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The Mac Observer Interview with Jordan Hubbard

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tmoThe folks at The Mac Observer interview Jordan Hubbard regarding his time as a founder of FreeBSD, heading Apple’s UNIX team, and his many contributions to open source. Check out the link below to listen to the podcast.

Jordan Hubbard, the co-founder of FreeBSD, spent a dozen years at Apple bringing coherence to the UNIX core of Mac OS X. Apple calls it macOS today, but in the early years, there were lots of rough spots integrating the partly FreeBSD core into a viable consumer Mac OS X. Jordan was also instrumental in modernizing Mac OS X with features like MacPorts, Launchd, Grand Central Dispatch and application sandboxing. Today, his work complete at Apple, Jordan is an open source developer. We talked about the early development of Mac OS X derived from NeXT and even the earliest BSD origins. Along the way, we also chatted about Jordan’s childhood memories as an 8-year old being an electronics geek with Radio Shack as his Mecca. If you love macOS, don’t miss this insightful historical tour.

TMO Background Mode: Interview with Open Source Developer & Former Apple Manager Jordan Hubbard

FreeBSD on a MacBook Pro

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This is a lengthy discussion from Hacker News, derived from a tutorial by user on how to get FreeBSD set up on a MacBook Pro.mac_freebsd_orig

Top comment:

> Six years later, it less and less “Just Works”, started turning into spyware and nagware, and doesn’t need much less maintenance than Linux desktop — at least for my work, which is system administration and software development, probably it is better for the mythical End User person. Work needed to get software I need running is not less obscure than work I’d need to do on Linux or othe Unix-like system…. GUI that used to be nice and unintrusive, got annoying. Either I came full circle in the last 15 years of my computer usage, or the OSX experience degraded in last 5 years.So… it’s not just me. Somewhere between Snow Leopard and Mavericks I started finding building various things from source that never were a problem became an exercise in figuring out what library had been removed or moved or what Apple had done with lib/header paths or something else.

If people aren’t going over to another unix, what are they doing? Homebrew? Container-ing or virtualizing another unix? Or just suffering?

Original post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13027506

Since 2008 or 2009 I work on Apple hardware and OS: back then I grew tired of Linux desktop (which is going to be MASSIVE NEXT YEAR, at least since 2001), and switched to something that Just Works. Six years later, it less and less Just Works, started turning into spyware and nagware, and doesn’t need much less maintenance than Linux desktop — at least for my work, which is system administration and software development, probably it is better for the mythical End User person. Work needed to get software I need running is not less obscure than work I’d need to do on Linux or othe Unix-like system. I am finding myself turning away from GUI programs that I used to appreciate, and most of the time I use OSX to just run a terminal, Firefox, and Emacs. GUI that used to be nice and unintrusive, got annoying. Either I came full circle in the last 15 years of my computer usage, or the OSX experience degraded in last 5 years. Again, this is from a sysadmin/developer kind of power user perspective; power user, whose definition of “fun” includes spending 6 hours in the middle of the night figuring how to get dual boot working with UEFI.

Original tutorial: https://gist.github.com/mpasternacki/974e29d1e3865e940c53

Apple releases macOS 10.12 Sierra Darwin source code

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The developers of Apple have released the Darwin source code for macOS 10.12 Sierra. Darwin comprises of the kernel, BSD portions, drivers, and developer tools. The source code can be found at the links provided.

macossourceThe lowest layers of macOS, including the kernel, BSD portions, and drivers are based mainly on open source technologies, collectively called Darwin. As such, Apple provides download links to the latest versions of these technologies for the open source community to learn and to use.

Source code: https://opensource.apple.com/release/os-x-1012.html

Original post: https://9to5mac.com/2016/11/24/apple-releases-macos-10-12-sierra-open-source-darwin-code/

Jan Koum, Founder of WhatsApp, donates to FreeBSD Foundation again

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Last year, Jan Koum donated $1 million to the FreeBSD Foundation, allowing the organization to surpass their fundraising goal for 2015. This year in 2016, Koum donated a large amount once again, helping the organization continue their efforts in funding FreeBSD projects, travel grants, and overall promoting the use of FreeBSD around the world. Koum’s story started with a humble beginning, being raised in an immigrant family, and finding passion as a FreeBSD developer at Yahoo!. He then went on and found WhatsApp, a widely used mobile messenger app, where he deploys FreeBSD to serve nearly a billion users.

freebsd_foundationThe FreeBSD Foundation is thrilled to share the news that thanks to the generosity of Jan Koum, CEO and Co-Founder of WhatsApp, the Foundation is $500,000 closer to reaching our goal for 2016. Jan says, “While WhatsApp today is used by over a billion people, it is FreeBSD that provides the reliability and performance and helps our engineers keep WhatsApp service running efficiently and trouble-free.” The Foundation would like to take this opportunity to thank Jan for his continued support of the FreeBSD Project and the work we are doing.

Original announcement: https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/blog/foundation-announces-new-uranium-donor/

BSDNow.TV Episode 167: Playing the Long Game

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In this BSD Now episode, hosts Allan Jude and Kris Moore interview Scott Long of Netflix regarding his work on FreeBSD for the online streaming giant. Press play below to tune in:

Show notes from Jupiter Broadcasting – http://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/104596/playing-the-long-game-bsd-now-167/

This week’s roundup of BSD related content from BSD Now – http://www.bsdnow.tv/episodes/2016_11_09-playing_the_long_game

RootBSD Opens Data Center In Toronto

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RootBSD, recently announced a data center opening in Toronto, along with dedicated servers in Hong Kong. This adds on to their expansion to datacenters in San Jose, CA and Dallas, TX. The most popular plan is the Lambda plan, for those who are looking to start hosting on BSD.

RootBSD_LogoRootBSD expands into its first Canadian data center — its first outside the US — with the opening of its Toronto location. The company’s customers will be able to deploy cloud servers into the largest city in the country.

The new data center — available now to RootBSD customers — is directly connected to the Toronto Internet Exchange (TORIX), located in a carrier-neutral hotel in Toronto. TORIX is the largest Canadian internet exchange with over 200 members (including Akamai, Microsoft and Rogers Communications, among others) and the 11th largest in the world. The facility also offers fiber connections, meet-me-rooms, power redundancies and 24/7/365 security.

“RootBSD’s customers have been asking for a Canadian data center — for some of them it was because of privacy concerns — and we are happy to deliver,” Mark Price, CEO, said. “We are very excited about our recent expansion in North America and that it’s our first in Canada. Toronto is a hub of commerce and high tech development in Canada and our customers are itching to deploy here.”

Full article: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2016/07/prweb13554973.htm

A ZFS developer’s analysis of Apple’s new APFS file system (arstechnica.com)

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ZFS developer Adam H. Leventhal writes an in-depth comparison between ZFS–a prominent filesystem in BSD systems, and APFS–a new filesystem developed for Apple’s macOS and replacing its aging HFS+. The author discusses its snapshot and backup, management, performance, efficiency, and data integrity features.

zfsapfs
APFS, the Apple File System, was itself started in 2014 with Giampaolo as its lead engineer. It’s a stand-alone, from-scratch implementation (an earlier version of this post noted a dependency on Core Storage, but Giampaolo set me straight in this comment). I asked him about looking for inspiration in other modern file systems such as BSD’s HAMMER, Linux’s btrfs, or OpenZFS (Solaris, illumos, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, Ubuntu Linux, etc.), all of which have features similar to what APFS intends to deliver. (And note that Apple built a fairly complete port of ZFS, though Giampaolo was not apparently part of the group advocating for it.) Giampaolo explained that he was aware of them as a self-described file system guy (he built the file system in BeOS, unfairly relegated to obscurity when Apple opted to purchase NeXTSTEP instead), but didn’t delve too deeply for fear, he said, of tainting himself.

Full article: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/06/a-zfs-developers-analysis-of-the-good-and-bad-in-apples-new-apfs-file-system/

Discussion thread on /r/programming: https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/4pziho/a_zfs_developers_analysis_of_apples_new_apfs_file/t1_d4pw7vc

 

RootBSD opens Hong Kong datacenter

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RootBSD, known for its *BSD hosting services, has announced dedicated servers located overseas in Hong Kong. Recently the hosting provider also brought servers to datacenters in San Jose, CA as well as Dallas, TX. Their most popular plan is the Lambda plan, for those looking to get into BSD hosting.

RootBSD_Logo

RootBSD, the hosting service that specializes in *BSD-based deployments, expands its cloud service footprint with the opening of its new data center in Hong Kong.

The Hong Kong data center offers excellent, low-latency connections into the region as well as Asia, including mainland China (available through RootBSD’s premium routes) through fiber cables that route directly into the country.

The data center is located in a carrie-neutral facility that offers tier 1 backbone connections. RootBSD’s customers will be able to utilize any of the services available through the data center, which has access to the Hong Kong Internet Exchange (HKIX) and other carriers in Asia. It also features Tier III+ fully redundant physical infrastructure, including back-up generators, cooling and dual power feeds to each rack.

Original announcement: https://www.rootbsd.net/news/96/RootBSD-Opens-Hong-Kong-Data-Center-Offering-Access-To-Asia-Mainland-China.html

Related links:

DataCentres: RootBSD opens Hong Kong datacentre

IT Business Net: RootBSD Opens Hong Kong Data Center, Offering Access To Asia, Mainland China

RootBSD Announces Dallas Instant Dedicated Servers

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RootBSD_LogoRootBSD, known for its *BSD hosting services, has announced dedicated servers located in Dallas, TX datacenters. Not too long ago, the hosting provider announced that its servers were populating in datacenters in San Jose, the heart of the Silicon Valley. Their most popular plan is the Lambda plan, for those looking to get into BSD hosting.

Customers of RootBSD can now deploy bare metal servers to its Dallas data center, giving them a choice of MaaS or cloud services.

RootBSD expands the bare metal server presence of its rock solid *BSD-based hosting service to its Dallas data center, with its latest MaaS release and platform available to its customers now.

“Our customers can now deploy bare metal servers in minutes to our Dallas data center at a price that’s comparable to cloud servers,” Mark Price, RootBSD’s CEO, said. “This is in addition to the existing cloud services we offer at the location. No matter what their service needs are, whether it’s MaaS or IaaS, we can offer the best service on the *BSD platform of their choice — OpenBSD, NetBSD and FreeBSD.”

Official announcement: https://www.rootbsd.net/news/78/RootBSD-Announces-Dallas-Instant-Dedicated-Servers.html

RootBSD Brings Cloud Services & Bare Metal Servers to San Jose Data Centers

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RootBSD_LogoRootBSD, a hosting provider known for its extensive FreeBSD options, are now bringing their centers over to the Silicon Valley area of California. See the full announcement in the link below.

RootBSD brings its rock solid *BSD-based hosting service to the world’s tech hub, Silicon Valley. Announcing the opening of its cloud and bare metal services at its San Jose Central Colo– SV1 datacenter, RootBSD will have a presence and access to the headquarters of the world’s leading tech companies and hottest startups.

Developers can utilize both bare metal and cloud service deployments through RootBSD’s service, which supports OpenBSD, NetBSD and FreeBSD. The San Jose datacenter connects to more than 125 providers as well as one of the world’s largest peering points and internet exchanges. RootBSD users can interconnect directly to hundreds of companies (including global telecom companies, cloud service providers, content companies and leading social media platforms) colocated at the datacenter.

“Our expansion into Silicon Valley and the Bay Area means that our customers can now service a very vital and important part of the tech sector in the manner they wish to deploy — through cloud services or through bare metal servers,” Mark Price, RootBSD’s CEO, said. “Most importantly, we offer users who prefer to work in OpenBSD, NetBSD and FreeBSD environments the best service of any hosting company. This is also important to us, as Silicon Valley and the University of California at Berkeley is the birthplace of BSD — FreeBSD was also known as ‘Berkeley Unix’.”

Official announcement: https://www.rootbsd.net/news/69/RootBSD-Brings-Cloud-Services-and-Bare-Metal-Servers-for-Deployment-to-San-Jose-Data-Center.html

Related article: https://www.rootbsd.net/freebsd-vs-linux