Michael Dexter @dexter@bsd.network
Dexter's Law: Only proprietary software vendors want proprietary software and only fascists want fascism. Toots are my own. Self-employed. Father of three.
I aim to keep this to technical topics relating to bhyve and OpenZFS, and the occasional humor and Latvia.
Joined Apr 2018
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Dexter’s second law: The pendulum that swings twice as high lasts half as long.
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Having spent days making PkgBase easy on #FreeBSD…
The (highly opinionated) Sum Total of computer history:
0. BSD Unix
1. Macintosh
2. Packaged Base in Red Hat 5.2
3. Squiggly underline spell check
4. FreeBSD Jail to manage the fustercluck that are RPMs on Red Hat
5. Two-finger scrolling
6. Hardware-assisted virtualization
7. ZFS v28
8. NVMe
TCP/IP is taken for granted, as it is not vendor/platform-specific.
Flat screen displays are a TV crossover technology, as are WiFi, GPS, and fancy batteries.
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Call For Testing: Major #OccamBSD updates
occambsd.sh - More-consistent syntax
propagate.sh - Propagate PkgBase installs
imagine.sh - Image boot images from the others and upstream
sideload.sh - Push (much of) a #FreeBSD configuration to a new installation
rc.local.sh - Semi-idempotently configure basic aspects of a system
They’re never done, never perfect, but they do exactly what I have envisioned in various ways and given talks about for 20+ years.
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Emerging observations on how lockdown was great for #opensource:
Work from home was blessed as a valid thing
Sci-fi-like casual video conferencing without hesitation around the world is now the norm for some of us, only limited by time zones and languages.
Group video chat is equally familiar and commonplace, with excellent self-policing of audio quality and behavior.
Events are focusing on quality over quantity, complimenting the above.
Basically, the “open source seems to be where drunk guys pinch your butt while mansplaining you” factors were globally nipped in the bud.
Good work everyone!
These are delightful times!
❤️❤️❤️
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Repost: It took time, but #bhyve #hypervisor development is back to a robust pace on both #FreeBSD and #illumos with a good balance of new features and subtle refinement.
I have begun posting recordings of the weekly Jails/Zones, #OpenZFS, and bhyve Production Users calls:
https://youtube.com/@callfortesting
The running minutes documents are linked from https://callfortesting.org
Heads-up: There are many ways to participate and lots to do!
Michael Dexter
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Epochalypse countdown:
11 years, 3 months, 19 days, 10 hours, 30 minutes, 34 seconds
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░░░ 83.39%
Michael Dexter
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Respect goes to people's labor, never their products. I like BSD, but I respect the developers because they have done the work to develop the expertise that merits the respect.
There is no reason to offer that respect to people who haven't done the work.
I have more respect for people who spent a Saturday evening failing to get code to compile, or trying to write a story that doesn't work, or struggling to get perspective right on a watercolor, than to anyone prompting an LLM.
Michael Dexter
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@dexter Daemonless looks like it is a great tool to bridge jails and OCI containers.
Since a lot of recent server applications are packaged as containers, and jails gives good control over resources, this is a great combination to try out.
Thanks again for hosting the calls! This topic just happened to be very timely.
Michael Dexter
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Michael Dexter
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Deshittification of your Smart TV at Home using OpenBSD pf and Unbound: block Ad Networks and Telemetry while keeping apps like Netflix and Smart TVs working flawlessly - Detailed Article by Lari Huttunen #OpenBSD #Privacy https://fabricati-diem.inform.social/post/deshittification-as-a-service/
Michael Dexter
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@openzfs is happening soon! ( Oct. 27-30 )Be there for the ZFS content or get a remote session ticket for access to "in the room" participation remote participants have raved about.
Threaded, maybe buried, my initial observations on AI:
Michael Dexter
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@dexter I don't know where or when. There have been a couple mentions in public. Kyle Evans noted that Core wants to come up with a 'balanced' policy. (I suggested that balance wasn't possible with this stuff.)
The trouble is that this "we'll do a committee soon" has been kicked down the road for a while now.
Michael Dexter
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Hi! 👋 Anyone in #Ireland around the #mastodon #UNIX #FreeBSD #OpenBSD #NetBSD #OpenSource #coding communities?
I’m moving there in a few weeks, initially to #Dublin, but I’m also considering places like #Cork or #Galway.
Any tips on finding a place to live, work, sorting out a bank account/phone, or just getting settled?
I left the UK about 10 years ago, so I’ll also need to get my English back up to speed! 😅
Michael Dexter
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The September 29th, 2026 Jail/Zones Production User Call is up:
We discussed the PID 1 virtualization review, jail to physical host migration, #Daemonless in #FreeCORE, LibreNMS in Daemonless, Zoom alternatives, VM Actions for GitHub, C#UDA in #FreeBSD, the Daemonless Fjord GUI, Daemonless/Sylve integration and a CLI tool, a kernel work queues proposal, and more!
"Don't forget to slam those Like and Subscribe buttons."
You can support all Call For Testing efforts via BSD Fund: https://bsdfund.org
This content is not AI generated
Michael Dexter
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We have added three hotel suggestions to https://summit.openzfs.org, each with good TriMet connections!
Michael Dexter
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Hello everyone, we would again like to hear your feedback on a proposed plan. This time we wish to improve the support for our community's loyal contributors who are essentially the core of the PINE64 project. We propose to set up an Open Collective to help start funding projects and goals to improve the state and support for hardware produced by Pine Store.
If this proposal goes ahead, the Open Collective will be run by the PINE64 Community for the PINE64 community contributors. The funds will be used to fund work on devices and to pay contributors for bounties to fix issues or to implement hardware features.
Pine Store won't be involved with this proposal because of the amount of complications with taxes and accounting practices that come with sending donations overseas from Hong Kong (we'd be losing around 25% of the total amount per donation as a result).
We would love to have feedback on what you guys think of this proposal and whether we should go forward with it.
Thanks!
Michael Dexter
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Amos: "There you go. Now you just walk around like you're in pumps"
Avasarala: "How do you know what it's like to walk in pumps?"
Amos: "I didn't always work in space"
Michael Dexter
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FreeCAD 1.1.4 released
The FreeCAD development team has just released v1.1.4 that fixes over 30 bugs in the stable v1.1 series....
Michael Dexter
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Registration is now open for the November 2026 FreeBSD Vendor Summit!
On November 5-6, join FreeBSD developers and industry partners at NetApp’s headquarters for two days of direct collaboration, technical discussion, and strategic planning.
Don’t miss your chance to participate.
Register now: https://bit.ly/4AS4O0a
I’m working on a series of comments relating to AI but luckily this popped into my head when scrolling…
Rule number one: Stay in control
In control of… the copyrights, the costs, the impacts, the narrative, the understanding, the history/log, the hardware, all of it.
Michael Dexter
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To see the IP addresses currently set on your active interfaces, type
"ifconfig -u".
-- Dru <genesis@istar.ca>
Dexter's Law: Only proprietary software vendors want proprietary software and only fascists want fascism. Toots are my own. Self-employed. Father of three.
I aim to keep this to technical topics relating to bhyve and OpenZFS, and the occasional humor and Latvia.
Joined Apr 2018
