FreeBSD Improving Boot Times, Adds Hole-Punching, Better Linux Binary Compatibility

[phoronix]

Phoronix: FreeBSD Improving Boot Times, Adds Hole-Punching, Better Linux Binary Compatibility

The FreeBSD project has published their latest quarterly status report highlighting the work achieved on this open-source BSD operating system. Even with the pandemic and limitations on physical events, the FreeBSD developers continue making significant progress on their goals and technology road-map...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=FreeBSD-Q3-Status-2021

[Developer12]

Now if only mitigations for Spectre v1 would get implemented by FreeBSD. Or any BSD for that matter.

Spectre v2? check. Spectre v3 (meltdown)? sure. But spectre v1? bubkiss. Despite being one of the original three variants, nothing has been done.

On my linux system:

/sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/spectre_v1:    Mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization

Linux source code is scanned regularly for code patterns where a user-controlled pointer is dereferenced and could lead to speculative reading (and leaking) of kernel memory. Memory barriers are inserted, pointers are masked unconditionally to restrict their range, and troublesome code patterns are removed.

Even after all these years, the BSDs have done none of that. The initial excuse was that the only static analysis tool for finding exploitable dereferences was Synopsys' Coverity tool (proprietary) but now other tools exist too. Still, it seems their limited manpower has led them to move on and just forget about it.

[cb88]

Hole punching but not punched card related... SAD.

[Sonadow]

FreeBSD is working towards better WiFi, graphics, and hardware support at large

They can't even get 802.11n working perfectly on FreeBSD and now they want to play with 802.11ac which has completely non-existent support in the kernel.

[cb88]

They can't even get 802.11n working perfectly on FreeBSD and now they want to play with 802.11ac which has completely non-existent support in the kernel.

Not sure what you mean by that wifi drivers on FreeBSD are fine as long as your hardware is supported, and even Haiku imports thier drivers and they work there. Sure its missing alot of the minor features that Linux has along with the kitchen sink but for general uses it's fine.

[rhavenn]

Not sure what you mean by that wifi drivers on FreeBSD are fine as long as your hardware is supported, and even Haiku imports thier drivers and they work there. Sure its missing alot of the minor features that Linux has along with the kitchen sink but for general uses it's fine.

It is "fine", but the previous post was correct. They don't support the "n" Wifi network specs / protocol, so even if the driver works for newer cards you're stuck talking a/b/g . See https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/ha...twork-wireless

At this point I would say that skipping N is fine and work towards AC support should be a priority because by the time it becomes stable it will already be not the latest and greatest anymore.

[kylew77]

It is "fine", but the previous post was correct. They don't support the "n" Wifi network specs / protocol, so even if the driver works for newer cards you're stuck talking a/b/g . See https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/ha...twork-wireless

At this point I would say that skipping N is fine and work towards AC support should be a priority because by the time it becomes stable it will already be not the latest and greatest anymore.

It is already not the greatest and latest anymore we have Wifi 6 (AX) and 6E now already. I don't understand why FreeBSD lags so far behind when all they do is port the Linux driver. OpenBSD and NetBSD I can understand because they write drivers from scratch.

[cb88]

It is already not the greatest and latest anymore we have Wifi 6 (AX) and 6E now already. I don't understand why FreeBSD lags so far behind when all they do is port the Linux driver. OpenBSD and NetBSD I can understand because they write drivers from scratch.

Probably because they swapped in ath cards that have N support on FreeBSD... and moved on. FreeBSD isn't Linux but many of the same issues occur... just more often there, run supported hardware before griping.

[cb88]

It is already not the greatest and latest anymore we have Wifi 6 (AX) and 6E now already. I don't understand why FreeBSD lags so far behind when all they do is port the Linux driver. OpenBSD and NetBSD I can understand because they write drivers from scratch.

That isn't entirely the case I think there are some linuxkpi drivers but most are native. Since for instance the talk about fixing the iwn driver is mostly about porting code from OpenBSD since it already works there.

[k1e0x]

Not sure what you mean by that wifi drivers on FreeBSD are fine as long as your hardware is supported, and even Haiku imports thier drivers and they work there. Sure its missing alot of the minor features that Linux has along with the kitchen sink but for general uses it's fine.

Might not be a priority for them. How many servers use WiFi? Still.. they should get it done.. The Desktop spins and PFSense would benefit greatly from it.