Top all-time · #1733
Vermaden
Personal blog · vermaden.wordpress.com · on HN as vermadensystemsprogramming
Vermaden writes 𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚗, a personal blog at vermaden.wordpress.com about systems and programming. Since 2018, 44 different Hacker News readers have linked it 329 times, most often “What FreeBSD can offer compared to other operating systems (2020)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-26, and you can follow it by feed.
Welcome on @vermaden blog. I share knowledge and experience that I gathered by working 10+ years as sysadmin at IT industry. Countless times various articles or blog posts helped me, so its time to give back. I write about server deployments mostly on UNIX systems like FreeBSD but also on Linux syst
Most-linked posts?
- What FreeBSD can offer compared to other operating systems (2020)10 people · 31 mentions · first linked 2020-09-06
- FreeBSD Desktop Series5 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2019-06-27
- Upgrade FreeBSD with ZFS Boot Environments4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2021-02-23
- FreeBSD Tips and Tricks3 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2019-07-08
- Introduction to HardenedBSD World3 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2018-04-06
- Desktop Environments Resource Usage Comparison3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2022-07-11
- ZFS Boot Environments Revolutions3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2022-03-14
- Tiny Undervalued Hardware Companions3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-03-21
- My FreeBSD Story2 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2018-09-07
- FreeBSD 13.1 on ThinkPad W5202 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2022-04-14
What Hacker News says?
I ditched Docker and Podman for FreeBSD Jails :) More here: - https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2023/06/28/freebsd-jails-cont... - https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2025/04/11/freebsd-jails-secu... - https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2025/04/08/are-freebsd-jails-... - https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2024/11/22/new-jless-freebsd-...
Comment linking /2024/11/22/new-jless-freebsd-jails-list-manage-tool/
on “I ditched Docker for Podman”Submitted Tiny Undervalued Hardware Companions as a story · 165 points
HN discussionIn https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20096868 You asked: > Anyone uses FreeBSD on laptop? How is your impressions? I do since years and here are the tips you may find useful if You would also like to run FreeBSD on the desktop. https://vermaden.wordpress.com/freebsd-desktop/ ... and please stay away from Project Trident or TrueOS or Lumina, they are from from being ready. ... eventually GhostBSD is quite OK. ...…
Comment linking /freebsd-desktop/
on “uBlock Origin 1.20”Submitted Tiny Undervalued Hardware Companions (2024) as a story · 150 points
HN discussionI daily use FreeBSD on 2011 (14 years old now) legendary ThinkPad W520. Details here: - https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2022/04/14/freebsd-13-1-on-th... Article is about FreeBSD 13.1 - but as time passed I followed all new versions and its at 14.2 now. Config did not changed - still running strong.
Comment linking /2022/04/14/freebsd-13-1-on-thinkpad-w520/
on “I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad”Submitted What FreeBSD can offer compared to other operating systems (2020) as a story · 147 points
HN discussionI stopped checking 'general' news long ago. Recently I searched for some 'valuable' news source - kinda meritum from the news - but nothing like that exists ... ... so I started my own 'news' for UNIX/BSD/Linux related stuff - Valuable News - https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2019/04/08/valuable-news-2019... Because various UNIX/BSD/Linux related news sites also make a lot of SPAM and no-so-much-news ...
Comment linking /2019/04/08/valuable-news-2019-04-08/
on “The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News”Submitted FreeBSD Suspend/Resume as a story · 139 points
HN discussionIts just another Xorg/X11 feature that overrated Wayland does not have. It works the same on FreeBSD and Illumos - its not limited to Linux in any way. Below example from my http://vermaden.wordpress.com/freebsd-desktop setup. - https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GChSlZHXIAEgT8T?format=jpg&name=... - https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GChSlbFWUAA0x6G?format=jpg&name=... Regards, vermaden
Comment linking /freebsd-desktop
on “Ideal monitor rotation for programmers (2021)”Submitted AMD Based FreeBSD Desktop Reloaded as a story · 129 points
HN discussionThere is also REDSHIFT and SCTD for this purpose: - https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2018/06/28/freebsd-desktop-pa...
Comment linking /2018/06/28/freebsd-desktop-part-11-key-components-blue-light-spectrum-suppress/
on “f.lux”Submitted Pause/unpause any X11 application as a story · 119 points
HN discussionIf you would like to add all these FISH things to ZSH: - highlighting and displaying last suggested command execution from history - file/dir highlighting - commands coloring and stuff Then check 'UPDATE 1' from here: https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2021/09/19/ghost-in-the-shell... I can not use FISH as it does not honor the POSIX syntax for loops and stuff and I often type 'for' and 'while' POSIX loops at command li…
Comment linking /2021/09/19/ghost-in-the-shell-part-7-zsh-setup/
on “The fish shell is amazing”Submitted Oldschool Gaming on FreeBSD as a story · 118 points
HN discussionI looked for UNIX/BSD/Linux related news that would be really important, not just usual bullshit, pointless 'small' things or PR from companies. ... and I failed. I was not able to find one or several such news sources. The nearest thing that I was able to find was 'In Other BSDs' series from https://www.dragonflydigest.com/ page, but it is very limited and small. In all that I decided to create my own 'Valuable New…
Comment linking /2019/12/16/valuable-news-2019-12-16/
on “Unbearable news”Submitted Classic ThinkPad Thermal Paste Change as a story · 92 points
HN discussionFor example something like that: https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2019/04/03/silent-fanless-fre... It will provide you a ZFS mirror of two 5 TB 2.5 drives. I repaste the table from the article for convenience. PRICE TIME SERVICE $447 5 YEAR(S) Self Build NAS $567 5 YEAR(S) Self Build NAS (assuming one of the drives failed) $1500 5 YEAR(S) Amazon Drive $1550 5 YEAR(S) Google One $1200 5 YEAR(S) Amazon S3 Glacier Storag…
Comment linking /2019/04/03/silent-fanless-freebsd-server-redundant-backup/
on “Show HN: Zfs.rent”Submitted X11 Universal File Opener and XDG Mess as a story · 89 points
HN discussionSorry, forgot to add the ever useful vermaden FreeBSD Desktop Series blog, to answer the previous question https://vermaden.wordpress.com/freebsd-desktop/
Comment linking /freebsd-desktop/
on “FreeBSD is an amazing operating system”Submitted Desktop Environments Resource Usage Comparison as a story · 86 points
HN discussionThat depends what is your use case. I use two 5TB 2.5 SMR drives in ZFS mirror: https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2019/04/03/silent-fanless-fre... These drives can slow down to 30-40 MB/s when filled to 80% or more but I use that storage over WiFi which is at most 11-12MB/s which means the SMR problem does not exist for me. If I would be using that storage over LAN the 30-40 MB/s in 'WORST CASE' is also not bad conside…
Comment linking /2019/04/03/silent-fanless-freebsd-server-redundant-backup/
on “An Introduction to ZFS”Submitted FreeBSD Desktop – Part 3 – X11 Window System as a story · 81 points
HN discussionNot sure if it will directly help you but can help in indirectly. This is 1080 TB (in 12 TB disks) in one server under ZFS: https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2019/06/19/freebsd-enterprise... For 100 TB you would get smaller server, like 2U with 12 slots filled with 10/12/14 TB disks for your 'usable' 100 TB space. For more ZFS and/or FreeBSD storage options check this: https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2020/02/12/freebsd-…
Comment linking /2020/02/12/freebsd-enterprise-storage-at-pbug/
on “An Introduction to ZFS”Submitted The Power to Serve – FreeBSD Power Management as a story · 66 points
HN discussion> Run that on someone else's managed k8s setup ... this way I'm only responsible for my application and its interface. It's the eternal trade-off of security vs. convenience. The downside of this approach is that if there is a vulnerability, you will need to wait on someone else to get the fix out. Probably fine nearly always, but you are giving up some flexibility. Another way to get a reasonable handle on the "man…
Comment linking /2021/02/23/upgrade-freebsd-with-zfs-boot-environments/
on “Why Self-Host?”Submitted Tiny UPS for Tiny NAS as a story · 58 points
HN discussionDid something similar but with a lot less power consumption and price: - https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2019/04/03/silent-fanless-fre...
Comment linking /2019/04/03/silent-fanless-freebsd-server-redundant-backup/
on “Building a Budget Homelab NAS Server”Submitted FreeBSD Cope with WiFi Fuckup as a story · 42 points
HN discussionNo why? If your happy an you know it, clap your hands. But if you want to try out something else, clap your hand and start installing, why? https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2020/09/07/quare-freebsd/
Comment linking /2020/09/07/quare-freebsd/
on “OpenBSD 7.0”Submitted TrueNAS Core versus TrueNAS Scale as a story · 37 points
HN discussion
