feat: move more random texts to blog

1 files changed, 279 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/content-org/blog.org b/content-org/blog.org
index 577cda4..a6f3573 100644
--- a/content-org/blog.org
+++ b/content-org/blog.org
@@ -2609,6 +2609,285 @@ The cost of using LLMs is so low (and will only become cheaper), that there will
 And I am afraid that the post-LLM market can find worthy place for them.
 
 
+** DONE OpenBSD: Live from OpenBSD in Amsterdam
+CLOSED: [2023-07-19 Mon 22:47]
+:PROPERTIES:
+:EXPORT_FILE_NAME: moved-to-openbsd
+:EXPORT_HUGO_CUSTOM_FRONT_MATTER+: :abstract A short info on OpenBSD Amsterdam
+:EXPORT_HUGO_CUSTOM_FRONT_MATTER+: :aliases '(/2023/moved-to-openbsd /bsd/moved-to-openbsd/)
+:EXPORT_HUGO_PAIRED_SHORTCODES: img-
+:END:
+
+This site, in its infancy, was running Debian on Linode.
+Then I moved [fn:fbsd] to [[https://freebsd.org][FreeBSD]] on Vultr.
+Today marks a day of another migration:
+hello from [[https://www.openbsd.org/][OpenBSD]] running on [[https://openbsd.amsterdam/][OpenBSD Amsterdam]].[fn:bloggers]
+[fn:fbsd] [[https://michal.sapka.me/2023/early-freebsd-thoughts/][Early FreeBSD Thoughts]] 
+[fn:bloggers] for technical folks, tinkering with their sites is just as fun as making them.
+I still have to create a "Yet Another Blog System", but discovering BSD was a great award in itself.
+
+*** OpenBSD
+
+#+attr_shortcode: "openbsd.png" 
+#+begin_img-r
+OpenBSD Logo
+#+end_img-r
+OpenBSD is one of the three most popular BSD distributions.
+While [[https://www.netbsd.org/][NetBSD]] focuses on running on obscure hardware[fn:netbsd], and [[https://freebsd.org][FreeBSD]] has ZFS as its killer feature, OpenBSD is all about security[fn:security].
+I was very happy with FreeBSD, but at the same time, I was never fully confident in my ability to configure it securely.
+Not that my server hosts anything of real value[fn:mwl-mail], but I still wouldn't like a machine I administer to become a cog in some botnet.
+Between learning forensics and a new OS, the latter seems nicer.
+
+OpenBSD's official project goal[fn:goals] states that even though they aim to provide the most secure OS, each developer has their own goals and can freely pursue them as long as the project adheres to these goals.
+It's a very different approach to what we see anywhere else.
+There is no 10-year roadmap and constant consultations.
+Instead, we have a hacker-oriented[fn:hackathon] culture.
+This resulted in multiple projects having their inception in OpenBSD, like [[https://www.openssh.com/][OpenSSH]] or [[https://www.libressl.org/][LibreSSL]].
+
+OpenBSD ships with a secure by-default mindset.
+All non-essential services are disabled, and those running are using sensible configurations.
+For example, I had huge problems configuring a firewall on FreeBSD, especially for IPv6[fn:ipv6].
+On OpenBSD, it was much simpler.
+
+OpenBSD being a BSD, provides a complete system - system and user space are developed together.
+No GNU tools are needed, as everything comes together.
+At the same time, BSDs come with a lot of surprising things out of the box.
+FreeBSD wowed me with Jails[fn:jail].
+
+All in all, a lot of things I've learned on FreeBSD are easily transplantable to OpenBSD.
+They say that all BSDs are separate OSes, a stark difference from distributions of GNU/Linux.
+I fail to see it, as so much works the same.
+The package manager of FreeBSD may be more modern, and the separation between system space and user space[fn:hier] is not so evident here, but so many things work the same.
+I can not pretend to be a pro-BSDer, but I fail to see evidence of them diverging so narrowly to call them completely different OSes.
+But then again, maybe it's just my poor judgment and love for POSIX.
+
+And still no SystemD(1) in sight. I don't have enough willpower to learn forensics or Rust, not even to mention an OS-level complex PID1 process.
+
+** DONE FreeBSD on the Desktop won't improvide unless people are using it
+CLOSED: [2023-03-29 Mon 22:09]
+:PROPERTIES:
+:EXPORT_FILE_NAME: desktop-freebsd-wont-improve-unless-people-are-using-it
+:EXPORT_HUGO_CUSTOM_FRONT_MATTER+: :abstract I have hits from /r/bsd, but almost none of those people are using BSD
+:EXPORT_HUGO_PAIRED_SHORTCODES: img-r img-c
+:EXPORT_HUGO_CUSTOM_FRONT_MATTER+: :aliases '(/bsd/desktop-freebsd-wont-improve-unless-people-are-using-it/ /2023/desktop-freebsd-wont-improve-unless-people-are-using-it)
+:END:
+Shamelessly, I posted my previous post, [[https://d-s.sh/2023/freebsd-on-thinkpad-x1-extreme-g2/][FreeBSD on a Thinkpad Extreme G2]] on [[https://www.reddit.com/r/BSD/comments/124v5cm/freebsd_on_a_thinkpad_x1_extreme_g2/][/r/bsd Reddit]].
+
+The result, some 24 hours later, is 100 visitors.
+Out of that 100, 57 are using a desktop.
+Out of that 57, only 2 used FreeBSD—2%. No other BSDs are recorded.
+
+People who are into BSD don't use BSD.
+This seems to be a reason for lacking hardware support.
+If no one uses FreeBSD, no one will encounter those problems. If no one encounters them, no one will fix them.
+
+*** Update 2023-04-14
+
+The article, got quite the round around the internets, gathering some interests from [[https://old.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/126fvkz/desktop_freebsd_wont_improve_unless_people_are/][Reddit]], [Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35378367), Twitter, Discover BSD, or [[https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2023/04/03/valuable-news-2023-04-03/][Vermaden]].
+With all that interest come quite a few questions and comments.
+The following is an attempt to summarize it all.
+
+**** People who use FreeBSD don't care about FreeBSD hardware
+
+This makes perfect sense.
+If your FreeBSD installation on X220 works flawlessly, you may not care about anything more modern.
+But there will come a time when you will need to replace the hardware. 
+
+#+attr_shortcode: "freebsd-beastie.png" 
+#+begin_img-r
+FreeBSD Beastie
+#+end_img-r
+This comment, however, came as a proof that the sample from my blog is invalid.
+This may be the case, but I don't buy it.
+All traffic on the aforementioned post came from Reddit's BSD forum.
+It's the one place where you could expect that people using BSD would hang.
+It may also be that it's quite a random sample - it's small, and people who have yet to become into BSD but are BSD-curious opened my blog post.
+I am in no place to debunk or confirm this.
+I, however, know that many people presenting at FreeBSD conferences do it using Macs or Windows.
+So even if the numbers are dubious, the overall feeling remains sorrowful.
+
+To add to the above: there are also stats for the commented opinion piece.
+Two hundred forty-four people opened it from /r/freebsd.
+Of that, 24 people were using FreeBSD, and just 2 were using OpenBSD.
+
+**** Your statistics may be invalid as people mask their browser agent.
+
+This also may be the case.
+Why, then, is the referer not spoofed?
+It's a much more invasive data point than the underlying OS.
+But I'm a simple Firefox user, never used Librewolf. 
+
+**** FreeBSD is a server OS
+
+Yeah, this is the sentiment I've read before jumping aboard.
+My problem with this idea is that each and every FOSS OS is a value in itself.
+The current poster boy,
+Linux, also had huge problems getting to work on various machines.
+In my opinion, it's limiting OS to a single use case is a completely valid point - your use case for FreeBSD is on a server, and this is where it currently shines (or not, depending on your experience).
+Some folks despise allocating any FreeBSD dev time to the desktop as there are many server issues.
+
+But again, I don't see it this way.
+Limiting FreeBSD to the server only is short-lighted.
+Unless you are already powering your servers with BSD, there will always be a question: "Why not Linux. It's what everyone else is doing".
+And Linux got into its current position not by being a great server machine but rather by attracting the interest of some very skillful people.
+And it did it by allowing more and more people to free themselves from Windows on their machines.
+
+I see FreeBSD problems as having two primary causes: the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_wars][Unix wars]] of the past and limited resources now.
+If FreeBSD were easier to use on a wide range of end-user machines (which tend to be laptops), the easier it would for people to want to develop it.
+BSDs are now a far second choice.
+Why would someone invest time?
+They may fall in love with the OS, but unless they try it, it will never happen.
+
+**** I like our small userbase
+
+I'm as elitist as the other person. [[https://dwm.suckless.org/][DWM]] stated that
+
+#+begin_quote
+"This keeps its userbase small and elitist.
+No novices asking stupid questions.
+#+end_quote
+
+I can't find this quote anymore, but the sentiment seems similar.
+However, there are two aspects here.
+
+FreeBSD comes with no graphical interface by default.
+This makes it much closer to minimalist distros than Ubuntu.
+This still allows anyone to feel like a hacker.
+
+The second, however, is that some problems are unsolvable by end-user.
+Writing drivers is EXTREMELY difficult, and, as I've recently learned (thanks, Jeff!), this is especially true when it comes to WiFi drivers, as there is no open implementation.
+This means that any progress requires a trial-and-error process based on reverse engineering.
+No one without deep knowledge of low-level programming will be able to make any progress, and even those few will need people with real hardware for testing.
+
+**** Hardware support is years behind Linux
+
+Yes, and this is what I was referring to.
+
+**** Why would anyone use BSD on a desktop?
+
+It's a great system, just needs a lot of work on hardware support :-)
+
+**** Your post is worthless, and only the comments are interesting
+
+It's more than I anticipated. That post was small and written without any deeper research. But the discussion around it makes me believe that I hit something real.
+
+
+
+*** OpenBSD Amsterdam
+
+#+attr_shortcode: "openbsd-amsterdam.png" 
+#+begin_img-r
+OpenBSD Amsterdam logo
+#+end_img-r
+I had a similar exodus of server providers.
+First, it was Linode, then Vultr.
+Linode became useless when I wanted to try BSD.
+Vultr was great as it provided images of FreeBSD and OpenBSD for its VMs.
+But why stop halfway?
+Vultr doesn't use BSD as the base system.
+While it may not be a big deal, I've recently learned of[[https://openbsd.amsterdam/][ OpenBSD Amsterdam]][fn:aws].
+
+OpenBSD Amsterdam is a small company based in (to the surprise of everyone reading this) Amsterdam.
+What's even better is that they serve OpenBSD VMS from OpenBSD hosts via vmm(4) and vmd(8) - a small virtualization driver baked into OpenBSD. Cool.
+
+What's even cooler is that they give a significant part of their earnings to the [[https://www.openbsdfoundation.org/][OpenBSD Fundation]].
+
+I could not resist, and a day after learning about them, I had already paid for a full year.
+
+*** Updates
+
+2023-12-12: moved info about web stack to a [[/bsd/open-bsd-web-stack][dedicated article]].
+
+[fn:mwl-mail] at least until "[[https://www.tiltedwindmillpress.com/product/ryoms-esponsor/][Run Your Own Mail Server]]" finally lands in my digital hands
+[fn:netbsd] There is a semi-widely known story about running NetBSD on a [[https://www.embeddedts.com/blog/netbsd-toaster-powered-by-the-ts-7200-arm9-sbc/][toaster]].
+It may not support a modern WiFi card, but if the device is old, you can run NetBSD on it.
+[fn:security] At least officially.
+In reality, I'm test-driving it on my laptop and have much fewer problems than with FreeBSD[fn:tphistory].
+[fn:tphistory] You may want to check my writing about this epic fight - [FreeBSD on Thinkpad X1 Extreme G2](https://michal.sapka.me/2023/freebsd-on-thinkpad-x1-extreme-g2/).
+[fn:goals]: [[https://www.openbsd.org/goals.html][OpenBSD Project Goals]]
+[fn:hackathon]: enough said that OpenBSD coined the term "Hackathon" before corporations stole it - like the internet.
+[fn:jail]: Jails are FreeBSD containerization mechanisms based solely on chroot(8). Ever since I learned how simple it can be, I started vocalizing my disgust for Docker.
+[fn:ipv6]: [[https://michal.sapka.me/2023/fixing-ipv6-and-securing-the-domain/][Fixing IPv6 and securing the domain]]
+[fn:hier]: vide hier(7)of [[https://man.openbsd.org/hier][OpenBSD]] and of [[https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?hier(7)][FreeBSD]]
+[fn:aws]: notice the lack of Amazon Web Services.
+Screw them.
+They have almost all of the interwebs in their server farm, but they will not have this blog!
+
+
+** DONE FreeBSD: Early thoughts
+CLOSED: [2023-02-15 Mon 21:12]
+:PROPERTIES:
+:EXPORT_FILE_NAME: early-freebsd-thoughts
+:EXPORT_HUGO_CUSTOM_FRONT_MATTER+: :abstract I've been using FreeBSD on my server for the last few weeks and I like it!
+:EXPORT_HUGO_CUSTOM_FRONT_MATTER+: :aliases '(/bsd/early-freebsd-thoughts/ /bsd/early-freebsd-thoughts)
+:EXPORT_HUGO_PAIRED_SHORTCODES: img-r img-c
+:END:
+I'm leaning more and more towards joining the [[https://www.freebsd.org/][FreeBSD]] crowd. 
+
+The community is small and welcoming, and I'm driven towards more minor groups.
+But I was surprised to find out hoh welcoming it was.
+People seem to be actually happy to help a noob - something the Linux crowd forgot how to do.
+
+#+attr_shortcode: "freebsd-beastie.png" 
+#+begin_img-r
+FreeBSD Beastie
+#+end_img-r
+Another aspect is the documentation.
+People say it's excellent, and I consider it to be selling short.
+I'm reading [[https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/][The Official Handbook]]
+It starts with the assumption that the reader has close to 0 knowledge but never treats him as a moron.
+And chapter by chapter explains how and why things work this way.
+It may not be for everyone, as you are expected to want to learn - but it is invaluable if you are in the target group.
+It's worth reading even if you don't want to move to BSD, as a lot applies to other NIXs, like Linux.
+
+And, of course, the system itself.
+I've been using unix-inspired OSs exclusively for over a decade (and quite often before that).
+FreeBSD is so close, that from day 0, I am able to navigate it.
+And what I see is a very well-thought system without many pitfalls Linux fell into.
+Just two examples that strike me the most.
+
+In Linux, the root partition is a mess.
+System and userland are intertwined, and I wonder if anyone understands where things should go.
+Just look at how many explanations of the structure there are!
+Should this particular config be in /var/ or maybe in /etc/?
+AFAIK there are no generic guidelines, just tribal knowledge.
+If FreeBSD, there's a [[https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/basics/#dirstructure][dedicated chapter]] in the documentation!
+There's also a strict rule where userland should live - in /usr.
+Everything you install goes to /usr - the executables, the configs, etc.
+Finally, a new user can experiment without fearing breaking the system!
+
+The other one is the `rc` subsystem.
+The Linux world has a neverending war between Systemd and, well, everything else.
+Here?
+The system itself dictates how to manage the cattle - elegantly and logically.
+
+#+attr_shortcode: "freebsd13-bootloader.png" 
+#+begin_img-c
+How the OS greats us.
+#+end_img-c
+
+FreeBSD comes with two package managers: pkg and ports.
+Pkg is a standard replacement for brew/apt/pacman or whatever else is there.
+What is nice is that the user can configure to use packages updated quarterly or the latest.
+Want to have a stable infrastructure?
+Go with quarterly - bug fixes will be included in between updates.
+Want modern thingies? Go with the latest.
+My biggest issue with Ubuntu and its derivatives is how far behind the packages in apt are, as they are tied to the yearly distro update circle.
+You can mitigate this by using personal repositories, but those are a nuance to set up.
+FreeBSD comes prepared for servers and workstations at the same time.
+
+And then there are ports for the demanding crowd.
+Since BSD is semi-compatible with Linux, you can compile most of its software.
+But there are some differences, so it requires some manual configuration or looking for dependencies.
+Or rather, it would, as FreeBSD has you covered.
+Ports is a single repository with makefiles for different projects tailored for the system.
+You can either compile anything with default settings or adjust the parameters easily.
+Want Firefox without JS support? Why not! I have yet to use ports, as they seem excessive for my humble VPS, but I love the idea.
+
+So, you have the best features from Ubuntu (stable versions), Arch (cutting edge), and from Gentoo (compile from source code) right at your disposal. 
+
+I am **this** close to installing FreeBSD on my personal computer. My work-issued Macbook is [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system)#Kernel][already running a BSD derivative]]... for better or worse.
+
 ** 2022
 :PROPERTIES:
 :EXPORT_HUGO_SECTION: blog/2022