#modernretrocomputing — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #modernretrocomputing, aggregated by home.social.
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Three ways to look at the same machine - at the same time: a BIOS VGA console, a 256-color xterm, and a responsive web UI - all connected to the same cell and backup management backend.Which one would you pick?
https://netbsd-cells.petermann-digital.de
#netbsd #modernretrocomputing #freebsd #openbsd #dragonflybsd
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It’s becoming real... When you build clean interfaces from the ground up, the next GUI is not magic. It is a concrete architectural vision, solid technical design, and a few prompts away...
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A small update on NetBSD Cells 🙂
I’ve spent some time recently polishing things up and have updated the project page. I also built a new evaluation DVD image so it’s easier to try the current state of the project.
It now includes a few of the things I’ve been working on lately, like the reconcile engine in cellmgr, some early volume and backup management, and cellui for interactive administration.
If you’re curious about where the project currently stands, I wrote a short status report here:
https://www.petermann-digital.de/en/blog/netbsd-cells-status-report-2026q1/Project page and download:
https://netbsd-cells.petermann-digital.de/Feedback, thoughts, and questions are always very welcome.
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"Can you show what Cells for NetBSD actually does?"
Sure.
Fresh NetBSD install, deploy a Luanti server from a manifest, backup, restore, inspect processes inside the cell, then nuke everything again.
My personal record is <4 minutes.
The video is slower because OBS + VM + music nearly killed my laptop. -
Cells for NetBSD... Lightning Talk without the Talk ;-)
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…and for those who wondered about the recurring MantisBT example in the screenshots - that is one of my end-to-end scenarios I use to test the practical viability of the Reconcile Engine, including things like volume management.
The scope is deliberately host-centric. It is not a cluster-wide deployment model like Kubernetes, but always framed around something like a sovereign home server, where I simply want to manage and operate my services in a clean and structured way.
For example, running a bug tracker with its database and reverse proxy - or something entirely different, like a Luanti game server for my son.
Some documentation has also started to emerge, because at this point it can no longer really be explained in a one-pager:
#netbsd #devops #modernretrocomputing #luanti #mantisbt #selfhosted #clt2026
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Pushing Cells for NetBSD even further... cellmgr becoming a scriptable reconcilation engine with full lifecycle management including backup/restore, with cellui as the go-to TUI for midnight commander enthusiasts. And why stop there, when you could have a PAM authenticated web UI with feature-parity as well?
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What about a nice Midnight Commander-style TUI to manage cells interactively? 🤔