System i Addict

So being a fan of iXSystem and still wanting them to send me a server to DEMO, wink wink, I love the site redesign. I am not sure when they did it but it’s new to me and I like it. iXSystems is doing great things with FreeBSD and PC-BSD that we all have dreamed of. While both operating systems are truly remarkable, they have taken ownership of many parts of the BSD OS and made them come to life and this is very important. FreeBSD is still one of my favorite OSes out there and I try to get people to run it all the time. I have it running here (on a really old DELL, hint hint) and it runs great. I do testing and sandbox work on it. PC-BSD just makes sense and is getting very close to being right up there with Ubuntu with less of a developer community and less staff to work with.

Check out their NEWS page to see all the super stuff they are doing with BSD.

iXSystems makes some really clean really good looking server and if you are looking for a small simple pizza box like UNIX server these guys are the pros. I have talked to them many times on the phone and they all are very passonate about the work they do. The first time I blogged about them here on this very site they found me and called me to thank me. You don’t get that from other comapnies, in fact most companies don’t give two toots about bloggers and see them as problems, which may be correct in some cases but we do have things we all like and I love iXSystems. I love them for owning the ideas behind BSD, I love them for building BSD specific servers and storage solutions. I love them because they promote PC-BSD and i love them that they took time out of their day to call me and thank me about talking about that them the first time.

They now have a BSD based Laptop and Workstation. If you don’t want to build your own just call them up and wham you too can have a little BSD making life a bit better. I would love to see how those two little items run.

So if you are thinking about a SUN solution or a Linux solution you might want to give these guys a call first. They have UNIX or BSD based solutions that they support and are passionate about and if Lotus Domino was supported (notice I did not say run, because I have it running on FreeBSD just not being supported by IBM Support) on FreeBSD I would run it on iXSystems Servers in a heart beat.

Oh and they also run the FreeBSD Mall. I sure hope a redesign and some more modern products show up there was well. I know I talked to a few of the guys and asked for some more simple designs, Just the beastie ball on a black golf shirt? That’s all I want. This is to busy, it screams I am a geek and I don’t know how to dress. be more subtle.

Just wanted to point out that FreeBSD 7 is out and ready.

Link to FreeBSD 7

The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE. This is the first release from the 7-STABLE branch which introduces many new features along with many improvements to functionality present in the earlier branches. Some of the highlights:

Was doing some looking around and noticed that the FreeBSD Foundation made it earnings goal for 2007. That is great new. Thanks to all who helped out. LINK

About the Foundation:

The FreeBSD Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to supporting and building the FreeBSD Project and community worldwide. The Foundation gratefully accepts donations from individuals and businesses, using them to fund and manage projects, sponsor FreeBSD events, Developer Summits and provide travel grants to FreeBSD developers.

In addition, the Foundation represents the FreeBSD Project in executing contracts, license agreements, copyrights, trademarks, and other legal arrangements which require a recognized legal entity. The FreeBSD Foundation is entirely supported by donations.

The FreeBSD Foundation will support both the development and the popularization of FreeBSD, the world’s best open source operating system.

Lets start thinking about next year and Version 7

So for all you FreeBSD fans. Go download Beta 3 and try to debug it.Link 

Link to Story on BSD NewsletteriXsystems, an enterprise-class hardware solution provider, announced this week its acquisition of PC-BSD. PC-BSD is a fully functional desktop operating system running FreeBSD version 6, with a KDE desktop interface and graphical system installer. Its PBI system, developed exclusively for PC-BSD, lets users download and install their applications in a self-extracting and installing format.I have spent a few hours on the phone with the fine people @ iXsystems and they have the interest of BSD in mind. Now I urge the good people at iXsystems to do everything in their power to make PC-BSD the finest desktop and notebook system out there.

I have done everything I can to give to the FreeBSD project. I encourage you to just give a little because it all helps!

UPDATE FROM FREEBSD:

Fundraising Update

Last year this time, we had raised just under $9000 in donations. This year, so far, we have raised over $143,000! We are over 50% of our way to our goal of raising $250,000. How are we going to accomplish this? We have taken some big steps towards increasing our fundraising efforts. Some of these include,

• Adding a new board member. This has increased the number of people actively approaching companies to make large contributions.
• Approaching companies who use FreeBSD, asking for donations.
• Beginning our fundraising efforts at the start of the year, rather than waiting until the last quarter.
• Investigating other services for allowing us to accept credit cards world-wide. We will be adding one of these services soon.
• Adding support for monthly payment options soon.
• Working with an advertising company to help create marketing material for promoting the foundation and project.

We’re also appealing to you, FreeBSD developers and users, to help us with our fundraising efforts. We’d like to ask you to spread the word about FreeBSD and the foundation. By supporting the foundation, directly helps the project and community. Please help us by spreading the word to your peers and employers. We can’t do this without your help!

Link to Press Release

I would first like to start out by begging. I will take one for those 4U units. If you want to donate to my 48TB Server Fund please email me and I will send you my Paypal account.

Details from the press release: “iXsystems recently unveiled the most rack-dense storage solution in the Nearline Storage Class: the Colossus SAN RAID Storage Device. The Colossus is a high-performance, energy-efficient, tiered storage solution, ideal for use in expanding data environments, and provides greater storage density (in terms of GB per rack unit) than any other storage product currently available. With more than 2x the storage capacity, up to 2x the throughput, and data transfer rates up to 100 MB/s (~15%) faster than the nearest competitor, the iXsystems Colossus addresses and exceeds the increasing demand for storage systems capable of managing and maintaining vast amounts of business-critical data.”

I am a fan of these guys and what they are doing. This is a great improvement. I only wished I had pictures or diagrams of the 4U server so I can see how they are doing it. Hats off to you guys at iXsystems, I am impressed with your hardware and dedication to the BSD movement.

Update: So if you ask you shall receive and the guys at iXsystems delivered. They actually sent me pictures of the Colossus last night. I was asking if I could publish them, but since they sent them and I know they are proud of their work I am going to have to put them up for your viewing pleasure. The pictures also make the mouth water. I really want a 48U rack full of them now. If only I had the funds? Yor going to have to go to the next page to see the pics of the Colossus!

Read the rest of this entry »

Link here to a great blog post!

The next major release of FreeBSD, version 7, is one of the most significant so far, with amount of new technologies and improvement largest since introduction of 5.0. Since constantly searching the mailing lists for important changes can be a bit tedious, I’ve created this (frequently updated) page to list some of the more interesting new things in one place.

Here are the parts I liked:

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I do so am I all over this site BSDCertification.org

The BSD Certification Group Inc. is a non-profit organization committed to creating and maintaining a global certification standard for system administration on BSD based operating systems.

While I am in love with iXsystems.com I think it’s funny they used a picture of the iSeries servers to represent their servers. LOL!

Why do I like them so much?

Well, because they are a FreeBSD shop and they love their BSD. We iSeries people can identify with zealots and platform crazy types so we are really one in the same, only our commands are easier to use.

-David

Yippie!

BSDNews.com is back up. I think it was down for a few days or maybe it was just the Windows fans keeping me from my favorite UNIX news.

I like the idea behind this and would like to agree that it is next to impossible to get onto an open sourced project these days. I am new to being a coder and would like to join the FreeBSD project, but can’t seem to find an “in”.

This might help some of you who are looking for a way. 

LINK to Story

A different flavor of BSD
PC-BSD is not a Linux distribution, but rather it could be considered among the first major FreeBSD-based distributions to live outside of the official FreeBSD. Like most distributions, it has implemented certain features in a way that attempts to distinguish it from the competition, and I will focus mostly on these differences. This test drive is intended to give an overview of what PC-BSD is and why one would consider using it.

LINK to Blog Entry

Link to Angry Person whom I agree with.

Link to Thieves

We all know the BSD Daemon is copy written and is not to be used unless you get permission from Marshall Kirk McKusick. I am sure he is OK with people working with BSD or wanting to use it to support BSD but for a company to use it is just bad, the fact that they are sex based has nothing to do with it. They stole someone else’s material for their gain. I say we sue the crap out of them and put that money back into the project!

Here is a link to the man who owns the rights to the Daemon.

So I want to contribute to FreeBSD. I don’t know where to start. So I am searching and hope this helps out anyone else who is looking?

LINK

Link to FreeBSD Projects

So you want to contribute to FreeBSD? That is great! FreeBSD relies on the contributions of its user base to survive. Your contributions are not only appreciated, they are vital to FreeBSD’s continued growth.

Contrary to what some people might have you believe, you do not need to be a hot-shot programmer or a close personal friend of the FreeBSD core team to have your contributions accepted. A large and growing number of international contributors, of greatly varying ages and areas of technical expertise, develop FreeBSD. There is always more work to be done than there are people available to do it, and more help is always appreciated.

The FreeBSD project is responsible for an entire operating system environment, rather than just a kernel or a few scattered utilities. As such, our TODO lists span a very wide range of tasks: from documentation, beta testing and presentation, to the system installer and highly specialized types of kernel development. People of any skill level, in almost any area, can almost certainly help the project.

Commercial entities engaged in FreeBSD-related enterprises are also encouraged to contact us. Do you need a special extension to make your product work? You will find us receptive to your requests, given that they are not too outlandish. Are you working on a value-added product? Please let us know! We may be able to work cooperatively on some aspect of it. The free software world is challenging many existing assumptions about how software is developed, sold, and maintained, and we urge you to at least give it a second look.

More on what iXsystems is doing to unify the BSD market place. I spend a good 30 minutes on the phone with Brett Davis from iXsystems. You know when two very passonate people get into a conversation and could go on for hours talkaing about things you love, well that was what the conversation with Brett was like. Thanks Brett I was great to talk to you and use up some of your time.

I didn’t want to hang up and I didn’t want to stop talking. He is very much in love with BSD and what iXsystems is doing and I would like to add a little of my take, so am I.

Being and iSeries Admin you learn to apprechaite a good OS, like a fine wine. BSD has always been one of those great smelling OSes that will just run for years and years without problems. I have a FreeBSD Server that has been up for a good long while just running on a quiet little server not bothering anyone doing little things here and there but not failing. Maybe that is why it’s still up. Cause I only tinker with it, but I do know Yahoo is all over OpenBSD and they run lots and lots all day long so there is your pudding that the proof may be found in.

So back to what iXsystems is doing and where they are going. The acquired PCBSD a few weeks back and now have acquired FressBSD Mall and BSD Mall. They plan to merge them and in the end give back 10% of every purchase to BSD. Wow that is just great. I sure hope to see some really great shirts and outerwear from them in the next few months. I told Brett what I wanted to see in a golf shirt.

He also mentioned that there maybe a BSDCON in the US on the 15th anniversary at Berkley. Now that would be an event no one should miss who loves BSD. I think anyone at BSDCan heard the very same thing and I might be repeating old news but I would pack up the VW Bus and head out to Berkley for a good old BSD time.

I would encourage all of you out there to start considering these guys for servers and other devices. They will load BSD and most any Linux on their hardware for you and ship it out the door. I can’t imagine a better way to run your IT needs than from FreeBSD. I am big on the UNIX platform and prefer it on a server vs. Linux in some cases. BSD has always been really stable and the community and commiters have worked all the time to make it better.

So what comes next for iXsystems? Laptops? Desktops? End to end solutions? Who know we all will just have  to wait and see.  Good luck guys!

Not me the guy who wrote this article…..

I am a hardcore, long-time Unix user; I first used a version of the Unix operating system in 1985. This web site currently resides on a server running FreeBSD. The servers on the internal clapper.org network also run FreeBSD. My Apple Macbook Pro runs Mac OS X, which, under its slick, shiny UI, is FreeBSD. My previous laptop ran Fedora Core Linux. My employer-supplied development workstation runs Red Hat Linux. (For what it’s worth, I’m registered Linux user #14,359 at http://counter.li.org/.) I wouldn’t dream of running NT, Windows 2000 or Windows 2003 on one of my network’s servers. This document explains why.

I like what this guy to throwing down. Well Said!

LINK

Not that I think Linux is to blah, but the person writing the post did…kind of. I am starting to like FreeBSD over Solaris that is for sure. I see the resilience in FreeBSD that I don’t see in Linux right now, but I see lots of work on Linux that is going all over the place. And while Linux runs crazy trying to catch up with Windows, FreeBSD and other BSD’s are working just to make a nice little impact and find their place in the FREE market. I have to admire them for their work and diligence.

LINK - He plays with PC-BSD 1.3

I wanted to post something GEEKY today as well.

Link to FreeBSD Free Book Shelf in English

FreeBSD All Docs