BSD and GNU/Linux Leftovers

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Jun 18, 2025

• Server

  • Ava ☛ oh no, i’m thinking about a VPS again

    Early on as I went more seriously into making my website, I briefly put selfhosting (as in, either own hardware or renting one) as a future thing to look into and learn. Then the static website hosting providers I used were pretty comfortable and I didn’t have to worry about configuration, security, updates, backups, bandwidth, uptime, bots, and more. I could just pay and have everything handled for me, so I forgot about it.

• Games

  • Idiomdrottning ☛ Scaling philosophy (for old games)

    As you can see he’s pretty small. That’s because he was made in 1992 for a NES game with 240p resolution.

• Distributions and Operating Systems

  • BSD/Storage

    • David Rosenthal ☛ The State Of Storage

      The Register is running a series on The State Of Storage. Below the fold I flag some articles worth reading.

  • Open Hardware/Modding

    • Linux Gizmos ☛ Tokay Pro Replaces ESP32 with NXP i.MX 8M Plus for Industrial Edge AI

      Maxlab launched the Tokay Lite in 2023, an open-source ESP32 camera with 2MP video at 15 FPS and edge AI features like facial recognition. The new Tokay Pro upgrades to an NXP i.MX 8M Plus for real-time detection, modular sensors, and high-res video in industrial applications.

    • Raspberry Pi ☛ Igniting innovation: How Experience AI is empowering teachers and students across Kenya

      Teachers are eager to understand AI, not only to better prepare their students for the future, but also for their own professional growth.

• Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

  • FSF ☛ FSF adds provisional board member Alexandre Oliva

    The FSF has advanced Alexandre Oliva as provisional board member. Oliva was the last candidate to be decided on after the call for candidates on June 19, 2023, and will begin participating in board meetings effective immediately.

  • Web Browsers/Web Servers

    • Alex Petros ☛ The Server Doesn't Render Anything

      Upon hearing this, web developers often reply “oh, you like server-side rendering,” to which I usually wince and answer “more or less.” You have to pick your battles when chipping away at a decade of miseducation. At least people know what I’m talking about.

      But “server-side rendering” is a horrible term. It implies that the server is not just doing more work, but doing hard work, work that’s best left to the experts. None of this is true. You, too, can do server-side “rendering,” with essentially no effort, in whatever programming language you prefer.

      Once you understand that, you’ll start to see the web the way I do: as the simplest, easiest, and most powerful interface for computation ever created.

  • SaaS/Back End/Databases

    • Paul Gross ☛ Double-Entry Ledgers: The Missing Primitive in Modern Software

      I think ledgers are underutilized in software development today. Specifically, double-entry ledger modeling would be a better fit in a lot of systems than the ad-hoc ledger-ish things they currently have.

      This is why I’ve been working on pgledger, a pure PostgreSQL ledger implementation. If adding a ledger implementation is super simple, then I’m hoping more folks will do it. And it can become another modeling primitive that we reach for to accomplish all sorts of things.

  • Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

    • The Register UK ☛ LibreOffice adds voice to 'ditch Windows for Linux' campaign

      The title of the blog post is self-explanatory. The end of Windows 10 is approaching, so it's time to consider Linux and LibreOffice. They're right. The post also links to the KDE-backed End of 10 campaign, which we covered a month ago. That site's list of places to go for help has been improved with a zoomable world map, but we feel it still badly needs some kind of hierarchical organization.

      The blog also links to Distro Chooser, which is a noble idea, but with flawed execution. This site leads you through a set of questions and then recommends what Linux distributions might suit you. We found the presentation of the results overwhelming, though. It seems to be a list of all the candidates, color-coded according to how good a match they are. The Reg FOSS desk generally feels that "Less is more," and here, just distilling the results down to, say, a top three would far be more helpful.

  • Content Management Systems (CMS) / Static Site Generators (SSG)

    • Jasper Tandy ☛ Jasper is blogging: I've rebuilt this site and it's pretty much static now.

      Tags are kinda gone. They're on their way out. Generating paginated tags for everything generates about 2,000 URLs. I just can't believe that people even use them, so tags are now a feature of search. I may start to monitor how much this even gets used and remove it altogether.

      So, yes. "Static".

  • Education

    • Stefano Marinelli ☛ Where Have You Been for the Last 20 Years?

      I'm writing these words while we're heading back to the hotel, after the final reception following BSDCan. A moment of serenity, lightness, and sociability that perfectly closes what BSDCan embodied. And right now, this sense of positivity and sadness for the end of the event is pushing these words onto this uncomfortable mobile keyboard.

    • MWL ☛ Buy Your Paperbacks Directly From Me

      I am excited beyond words. I have been working towards this ever since my first book came out in 1992.

      Benefits to you? Those bundles I offer, like the FreeBSD Storage Mastery bundle? There’s now a discount print version. That ridiculous The Full Michael bundle that includes everything I’ve indie published? You can now buy the whole thing in paperback.

      Do I expect anyone to drop $624 on a stack of books? No. But I am delighted to have that degree of control.