osiris writes: "Theo de Raadt has just announced that OpenBSD 3.0 is now accepting pre-orders. 3.0 will now be shipping with 3 cds supporting booting from cd for 6 architectures. Plus there is a bonus audio track on the cd :) Plus the all new pf firewall, which replaces Darren Reed's ipf. I hear pf is pretty rock solid with quite a few new features."

Murray Stokely writes: " The second edition hardcopy release of the FreeBSD Handbook is now available! Written by the FreeBSD Documentation Project, the FreeBSD Handbook is a comprehensive guide to installing and running FreeBSD. This book was typeset using entirely open source software. It covers the installation and day-to-day use of FreeBSD, the ports collection, kernel configuration, the X Window System, printing, FreeBSD's Linux binary compatibility support, upgrading your system from source by using the ``make world'' command, and much more. Among the many changes since the 1st edition are the inclusion of a full index, all new graphical network diagrams, several new chapters, more professional typesetting, and content that has been completely updated for FreeBSD 4.x and 5.0-CURRENT. If you are interested in purchasing a copy of the handbook, you can do so online from the FreeBSD Mall."

proclus writes "OSX.1 users can now install the GNU-Darwin base distribution automatically with one command. As Root: "curl http://gnu-darwin.sourceforge.net/one_stop | csh"." This assummes you have curl or wget or something. From there you can install gnome, abiword, gimp or whatever. Looks pretty smooth (although I'm kinda confused how you get back to OSX.1 from there ;)

Kartoffel writes: "FreeBSD hackers have been hard at work getting the OS to run on PowerPC, IA64, and Sparc64 machines. These announcements are originally from FreeBSD.org. PowerPC: Benno Rice has committed a mega-patch which added support for OpenFirmware to the FreeBSD loader. The loader can now load a kernel over the network and execute it on an Apple iMac. IA64: After a few months of development Doug Rabson and Peter Wemm have committed patches which extends the FreeBSD/ia64 port's functionality and adds the possibility to boot on real hardware. Sparc64: Jake Burkholder and Thomas Moestl have been porting FreeBSD to the ultra sparc for the past few months and first booted a machine into single user mode on the 18th of October. The log from the serial console is available."

jogega writes "There is an article at OnLamp that gives some advice on how to sell BSD solutions commercially. It talks about the best way to present your solution, get the job done, and most important show that BSD is a very strong alternative in the market."

UnanimousCoward writes: "I've just downloaded OroborOSX, "A modified Oroborus-based X11 window manager for use with XFree86 and XDarwin on Mac OS X." It's truly a wm worthy of standing side-by-side with Aqua in rootless mode. Here are some screenshots from Jonathan Tyzack (I'm too lazy to create my own, but my experience is the same). Using MacGimp under OroborOSX is awesome ..." The original Oroborus looks interesting as well; the original author has discontinued work on Oroborus, but it looks like the code has found a nice new application.

Dave H3 asks: " Does anyone know of any U.S. based firms that provide up to 24/7 telephone support for FreeBSD? I've been tasked with submitting a business proposal to list at least three potential, established, vendors. Other than Windriver I've not had much luck. I've checked several FreeBSD sites, including FreeBSD.org, to no avail."

LordGibson writes: "DaemonNews.org is taking up some of the slack following Wind River's massive layoffs of FreeBSD developers. 'Daemon News has been a BSD organization from day one. We are now happy to announce that we will be publishing our own FreeBSD CD sets, beginning with the next release, 4.5, scheduled for January 2002. We offer CD subscriptions, and our subscription plans can be for any desired combination of FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and Darwin. Since the FreeBSD Mall isn't offering subscriptions any more, you can get your BSD fix from us--at a better price, too.' You can read all about it here or jump for joy and go directly to the subscriptions page."

JigSaw writes: "OSNews features a very interesting interview regarding FreeBSD 5 with the guy responsible for the very good (technically) FreeBSD VM among other things. Matt Dillon talks about everything: FreeBSD 5, Linux, .NET and much more. Additionally, OSNews also includes two mini interviews with the NetBSD and OpenBSD head developers."

proclus writes: "The GNU-Darwin packages are compatible with Apple's newly released Darwin-1.4.1, and we now have Net Installation instructions for Darwin-only users. Our Bootable Installer CD is now in beta, thanks to the efforts of GNU-Darwin developer rrp. As you can see in the screenshot, our packages work fine with the XFree86 software which is now a part of Apple's Darwin distribution. We have recently packaged the latest versions of Mac OS X.1 compatible OpenSSH and XFree86. (Our older OpenSSH and XFree86 packages appear to be broken.) It is important for OS X.1 users to upgrade their OpenSSH. This is a great time to check out our other packaged offerings, which are also Darwin-1.4.1 and Mac OS X.1 compatible. OSX.1 users who are new to GNU-Darwin might like to try our new Net Installer. Just follow the OS X-specific directions at the top of the script. "

SidVicious and Intosi both wrote in with news that Wind River Systems (WRS), who had acquired BSDi's software assets earlier this year, including a team of FreeBSD developers, has laid off those developers. This has also been reported in other places, such as DaemonNews. This raises some interesting questions; for example, what happens to the "FreeBSD" trademark, which Wind River currently own. Read on for Wind River's answers to this and other questions.

Justin Lundy writes: "Last weekend Sean Lewis from Subterrain Security Group (SSG) presented a lecture on FreeBSD Security Fundamentals at Toorcon 2001 in San Diego, CA. It covers securelevels, suexec, chroot and jail, nosuid, rc.conf settings and special sysctl values. The presentation is available at http://www.subterrain.net/presentations/."

jmcneill writes: "NetBSD is now the first non-MS operating system to support PCMCIA audio adapters. A driver was added to the tree today to support the EigerLabs PCMCIA Audio Adapter. See the announcement for more details."

Søren Schmidt was browsing through the 2.4.10 linux kernel source when he saw something that looked a bit familiar. Too familiar in fact. Søren is the principle developer of FreeBSD's ATA drivers, including FreeBSD's support for ATA RAID cards, and as he looked through the linux/drivers/ide/ files the sense of deja vu was overwhelming. Read on for more.

LiquidPC writes "ONLamp.com has a detailed new article on setting up and using Windows Applications in WINE, one of the many FreeBSD ports you could have alot of fun with. It also suggests going to WineHQ to find out which programs will work in wine, and which ones will not, so you dont have to waste all your time testing."