Dr. Brian Callahan @bcallah@bsd.network

New #blog post alert!

I muse about research some of my grad students and I did around independently evaluating some #OpenBSD anti-ROP mitigations, and I bid farewell to being an OpenBSD developer.

https://briancallahan.net/blog/20260322.html

#freebsd #netbsd #dragonflybsd #bsd #unix #linux #compiler #compilers #rop #research

New #blog post!

I install #FreeBSD 15.-0-RELEASE on a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W. You can too!

https://briancallahan.net/blog/20251216.html

#openbsd #netbsd #linux #unix #solaris #illumos #arm #arm64 #aarch64

oksh-7.8 is out! Sorry for the delay; was away at conferences.

https://github.com/ibara/oksh/releases/tag/oksh-7.8

#openbsd #netbsd #freebsd #dragonflybsd #bsd #linux #unix #solaris #illumos #macos #macosx #osx #aix #haiku #shell #ksh #oksh #sh #freesoftware #opensource #opensourcesoftware #oss

New #blog post. Let's write a peephole optimizer for #QBE that operates on #AArch64 assembly code. Three years ago, we did this for #AMD64 assembly code. But now that I have Arm machines, we can replicate the effort for another CPU architecture.

https://briancallahan.net/blog/20250901.html

#compiler #compilers #opensource #freesoftware #unix #bsd #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #dragonflybsd #linux #illumos #macos #assembler #assembly

You ever buy a Blu ray of a TV show on a whim, figure you'll watch one episode, then end up watching the whole thing in one sitting, only to realize that while you did also buy the second season, you won't have it for a week.

This is me right now ​

I finally after multiple years of procrastination added dark mode to my website. It currently does auto-detecting based on your system; I'll have to add a little button or something. But it works.

Two #blog posts in less than one week!

It was considered known that there is no support within GNAT (Ada) for illumos. We cross-build a complete native binutils+gcc toolchain for illumos to test out this claim.

...only to discover that illumos has full support within GNAT. Not a single test fails.

https://briancallahan.net/blog/20250817.html

#Ada #illumos #GNAT #GCC #GNU #freesoftware #unix #bsd #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #dragonflybsd #linux #compiler #compilers

A new #blog post appears!

I discovered that the GNU D compiler has been broken on FreeBSD 14 for over a year and it seems no one noticed. Let's discover the issue and brainstorm some solutions to it.

A great case study for why operating system package maintainers matter.

https://briancallahan.net/blog/20250813.html

#dlang #dlanguage #freebsd #bsd #openbsd #netbsd #dragonflybsd #unix #gcc #gdc #gnu #compiler #compilers #d #linux #opensource #freesoftware

Mfw some good software by @cadey just randomly appears in my YouTube shorts feed: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qcosij0dZcU

​​​

(It's about Anubis: https://anubis.techaro.lol/)

Someone ported oksh to #IRIX! That marks the last remaining mainstream #Unix to get support for everyone's favorite #OpenBSD ksh.

Finally got around to refactoring my little NYT Spelling Bee clone. No functional difference: https://github.com/ibara/freebee-cli/releases/tag/v3.1

I am building gcc-15.1.0 on my iMac G4 (Tiger) machine. It is on stage2, which is a good sign.

It will include C, C++, Fortran, Modula-2, Objective C, and Objective C++ compilers.

It will depend on my new PowerPC Mac OS X modernization library, libpcc: https://github.com/ibara/libppc

I'll write a blog post about how to use it once it is all compiled; my goal is to produce a turnkey solution that just works(TM), including assembler, linker, and other utilities, as recent as possible for PowerPC.

And libppc can be instantly extendable to incorporate more C11 and later features. Hopefully others in the retro Mac community are interested in building that up with me.

My ultimate goal is to build some flavor of WebKit some day and have a modern web experience (even if slow, and possibly using X11). But in the meantime we will probably build a lot of excellent modern software to keep these machines going.

#gcc #compiler #compilers #c #unix #linux #macos #macosx #osx #apple #powerpc #retro #retrocomputing #bsd #mac #macintosh

A wild #blog post appears!

I revived pkgsrc on AIX.

(Yes, I already sent a PR to NetBSD.)

https://briancallahan.net/blog/20250516.html

#linux #unix #bsd #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #dragonflybsd #aix #ibm #solairs #illumos #pkgsrc #opensource #freesoftware

Just dropped oksh-7.7, get it from the usual place: https://github.com/ibara/oksh

#unix #linux #bsd #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #shell #ksh #kornshell #opensource #freesoftware

Do you have a Mac (running macOS) and an #OpenBSD machine? Would you like your OpenBSD machine to act as a secondary monitor for your Mac via AirPlay?

Test out this port and reply to the list if it works for you: https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-ports&m=174331110811177&w=2

Thanks! Let's get this in before 7.7.

Got UxPlay (https://github.com/FDH2/UxPlay) ported to #OpenBSD. Now I can use this underpowered (but free) Chromebook I got last year to some actual use as a secondary monitor for my MacBook Pro.

A new #blog post appears!

I built a native GCC 14.2.0 for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger PowerPC.

https://briancallahan.net/blog/20250329.html

#macos #macosx #tiger #powerpc #power #unix #bsd #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd #dragonflybsd #linux #solaris #illumos #gcc #llvm #clang #compiler #compilers #assembler #linker #toolchain #freesoftware #opensource #gnu

I fired up the old iMac G4 and now you can build and run #oksh using the IBM xlc compiler for Mac OS X. It works on Tiger at least, 10.4.11.

https://github.com/ibara/oksh/commit/2484299d0c295607a0b6890be9b26b5710ab48f1

#Unix #BSD #MacOSX #macOS #shell #powerpc #retro #retrocomputing

New #blog post!

Let's explore virtualizing the different BSDs on Apple Silicon.

https://briancallahan.net/blog/20250222.html

#BSD #FreeBSD #OpenBSD #NetBSD #DragonFlyBSD #Unix #Linux #virtualization #apple #macOS #arm #aarch64 #arm64

A new #blog post!

Let's bootstrap the GNAT Ada compiler for macOS/aarch64, since I couldn't find any binary packages for it.

https://briancallahan.net/blog/20250112.html

#compiler #compilers #GCC #Ada #GNAT #macos #unix #linux #bsd #freebsd #openbsd #netbsd