submited 09 November 2025
This guide outlines the process of installing the GNOME desktop environment on OpenBSD 7.8, starting with package installation via pkg_add gnome gnome-extras and enabling required services like gdm and avahi_daemon. It includes post-installation steps such as disabling xenodm and adjusting display scaling for 4K monitors. Additional tweaks cover GNOME extension support via Chromium, requiring modifications to unveil.main for proper permissions. The article also briefly discusses challenges with GNOME’s future on OpenBSD due to the shift away from Xorg, suggesting alternatives like MATE may become necessary.
DiscoverBSD - The BSD community linklog Made a script? Written a blog post? Found a useful tutorial? Share it with the BSD community here …
submited 09 November 2025
This guide outlines the process of installing the GNOME desktop environment on OpenBSD 7.8, starting with package installation via pkg_add gnome gnome-extras and enabling required services like gdm and avahi_daemon. It includes post-installation steps such as disabling xenodm and adjusting display scaling for 4K monitors. Additional tweaks cover GNOME extension support via Chromium, requiring modifications to unveil.main for proper permissions. The article also briefly discusses challenges with GNOME’s future on OpenBSD due to the shift away from Xorg, suggesting alternatives like MATE may become necessary.
DiscoverBSD - The BSD community linklog Made a script? Written a blog post? Found a useful tutorial? Share it with the BSD community here or just enjoy what everyone else has found!
** Submit
** 09 November 2025
GNOME installation guide for OpenBSD 7.8
This guide outlines the process of installing the GNOME desktop environment on OpenBSD 7.8, starting with package installation via pkg_add gnome gnome-extras and enabling required services like gdm and avahi_daemon. It includes post-installation steps such as disabling xenodm and adjusting display scaling for 4K monitors. Additional tweaks cover GNOME extension support via Chromium, requiring modifications to unveil.main for proper permissions. The article also briefly discusses challenges with GNOME’s future on OpenBSD due to the shift away from Xorg, suggesting alternatives like MATE may become necessary.
** 06 November 2025
ZFS disaster recovery for virtualization with Sanoid and Syncoid
ZFS provides robust disaster recovery capabilities for virtualized environments through snapshots, replication, and automated tools like Sanoid and Syncoid. Sanoid automates snapshot creation, pruning, and replication, ensuring consistent backups of virtual machine (VM) images and configurations, while Syncoid orchestrates efficient incremental replication between storage pools. The system supports rapid VM restoration from local snapshots or offsite backups, minimizing downtime in case of failures like ransomware attacks or hardware loss. Monitoring features in Sanoid allow integration with tools like Nagios or healthchecks.io to verify backup integrity and snapshot freshness. The approach emphasizes separating production and backup systems, with considerations for geographic redundancy based on recovery needs, making it adaptable for both enterprise and personal use cases.
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** 05 November 2025
FreeBSD added to OCI Runtime Specification v1.3
FreeBSD is now an officially supported platform in the Open Container Initiative (OCI) runtime specification version 1.3, released November 4, 2025, following years of community-driven development. This inclusion enables FreeBSD users to utilize standardized container tools and orchestration platforms, integrating the operating system more deeply into cloud-native workflows while leveraging its existing virtualization strengths like jails. Key milestones included the 2021 release of runj—the first OCI runtime for FreeBSD—followed by additions to Buildah, Podman, and official OCI image support in FreeBSD 14.2. The effort was led by volunteers such as Doug Rabson and Samuel Karp, with contributions from the broader OCI and FreeBSD communities. The achievement positions FreeBSD as a viable option for containerized deployments in cloud infrastructure, edge computing, and enterprise environments.
OpenBSD -current adds VA-API support to Chromium browsers
VA-API hardware-accelerated video decoding has been successfully integrated into OpenBSD’s Chromium and Ungoogled-Chromium ports after an earlier attempt was reverted. The change, committed by Robert Nagy, enables improved video playback performance for supported GPUs, though updated binary packages are not yet available. Intel GPU users will need additional driver ports like intel-media-driver or intel-vaapi-driver for functionality. The Iridium browser port is expected to receive similar support in its next update.
OpenBSD CWM configuration breakdown
The article details a user’s configuration for cwm, OpenBSD’s default floating window manager, emphasizing its simplicity and keyboard-driven workflow. Key elements include custom keybindings for window tiling (via window-vtile) and snapping, a minimalist status bar powered by lemonbar-xft displaying time, network, and battery stats, and group management mimicking workspaces. The setup integrates tools like picom for compositing, feh for wallpapers, and rofi for application launching, while leveraging OpenBSD’s base utilities (e.g., apm, ifconfig) for system monitoring. The author highlights cwm’s reliability, auditability as part of OpenBSD’s base system, and flexibility for manual tiling, contrasting it with occasional experiments in other environments like Xfce or Wayland. The configuration reflects a preference for predictability and minimalism, with aesthetic touches like gruvbox-inspired colors and Nerd Fonts.
FreeBSD 15.0 BETA 4, OpenBSD patches smtpd/xserver/libssl, and HardenedBSD updates with TPE enhancements and more.
** 03 November 2025
The Valuable News weekly series curates notable updates, articles, and resources primarily related to UNIX/BSD/Linux systems. This edition highlights FreeBSD’s milestone in reproducible builds without requiring root privileges, OpenIndiana 2025.10’s release, and advancements in Open Container Initiative (OCI) support for FreeBSD. It also covers hardware developments like AMD’s ZEN6 architecture, security concerns with smart devices, and broader tech topics such as privacy issues with Microsoft Teams and Google’s handling of sideloading.
** 02 November 2025
HardenedBSD October 2025 status update
The October 2025 HardenedBSD status report covers developments from both September and October, including the creation of the new 15-STABLE branch and related infrastructure. Key changes in the source tree include initial work on pkgbase installer support, permission checks for user-owned vnodes in Trusted Path Execution (TPE), and adjustments to stack mapping using VMFSNOSPACE. Ports updates involved version bumps for net-p2p/heartwood, net-p2p/heartwood-httpd, and ports-mgmt/poudriere-hbsd, along with hardening flag adjustments for www/forgejo and www/forgejo7. Additionally, Shawn Webb presented at BSides Colorado Springs on libhijack enhancements and began improving error handling in {,lib}hbsdcontrol while exploring censorship-resistant mesh networking with Reticulum.
FreeBSD 15.0 has reached its fourth BETA build, now available for amd64, armv7, aarch64, powerpc64, powerpc64le, and riscv64 architectures. The ISO images can be downloaded from most FreeBSD mirror sites, marking a key milestone in the release cycle. This follows prior BETA builds released, each expanding architecture support and refining stability.
** 01 November 2025
FreeBSD now supports OCI containers with Podman
FreeBSD has joined the Open Container Initiative (OCI), enabling support for OCI-compliant containers using Podman, a lightweight container engine. The integration allows FreeBSD users to run both FreeBSD and Linux containers seamlessly, with simple installation via the podman-suite package and minimal configuration steps like setting up ZFS storage and enabling the Linux compatibility layer. Testing demonstrated smooth execution of containers, including legacy Linux workloads and modern applications like Caddy for web hosting. This development expands FreeBSD’s ecosystem by attracting new users while providing existing users with enhanced containerization capabilities, with documentation and community resources available for further guidance.
NetBSD developer shares GSoC 2025 Mentor Summit experience in Munich
Leonardo Taccari recounted his first attendance at the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) 2025 Mentor Summit in Munich, representing The NetBSD Foundation after nearly a decade of involvement as a student, mentor, and admin. The three-day event brought together 185 mentors from 133 organizations, featuring unconference-style sessions, lightning talks, and social activities like a scavenger hunt and karaoke. Key discussions included AI in open source, handling spammy proposals, diversity in FOSS, and supply chain security tools like SBOM and VEX. Taccari highlighted NetBSD’s participation since 2005, shared travel notes from Munich and Bolzano, and emphasized the summit’s role in fostering collaboration and learning about new projects. The event also included a “chocolate room” tradition and networking opportunities with mentors from other organizations.
NetBSD NAT64 Protocol Translation Enhancements Part 2
The second report from Google Summer of Code 2025 details progress on NAT64 protocol translation in NetBSD’s NPF firewall, building on earlier work to enable IPv6-to-IPv4 communication. The implementation includes core translation logic for rewriting IPv6 headers to IPv4 and vice versa, address mapping functions to embed IPv4 within IPv6 prefixes, and checksum recalculations for transport layers. Configuration support was added to npf.conf(5) for defining NAT64 rules, while testing validated functionality using tools like ping, curl, and packet inspection via tcpdump. The project integrates NAT64 with DNS64, allowing IPv6-only clients to access IPv4 servers, though further refinements remain. Source code and additional details are available in the linked GitHub branch.