NetBSD have added another platform to their supported hardware list. As the NetBSD/sgimips and announcement pages say, NetBSD/sgimips is now stable enough to run multi-user, making NetBSD the first OpenSource OS to run on the SGI O2. Currently it's known to work on the R5000 CPU, R10K and R12K are untested due to lack of hardware.

Several Anonymous Cowards have written in with the news that bsd.tucows.com has gone live. Currently they only cover FreeBSD on i386, but they say that i386 Net and OpenBSD support is in the works, with other architectures to be tackled if there's demand (requests to ajohnson@tucows.com).

KarmaHo writes "From the NetBSD web page: Today, the release cycle for NetBSD 1.5 has started. The NetBSD 1.5 release is scheduled for early fall this year. Of course, we want this to be the best NetBSD release ever, as with every release. To help achieve this goal, you can test the ALPHA and BETA snapshots that will be made available, or track the release branch sources."

dougc writes: "FreeBSD 3.5-RELEASE is now available for the x86 architecture. Many changes in both the kernel and userland, plus several very small security fixes were included. A bunch of neat things were also merged from -current." 3.5 is the continuation of the 3.x branch, with mostly important bug and security fixes. New development continues on 5.x. This release is almost certainly the last on the 3.x line, with 4.x becoming the new ``stable'' release. The release notes have the full details on what's changed, you can download 3.5 from here.

jmsohn wrote in with a link to a press release announcing the launch of Wasabi Systems, formed to provide a commercial channel for sales, support, and service for NetBSD. With me in the Usenix terminal room is Perry Metzger, NetBSD's release engineer, and CEO of the new company, to talk about the company's plans.

Anonymous Coward writes: "A very interesting (if somewhat technical) synopsis of the Next Big Thing in FreeBSD SMP coming down the pipes from the geniuses on the FreeBSD core team. Some of the ideas are the beginnings of SMP discussions between BSDI and FreeBSD, along with some input from Yahoo. Very interesting reading!"

Anonymous Coward writes "According to Kirk McKusick's soft updates page, the soft updates code that had a problematic license in the past is now (as of June 21 2000) released under a BSD license!. This is another big plus for the *BSD community, including some people that were hesitant in adding this stuff in their code base."

joe_90 writes "According to RTMX the RTMX O/S has been donated to OpenBSD! Code integration will happen over the next few weeks and probably filter through to the rest of the open source world shortly afterwards. Cool, we get a real time POSIX feature set at last!"

aliya writes: "Microsoft has announced Office and IE5.5 for Mac OS X in mid-2001. Given that OS X is based on BSD, what are the ramifications for those trying to get these apps on unix? Seems like a generic OS X-to-unix API translation would be a lot easier than Win32 API-to-unix. Not that I'm a big fan of the MS Office monopoly or the broken IE5 implementations, but it seems like this is going to have major ramifications for any application ported to Mac OS X." Of course, Microsoft promised products before which have mysteriously failed to appear, but still...interesting.

jim writes "The new issue of the FreeBSD 'zine was put out yesterday. Check it out!"

dragonfly_blue writes: "Just wanted to let you know, OpenBSD 2.7 is out, with significant advances; including OpenSSH2, better Linux binary emulation, DSA encryption, and (my personal favorite) support for encrypting your swap space. Theo and the gang have also expanded the ports and packages collections considerably, so get 'em while they're hot!" (More.)

We've covered the movement to get Java 1.2 ported to the BSDs for a while now. After Linux got in on the act a couple of months ago, keepper was the first to write in with a link to this BSDi press release announcing the availability of Java 2 for BSD. Looks like BSD/OS will get it first (they're beta-ing it now). Then FreeBSD gets it, at which point (I assume) it'll be open to the other BSDs to take as they want.

luddite writes: "Two guys at Purdue University have assmbled a FreeBSD based cluster built cheap - very cheap. With under $2500 spent on the cluster, it's one sweet set-up. Just shows that if you take the time and put some effort into something, money doesn't have to limit your resources! The site also goes into some detail about what the cluster is made of, where they found the parts, how it's been configured, and what they plan to use it for."

Moderator writes: "Wouldn't it be nice if Microsoft ported Internet Explorer to FreeBSD? Apparently, someone else thinks so, and set up a petition for Microsoft to port IE to FreeBSD. Hey, I'm no Microsoft lover, but IE is better than Netscape." Hmm. Personally, I'm more of a "xterm -geometry =120x50 -e w3m" man, but to each his own I suppose.

BSDJoe writes "The June daemonnews newsletter has been posted" Included in this issue are an introduction to the ports system, a length tutorial devoted to writing writing a CAM SCSI controller driver, and a great editorial about how to attract users without dumbing down.

ocipio writes "The article on sfgate.com discusses the use of FreeBSD on the largest Internet companies in the world. FreeBSD is used by Yahoo!, Hotmail, MindSpring, UUNet, and Verio. BSD will also get an indirect boost next year as Apple releases Mac OS X. Comparing the BSD family to Linux, BSDi's Rose said, "We think we have a product that's more reliable, scalable and robust for high-performance, infrastructure-grade computing." Yahoo!'s Chief David Filo agrees, noting he couldn't imagine moving to a proprietary system. "

pestel writes: "BSDI has acquired Telenet System Solutions, a hardware supplier that sells systems built using BSD. You can see the press release over at Daily Daemon News. Good news for BSD people looking for hardware from workstations to huge servers." Built using BSD? Well, built for BSD rather. Interesting news for VA Linux; remember, competitors in the rearview mirror may be closer than they appear...

Anonymous Coward writes "Jim O'Gorman has an article at bsdtoday.com about choosing an OS for a firewall project. While OpenBSD has a lot of followers, find out why Jim chose FreeBSD instead."

In another indication that those advertising dollars made available by the BSDI merger are being put to good use, OS Opinion is running an article explaining FreeBSD. Nothing new if you're already a BSD afficionado, but it does explain most of FreeBSD's salient points in a easy-to-understand way. Perfect for trying to convince the boss that this "three dee bee ess" stuff you're using to keep the company running is up to the task.

Anonymous Coward writes: "In this interview, part III, over at GNULinux.com you can read what Jordan Hubbard, CEO of FreeBSD Inc., has to say about the future of FreeBSD. '[...] Finally, the notion of the PC is changing. One could even argue that the PC has widened to encompass the PowerPC, because there are all these iMacs on peoples' desks, and according to the original mandate we should be looking at those iMacs, too, which is what we're doing,' sounds pretty sweet." This article provides a positive (but sober) overview of recent and anticipated progress from the devil-suit side of free software. You might also be interested in Jordan's answer to the question, "Can FreeBSD scale to the PDA?"