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BSDForums.org says, Sam Leffler and Florent Thoumie have been working on some generic support for loading firmware using kld’s. Firmware is packaged using a genfw program. One can package one or more firmware images in a single kld.

KLD refers to Dynamic Kernel Linker Facility – the kld interface allows system administrators to dynamically add and remove functionality from a running system. This allows device driver writers to load their new changes into a running kernel without constantly rebooting to test changes. Read more.

Metagame Staff says, Pro Circuit Los Angeles 2005 is over, and we have a new champion—Karl Horn!

In a Top 8 full of established names, many of whom were already Pro Circuit Top 8 veterans, Karl was certainly the dark horse, running New School in a sea of Common Enemy and Squadron Supreme. He beat team FTN legend Mike Dalton in the semifinals to advance to play against Dean Sohnle in the finals. Dean was the other player with an unusual deck in the Top 8, which made for a finals match beyond the realms of anything that has been seen in Pro Circuit history. He had not had an easy ride getting there himself; on the way to the finals, he played Neil Reeves and Matthew Tatar, each of whom had Common Enemy decks, which seem like they would have the number of Fantastic Fun. There were bad beats, lucky draws, comebacks, great plays, and some of the most complicated turns one is ever likely to hear about, let alone witness.

The ending was a great climax to a Pro Circuit illuminated by a diverse Golden Age metagame, one of the best draft formats of all time, and a tournament where skill rose to the top like no other. This is truly a Golden Age for Vs. System. Looking forward to PCQs and $10K events in the near future, there is much to learn from the masters of the Pro Circuit. With the Justice League of America set just about to become legal, it is a great time to be playing. The $10K event this weekend—which was Justice League sealed pack, and the second largest $10K ever—signals good times ahead.

Metagame would like to thank everyone who made Pro Circuit LA one of the best ever, and we would also like to extend our congratulations to Karl Horn, PC LA 2005 Champion! Read more.

Steve Minutillo says, desktop aggregators are great. They sit there all day, pinging away at sites, and as soon as they notice something new, they pop up little windows on your desktop, and let you read items. But what about when you go home from work? Or what about when you are on a trip? You get totally out of sync, and don’t know what you’ve read and haven’t read. You are enraged.

A server side aggregator solves this. It keeps track of what items you’ve read, and keeps happily checking up on your feeds no matter where you are. Whenever you want to see what’s new, you just bring up a web page and scan the newest items. You can mark the items as read so they won’t be shown again. Or, you can just always show the most recent N items, like the way LiveJournal’s friends pages work. Also, having the aggregator in your browser eliminates the “impedance mismatch” that sometimes occurs between a desktop aggregator and your browser. All your native browsing methods work on a FEED ON FEEDS page. Open pages in new tabs, bookmark them for later, browse whatever way you like. Read more.

Martin Brown says, although Linux gets much of the attention in the Free and open source operating system world, the BSD operating system is also very popular. BSD has a longer history, and its roots go right back to one of the original Unix implementations that spawned commercial Unix variants like Solaris and Mac OS X.

BSD is actually a popular source for server-focused operating systems and, due to an open license, it is sometimes more attractive to developers as the base for their projects. With some BSD variants, security and high-performance networking are key drivers.

When our last article on BSD (“Differentiating Among the BSD Distros” ran, various readers pointed out our neglect of some of the lesser-known BSD-based flavors available. This article, therefore, will look at some of the less-mainstream, yet equally valuable, BSD variants available. Read more.

The Fedora Project says, Fedora Core is developed by the Fedora Project. This amazing group of people love to promote the rapid development of innovative open source software through a collaborative, community effort. Led by our old friends at Red Hat and featuring the tireless work of thousands of developers, packagers, testers, fixers, documenters, and users, Fedora Core 4 provides a complete Linux platform built exclusively from open source software.

Fedora Core is a complete Linux platform that is 100% open source. No mud in these waters, friends! One of Fedora Core’s main objectives is to serve the needs of community developers, testers, and other technology enthusiasts who wish to participate in and accelerate the technology development process. But you know what? We aren’t exclusive. We want you involved, too, whoever you are. Read more.