0 or 14.1. Some months after the event I managed to manually get X11 working on my machines but my display manager was gone. I had to log in from the command line like it was 1989 or something.

When 14.2 came out I tried again.

I upgraded to 14.1. It was fine. I upgraded that to 14.2.

This time *it broke the console*. Not merely X but the text console.

I have only been experimenting with FreeBSD for about 3 years now but I am already becoming _deeply_ disenchanted with it.

I write for a living. I have had many angry FreeBSD users writing to me, on email and in social media, denying that what happened to me is possible. I also get that in my articles' comments.

So this year I went to the EuroBSDCon and talked in person to some of the core team and I learned that I was in fact right, that there are undocumented system requirements, and that the things I've found are mostly real but are not considered important.

It is *not good.*

Stephan Lichtenauer | נח סתו Dec 16, 2024

@lproven @TomAoki @grahamperrin @emaste @stefano @FreeBSDFoundation

I agree, I use FreeBSD (not only) as a daily driver on my laptop and while I am overall very happy with it (and I also love the community, so please don't fight, guys 🙂 ), simply the possibility that I have to struggle with the graphics driver after the 14.2 update makes me postpone it for now.

The non-matching kmods and the manual EFI loader upgrades after zpool upgrades are a major issue in my opinion.

I know how to fix both as I started to use FreeBSD back with release 2.2.6 and I have enough technical know how meanwhile, but in my opinion FreeBSD can do a lot better than be this elitist "you need to be worthy to be able to use it" system some on the FreeBSD Forums seem to postulate.

And no, I am not saying that this elitist view is the opinion of developers, Core Team or the Foundation.

So I really hope that some of the funding from this year is used to improve EUC user experience.

Because beyond these two in my opinion really huge and for new(er) users very frustrating stumbling blocks there also are quite a number of smaller issues that are not looking nice. E.g. why do I need to install and configure additional software just so my notebook picks up IPv6 addresses in my WLAN when Windows or Macs/iOS can perfectly do that for many years now?

Graham Perrin Dec 16, 2024

@hnygd for what it's worth, I take a VERY dim view when writers take a dismissive or "you are not worthy" attitude in the FreeBSD subreddit.

I'm sometimes fiery in my responses to elitists, which doesn't make me popular, but makes for a better place, I hope.

So, elitist attitudes should be increasingly rare. I do rely, partly, on people using the 'report' feature when something's not right.

(Disclosure: I'm a mod there.)

Graham Perrin Dec 16, 2024

@lproven assuming that you used freebsd-update (the norm) for upgrades to 14.0: IMHO what's close to worst, for your case and countless others, is that we can never truly know WHY.

Because: no log. That's undeniably not good. Istically.

Optimistically: <https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=256143>.

Realistically: it'll not be fixed. Axe candidate, abandoned by author five years ago, et cetera.

Futuristically: pkgbase. Logs, et cetera.

That sort of covers the least of your points. Lazily, but truthfully.

I might touch upon other points, later. Hoping to get some sleep, and headspace, before 18:00 today …

https://mastodon.bsd.cafe/@grahamperrin/113662369048729843

Thanks

256143 – freebsd-update does not log its activities

Liam Proven Dec 16, 2024

@grahamperrin @stefano

I once asked some Fedora devs why they didn't explain their to-me obscure tool with a 3-or-4-word comparison to Ubuntu, instead of 2 or 3 sentences of technobabble.

They were as shocked as if I asked a Roman Catholic to explain the kosher laws.

I don't know & TBH I don't hugely care why the upgrade nuked a thing I never knowingly installed. Some internal technobabble about source code versions in build systems not being upgraded until something else goes EOL doesn't really cut it in 2024 IMHO.

As for the pkgbase thing: at risk of asking a Jew about Mass or something: can you explain it in easy terms like Debian/APT vs RH or something like that?

AIUI -- not well -- OS updates & upgrades are handled by a totally different tool from packaging? *WHY* FFS?

Now there's a move to a new packaging tool which can do updates too?

It sounds like FreeBSD is struggling to make the transition Debian made in 1999 when "Slink" came out.

Which is entirely on-brand for FreeBSD: staggering along 25 years behind.

And yes, I know, the last 25Y of Linux development has seen just as much bad as good. That's sort of my point here.

Graham Perrin Dec 16, 2024

@lproven AFAICT

freebsd-update originated in 2006 <https://codeberg.org/FreeBSD/freebsd-src/commit/48ffe56ac5b7adb5b851d32be12b2ec0f13705a4> and was fairly mature in 2011 (before my time).

What's now known as pkg was, back then, new generation (ng). Infancy. If anyone had the notion of using it for the OS, it might have been pure fantasy. The 2011 first edition of the page for PKGNG:

<https://wiki.freebsd.org/action/recall/pkg?action=recall&rev=1>

(Click the 'pkg' tab in MoinMoin to view the current edition.)

HTH to explain the origins of freebsd-update as separate, and totally different, from what's now known as pkg.

Add FreeBSD Update 2.0 client code. The build code is in the projects · 48ffe56ac5

repository. Sponsored by: FreeBSD security development fundraiser

Codeberg.org

TomAoki Dec 16, 2024

@lproven @grahamperrin @emaste @stefano @FreeBSDFoundation
Well, changes in hardwares, especially for GPU and WiFi, are too rapid and breaking former works that small projects like FreeBSD project cannot chase just in time as a whole. The issue you're bitten may be the insufficient binary compatibilities on kernel modules in ports, usually depending on LinuxKPI, which is quite a "moving goal".
With this very issue, it is just going to be better, with the works introduced in the threads below.
https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-stable/2024-December/002589.html

And to understand the meaning of "feasibility",
https://tspinfo.tenneco.com/SupplierManual/team_feasability_form.pdf
would be helpful.

This is a format in QS-9000 that suppliers of automotive components are required to sign-off and provide to their customers (so called Big3, mainly) to commit the feasibility of their required parts. Also required by ISO/TS16949 as a "customer-specific requirement".

Quite roughly, feasible means that it can be done regarding ALL constraints (quality, schedule, budget, and any other resources/constraints).

CFT: repository for kernel modules

Graham Perrin Dec 16, 2024

「… alternatively, the FreeBSD project gets a subproject going which brings in the WiFi drivers from OpenBSD twice a year or something.」

Smart thinking. +100 to reuse of code, collaboration, and the like.

You're not the first person to ask about OpenBSD. The brief answer, from <https://wiki.freebsd.org/WiFi/Iwlwifi#openbsd>:

「There were other people looking into this.

When I started there was limited support for various chipsets already supported by iwlwifi, … mangled so that comparing to the original code was no longer possible in an automated way … goals listed above … another driver to change and support (in addition to iwm).」

<https://old.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/1h84qgn/freebsd_142_wants_to_woo_docker_fans_but_still/m1nabix/>

Cc @TomAoki @emaste @stefano @FreeBSDFoundation

#wireless #wifi #FreeBSD #BSD #OpenBSD #iwlwifi #iwm #iwx

WiFi/Iwlwifi - FreeBSD Wiki

Graham Perrin Dec 24, 2024

@lproven good news,

Donation of the working iwx driver — <https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-desktop/2024-December/005173.html>

In addition, I learnt in FreeBSD Discord that <https://github.com/orgs/FreeBSDFoundation/projects/1/?pane=issue&itemId=84366575&issue=FreeBSDFoundation%7Cproj-laptop%7C5> is iwx – but not yet marked as such.

The Tom mentioned in <https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-desktop/2024-December/005182.html> is Tom Jones, whose FreeBSD Network Status reports I highly recommend:

<https://adventurist.me/tag/networkstatus>

@TomAoki @stefano

#iwx #WiFi #wireless #OpenBSD #FreeBSD #Ludwig #LDWG #FBSD_LDWG

[LDWG] Donation of the working iwx driver

Graham Perrin Dec 16, 2024

「I have had many angry FreeBSD users writing to me, on email and in social media, denying that what happened to me is possible. I also get that in my articles' comments.」

That's quite shitty.

The simple fact that you're a journalist is, in the frenzied imaginations of some readers, a licence to casually say what they like, no matter how stupid or offensive, with no real comeback.

I have seen the same disrespect with regard to another (equally experienced) journalist in The FreeBSD Forums. I chewed the offender's ear off, he wouldn't back down. Quite the arsehole; he is, more generally, a sneering {expletive} {expletive} tl;dr journalists are not his sole target.

Now.

It can't help when the best a reader can give you is sarcasm, sarcasm alone. <https://old.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/1h84qgn/freebsd_142_wants_to_woo_docker_fans_but_still/m1udo39/?context=1> might be taken, by the offender, as a hint to knock it off. Not mentioned there: a long-term personal block – not a moderator action – that prevents him from responding to me. (Is this me abusing a moderator privilege? Perhaps.)

Worse was <https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/1h84qgn/freebsd_142_wants_to_woo_docker_fans_but_still/m0t3ka6/>, where I chose to hide – not permanently delete – what I wrote, after your suitably polite response appeared. (What I wrote should be not too difficult to find, in the Wayback Machine.)

@lproven if you'd like me to be either stricter, or hands-off, just say the word.

Cc @TomAoki @stefano @gumnos

Graham Perrin Dec 14, 2024

『… in many releases, errata were just skeletons to add information "later", and didn't read at the early phase, then, forgotten.』

From <https://old.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/1fbi3g5/freebsd_134rc3_now_available/lmvwhsp/?context=1> (September 2024):

『… in my limited experience, errata documents lack important information on known bugs, security advisories, and corrections to documentation.

…

Please note, this is not to put the onus on any one team. Documentation can be difficult at the best of times. Needs more eyes, more people, in general.

I'm providing this feedback at the worst of times (RELEASE build day, with the weekend ahead, and weekends should be for resting) … sorry!』

Graham Perrin Dec 16, 2024

@TomAoki also linked, prominently, from the home page of the FreeBSD Project. Second sentence:

「Please be sure to check … Errata before installation for any late-breaking news and/or issues …」

#FreeBSD #release #news #errata #issues #problems

TomAoki Dec 16, 2024

@grahamperrin
Yes, but unfortunately it would be quite often missed to do.
Newbies trying to install just at release announced would think it should be for anyone installing after weeks or more, then, skip. Others would skip it and regularly look for errata notices linked from top page.