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How to add or create swap file on Linux and FreeBSD

Fuad NAHDI — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 07:05:40 +0000

Sometime you need to increase swap memory to run softwares that need more swap as the requirement or to improve the system performance. In this article I will show you on how to add more swap by adding a swap file on Linux and FreeBSD. We will create 1 GB or 1024 MB swap size.

1. Adding swap file on Linux

dd if=/dev/zero of=/swap1 bs=1M count=1024

For example, my result is as below:

bash-3.1# dd if=/dev/zero of=/swap1 bs=1M count=1024
1024+0 records in
1024+0 records out
1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 28.3646 s, 37.9 MB/s

Run ‘mkswap’ to set up a Linux swap area on a device or in a file, in this case in the /swap1 file.

mkswap /swap1

For example:

bash-3.1# mkswap /swap1
Setting up swapspace version 1, size = 1048572 KiB
no label, UUID=e501fc72-f731-4624-ab45-ee898f6cf1c5

After setting up the swap area, now we need to enable / activate the swap file by using ‘swapon’ command.

swapon /swap1

You are done. But the swap file will be disable if you reboot the system. To make it enable at boot, you need to add the swap file in the /etc/fstab file like below:

/swap1         swap             swap        defaults         0   0

2. Adding swap file on FreeBSD

Login as root or change to super user then run the following command to create 1 GB swap file. The same as in Linux but the swap file stored under directory /usr because this folder has more space in my system configuration.

dd if=/dev/zero of=/usr/swap1 bs=1M count=1024

For example, mine is as below:

root@freebsd# dd if=/dev/zero of=/usr/swap1 bs=1M count=1024
1024+0 records in
1024+0 records out
1073741824 bytes transferred in 42.351062 secs (25353362 bytes/sec)

Then change the proper permission of the file:

chmod 600 /usr/swap1

Enable the swap file in /etc/rc.conf to activate it at boot:

swapfile="/usr/swap1"

The last thing is enable or activate the swap file immediately by running the following command:

mdconfig -a -t vnode -f /usr/swap0 -u 0 && swapon /dev/md0

References:
1. http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-add-a-swap-file-howto
2. http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/adding-swap-space.html

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FreeBSD 8.1-RELEASE Officially Announced

Fuad NAHDI — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 11:58:08 +0000

Nearly three weeks after announcing the second release candidates, the FreeBSD Engineering Team has announced that the FreeBSD 8.1 Final Release is available to download.

This is the second release of the 8-stable branch which improves on the functionality of FreeBSD 8.0 and introduce many new features.

Below are some of its highlights:

zfsloader added
zpool version of ZFS subsystem updated to version 14
NFSv4 ACL support in UFS and ZFS; support added to cp(1), find(1), getfacl(1), mv(1), and setfacl(1) utilities
UltraSPARC IV/IV+, SPARC64 V support
SMP support in PowerPC G5
BIND 9.6.2-P2
sendmail updated to 8.14.4
OpenSSH updated to 5.4p1
GNOME 2.30.1, KDE 4.4.5

For a complete list of new features and known problems, please see the online release notes and errata list.

About FreeBSD

FreeBSD® is an advanced operating system for modern server, desktop, and embedded computer platforms. FreeBSD’s code base has undergone over thirty years of continuous development, improvement, and optimization. It is developed and maintained by a large team of individuals. FreeBSD provides advanced networking, impressive security features, and world class performance and is used by some of the world’s busiest web sites and most pervasive embedded networking and storage devices.

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PC-BSD 8.1 Officially Released

Fuad NAHDI — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 11:51:33 +0000

The PC-BSD Dev Team has announced the availability of PC-BSD 8.1 (Hubble Edition), running on FreeBSD 8.1 kernel.

The new release comes with a number of enhancements and improvements. The most notable changes are as follows:

FreeBSD 8.1-Release
KDE 4.4.5
Numerous fixes to the installation backend
Support for creating dedicated disk GPT partitioning
Improved ZFS support
Bugfixes to desktop tools / utilities

According to the release announcement, below are the full changelog of the new release:

Updated to KDE 4.4.5
Updated to FreeBSD 8.1
Numerous fixes to installer, such as: Switch to “gpart” instead of fdisk for backend, Improvements to ZFS, allowing mirror / raidz setup via GUI, Encryption pass-phrase support, Use GPT partitioning when running in dedicated disk mode
Improvements to life-preserver backup tool
Fixed issue running downloaded python / ruby plasmoids
Fixed nepomuk / strigi default init at first login
Fixed issues with wifi tools in calculating signal strength
ZFS syntax fix for installs to MBR partition
During upgrade now install selected components properly
Don’t use “lagg” device on systems with no wifi
Use “async” for journaled file-systems
Enable double-click partition editing action
Fixed backwards numlock logic in KDE
Added fixes to reduce kdeinit cpu usage from file polling
Use 24 bit color depth during install by default

The download files are available in its mirrors site.

About PC-BSD

PC-BSD is a free operating system with ease of use in mind. Like any modern system, you can listen to your favorite music, watch your movies, work with office documents and install your favorite applications with a setup wizard at a click.

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How to install Microsoft Windows Fonts on OpenBSD

Fuad NAHDI — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 12:59:24 +0000

Basically a collection of popular TrueType fonts are already compiled and available in the OpenBSD ports tree, in /usr/ports/x11/msttcorefonts. The ports collection also include other TrueType fonts packages, especially the liberation fonts that can be used as a replacement for the Microsoft Web fonts above and are distributed with a more acceptable license.

You can install the fonts via ports as follow:

# cd /usr/ports/x11/msttcorefonts
# make install

You may need more fonts as Microsoft Windows has. If you use OpenBSD as your main desktop as a daily work OS rather than using Windows or Linux, you will need more fonts to make your desktop good looking with Windows Fonts.
You can easily install the Microsoft Windows fonts on OpenBSD by following this tutorial.
Here are the step by step how to install Windows fonts on OpenBSD.

1. Copy the Microsoft Windows Fonts
First you need to copy all the *.ttf file located at ‘C:\Windows\Fonts’ of Microsoft Windows operating system.
To make it easy to copy / import the fonts into OpenBSD, just zip the folder to be Fonts.zip file then upload it to your FTP / Web server. Later you can download it to OpenBSD system.

2. Store the folder in OpenBSD fonts directory
After getting the Windows fonts using the above step, or whatever way you did to copy into OpenBSD system, store the fonts into OpenBSD fonts directory located in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/ and make it WinFonts.

3. And the new fonts path into /etc/X11/xorg.conf
You need to add the fonts path into /etc/X11/xorg.conf file as follow:

Section "Files"
        ...
        FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF/"
        FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/WinFonts/"
	...
EndSection

4. To build a fonts.scale file, use the ‘mkfontscale’:

    # cd /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/WinFonts/
    # /usr/X11R6/bin/mkfontscale
    # /usr/X11R6/bin/mkfontdir

5. Apply the changes to the current X session

    $ xset fp rehash
    $ xset +fp /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/WinFonts

Now you are ready to use Microsoft Windows Fonts on OpenBSD. Try to change the default fonts to the MS Windows fonts that we just added before.

For comparation, below are the capture of Mozilla Firefox accessing Yahoo Website before and after using TrueType fonts (MS Windows Fonts).

Before Using Windows Fonts (click to enlarge)

After Using Windows Fonts (click to enlarge)

Reference: http://www.openbsd.org/faq/truetype.html

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OpenBSD 4.7 Screenshot using XFCE4

Fuad NAHDI — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 11:30:26 +0000

OpenBSD 4.7 is the latest release of OpenBSD operating system. It was released in May 19, 2010. I have installed OpenBSD 4.7 into my Compaq Presario Laptop triple-booted with Windows 7 Ultimate and Slackware 13.1

Here are some screenshots of OpenBSD 4.7 using XFCE4 Window Manager. Enjoy!!

[View with PicLens]

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FreeBSD 8.1-RC2 Available for Download

Fuad NAHDI — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 12:36:26 +0000

After announcing the first release candidate (RC1) of the FreeBSD 8.1 two weeks ago, today the FreeBSD Project announced the availability of FreeBSD 8.1-RC2. This is most likely final Release Candidate for the FreeBSD 8.1 release cycle available for amd64, i386, ia64, powerpc, and sparc64 architectures.

The RC2 should fix a problem related to Atheros AR9280 cards being detected incorrectly making them unusable. Testing of this fix would be appreciated.

According to the release announcement DVD images are not available at present because there was a fairly serious security issue with the png graphics package. Don’t worry they will generate DVD images when the rebuilt packages become available, that will be announced then the images are ready.

About FreeBSD

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PC-BSD 8.1-RC1 Now Available for Download

Fuad NAHDI — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 19:00:51 +0000

Just 3 days after the announcement of the availability of FreeBSD 8.1 RC1, the PC-BSD Team announced today that PC-BSD 8.1 RC1 (Hubble Edition) which is based-on FreeBSD 8.1 RC1 is now available for download.

It comes with a number of improvements and enhancements such as fixed issue running downloaded python / ruby plasmoids, fixed nepomuk / strigi default init at first login, fixed issues with wifi tools in calculating signal strength, ZFS syntax fix for installs to MBR partition, during upgrade now install selected components properly, and don’t use “lagg” device on systems with no wifi.

Some of the notable changes are:

KDE 4.4.4
Numerous fixes to the installation backend
Support for creating dedicated disk GPT partitioning
Improved ZFS support
Bugfixes to desktop tools / utilities

Version 8.1-RC1 of PC-BSD is available for download from its mirror sites. You might find any issues or bugs when running this release candidate. The PC-BSD Team highly recommend to report all bugs via its Trac Database system.

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FreeBSD-8.1 RC1 Available for Download

Fuad NAHDI — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 16:29:16 +0000

The FreeBSD development team has announced the availability of the first release candidate for the FreeBSD 8.1 that available for amd64, i386, ia64, powerpc, and sparc64 architectures.

Ken Smith (the lead release engineer for FreeBSD) announced ”The first Release Candidate for the FreeBSD 8.1 release cycle is nowavailable for amd64, i386, ia64, powerpc, and sparc64 architectures. Files suitable for creating installation media or doing FTP basedinstalls through the network should be available on most of theFreeBSD mirror sites. Checksums for the images are at the bottomof this message.”

For more info about the announcement, how to upgrade from previous version can be found here.

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PC-BSD 8.1-BETA1 Released

Fuad NAHDI — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 07:51:06 +0000

The PC-BSD Team was pleased to announce the availability of PC-BSD 8.1-BETA1 (Hubble Edition), running FreeBSD 8.1-PRE-RELEASE, and KDE 4.4.4

Version 8.1 contains a number of enhancements and improvements. For a full list of changes can be found in the changelog. Some of the notable changes are:

FreeBSD 8.1-PreRelease
KDE 4.4.4
Numerous fixes to the installation backend
Support for creating dedicated disk GPT partitioning
Improved ZFS support
Bugfixes to desktop tools / utilities

The release notes of PC-BSD 8.1 BETA1 can be found here.

Version 8.1-BETA1 of PC-BSD is available for download from our mirrors.

In order to prepare for 8.1-Release, please report any and all bugs to PC-BSD Trac Database!

[VIA]

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OpenBSD 4.7 Officially Released Today

Fuad NAHDI — Wed, 19 May 2010 13:48:40 +0000

The OpenBSD team officially released the OpenBSD 4.7 today. Many new features and improvements have been included in OpenBSD 4.7 such as improved hardware support including revamped SCSI midlayer and improved driver support, new tools newfs_ext2fs for creating ext2 filesystems, and many more.

For more details you can see on OpenBSD webpage.

I already wrote several tutorials about OpenBSD such as how to install Gnome on OpenBSD, install OpenBSD packages directly from an FTP server, etc. You can find the link of these tutorials in the Related Posts of this article or simply search it by using search tool in this website. Enjoy.