EeeBSD – FreeBSD tweaks for the Asus Eee PC 701

Posted on January 21, 2008 by Gerard

Asus Eee PC 701The Asus Eee PC 701 has made some decent headlines lately. Online Linux media have on the whole been quite positive about this low-cost mini-laptop powered by Linux.The Linux installation comes with a lot of out-of-the-box configuration features on top of a basic Intel platform so one can immediately start working/playing. But, if the laptop is able to run Linux, it’s should also be possible to get it to run FreeBSD…

If you own an Asus Eee PC and prefer FreeBSD over Linux, have a look at this EeeBSD page, for notes describing solutions to problems installing FreeBSD onto the Asus EeePC series of subnotebook computers (installation, wireless networking, wired networking, sound, hotkeys, X11)

Posted in FreeBSD | 6 Comments

New category and FBSD Projects page updated

Posted on January 19, 2008 by Gerard

I’ve just updated the FBSD Projects page (added DSBSD and TrueBSD) and also added a X vx Y category where you will find topics such as Linux vs BSD or OS X vs OS Y, such as:

Posted in Miscelaneous, X vs Y | Leave a comment

PC-BSD vs DesktopBSD; similarities & differences

Posted on January 19, 2008 by Gerard


Similar to my m0n0wall vs pfSense; similarities & differences post, I thought I’d also post a “PC-BSD vs DesktopBSD; similarities & differences” overview since I get so much trafic from people trying to find out what the similarities and differences are.

A common misconception about DesktopBSD is that it is intended as a rival to PC-BSD as a BSD-based desktop distribution. Neither the DesktopBSD nor the PC-BSD project intend to rival each other; the two projects are completely independent with distinctive features and goals. PC-BSD has introduced a new package management (PBI) that lets you easily install packages, whereas DesktopBSD has developed a graphical utility that makes installing standard FreeBSD packages and ports easy. Let’s have a look at the similarities and the differences.

Continue reading →

Posted in DesktopBSD, PC-BSD, X vs Y | 2 Comments

PC-BSD in the classroom

Posted on January 18, 2008 by Gerard

Kevin Miller used PC-BSD in one of his classes and got his students to use it too. Thanks for spreading the word, Kevin!

PC-BSD in Vietnam Classroom

Read Kevin’s “My Vietnamese Students used PC-BSD” account for details.

Posted in PC-BSD | 1 Comment

FreeBSD 6.3 Released

Posted on January 18, 2008 by Gerard

FreeBSD LogoCongratulations to the FreeBSD developers! FreeBSD 6.3-RELEASE is available now. This release continues the development of the 6-STABLE branch providing performance and stability improvements, many bug fixes, new features, new drivers, better hardware support, new commands/options and major bug fixes. Some of the highlights:

  • KDE updated to 3.5.8, GNOME updated to 2.20.1, Xorg updated to 7.3
  • BIND updated to 9.3.4
  • sendmail updated to 8.14.2
  • lagg(4) driver ported from OpenBSD/NetBSD
  • unionfs file system re-implemented
  • freebsd-update(8) now supports an upgrade command

For a complete list of new features and known problems, please see the online release notes and errata list.

Check out the announcement page for availability, downloading, upgrading, acknowledgments, MD5 checksums etc.

Cheers to the FreeBSD developers! Many thanks, guys, for all your hard work and (free) time. Waiting for FreeBSD 7.0 to be released ;-)

Posted in FreeBSD | Tagged | 2 Comments

m0n0wall vs pfSense; similarities & differences

Posted on January 17, 2008 by Gerard

pfSense logoA common misconception about pfSense is that it is intended as a rival to m0n0wall as a BSD-based firewall system, since they are similar in structure and goals. This is not the case; some developers even contribute to both projects. m0n0wall is targeted at a specific level of hardware platform, which is the Soekris or Wrap (a 486 133MHz with 64 or 128 Mb RAM and low power consumption). pfSense requires 128 Mb ram. Likewise, m0n0wall gets away with a >= 10Mb CF card, while pfSense really needs a 256Mb card or bigger.

M0n0wall logopfSense is better in that it has more features, however m0n0wall is better in that it is smaller and simpler. Which of the two, m0n0wall or pfSense, you need, just depends on your (system/business) requirements.

Interesting link: BSD Firewalling, pfSense and m0n0wall (PDF – paper delivered at BSDCan2006)

Posted in M0n0wall, pfSense, X vs Y | 4 Comments

pfSense 1.2 RC4 released

Posted on January 17, 2008 by Gerard

pfSense logo The pfSense development team is happy to bring you the final release candidate in the 1.2 series (RC4)! The FreeBSD based pfSense firewall is designed to be a secure and easy to setup firewall server appliance. pfSense 1.2 promises a number of great features to make setting up a firewall easier and faster.

RC4 will be the last 1.2 release candidate. The final 1.2 release will come before the end of the month.

This is a summary of the changes since RC3:
Continue reading →

Posted in pfSense | Leave a comment

m0n0wall tipped, screencasts and beta9

Posted on January 16, 2008 by Gerard

M0n0wall logoThe m0n0wall project now offers a couple of screencasts that walk you through different configuration steps of a m0n0wall. Since pfSense is based on m0n0wall, some of them apply to pfSense as well.

Carla Schroder from Serverwatch.com recommended m0n0wall in the Tip of the Trade series

m0n0wall is a specialized implementation of FreeBSD + pf designed for routers and firewalls. It weighs in at well under 10 megabytes, while still delivering a complete operating system, a firewall, Web administration, traffic shaping services, a DNS and a DHCP server, SNMP, support for DynDNS updates, and a whole lot more. m0n0wall offers a nice pointy-clicky interface for setting up your stout pf firewall, but for ultimate power, you must write rules the from scratch. more…

The 9th beta of M0n0wall 1.3 was released yesterday. This beta release corrects problems with large configuration files, fixes an issue with bridging interfaces that support hardware checksum offload, and adds a kernel patch to allow m0n0wall to boot on Nokia IP110/IP120/IP130 boxes.

Posted in M0n0wall, pfSense | Leave a comment