Recently, I received a used HumanWare BrailleNote Apex BT 32 from the United States. This blog post is a collection of personal notes about connecting the device to my laptop running FreeBSD 16.0-CURRENT (main).

The post includes images and tables. If you have difficulty accessing it, I can provide a plain-text version by email or through the FreeBSD accessibility mailing list.

This is not yet about using the Apex as a real Braille display. These are just the first steps to:

1. Establish communication between the device and FreeBSD.
2. Receive characters from the device and read them on FreeBSD.
3. Send characters from the laptop to the device.

In the future, I will use this device to investigate and hopefully develop a Braille display subsystem for FreeBSD as part of the Vision Accessibility project, thanks to the sponsorship of the FreeBSD Foundation.

This is another post in the series “A Personal Multi Installer in Lua”.

• 3) FreeBSD “Multi” Installer at BSDCan 2026. <- This post
• 2) Proof of Concept for a “Multi” Installer.
• 1) Motivations and Ideas for a “Multi” Installer.

The previous blog post described the proof-of-concept implementations of the installer subsystems and introduced the first mockups (graphical interfaces without any underlying logic) for the installation steps. That version was presented at EuroBSDCon 2025 in Zagreb.

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A system call is the mechanism through which user-space software requests services from the kernel. In the FreeBSD operating system, more than 400 system calls are available, forming the core interface between applications and the kernel.

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nsysctl project is a utility for FreeBSD built on top of the sysctl system call. It allows users to query and modify kernel parameters at runtime. The release 2.2 is out!

The previous version (1.2.1) was released almost two and a half years ago. It just worked, so no changes or improvements were necessary. Recently, WebSysctl was launched, it uses the XML data generated by nsysctl to populate its database. With new users adopting nsysctl, several feature requests were submitted, and they have been implemented in this new release

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SysctlTUI is a text-based utility that allows users to view and modify the FreeBSD kernel state at runtime via a text user interface built on top of sysctl(3).

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The sysctl() system call can get or set the state of the system, the FreeBSD kernel exposes the parameters for sysctl() as objects of a Management information Base (MIB).

sysctltui is a Text User Interface sysctl MIB explorer. It allow to view a parameter’s properties and get or set its value. The first version 0.0.1 is out.

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The FreeBSD Operating System provides the sysctl system call and utility to get and set system state at runtime. The kernel exposes available parameters for sysctl as objects in a Management Information Base (MIB).

Today, FreeBSD includes thousands of sysctl parameters. Moreover, parameters can be added or removed dynamically. Each computer probably builds a different MIB.

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This is another post in the series: “A Personal Multi Installer in Lua”.

• 2) Proof of Concept for a “Multi” Installer <- this post
• 1) Motivations and Ideas for a “Multi” Installer

This post describes the current Work in Progress with screenshots and previews. Please refer to the previous post for more background information.

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This post is a list of “I would like this feature installing the operating system”. Motivations and implementation plan.

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MixerTUI is an audio mixer with a terminal user interface (TUI) for the FreeBSD sound system. It allow to switch easily between laptop and HDMI, headphones and speakers, and so on. Features include: show the current driver configuration, select an audio device to get information, change the volume, or make the device the default. The version 1.5 is out!

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The FreeBSD 3q2023 status report is online!

My contribution is PortOptsCLI (Port Options CLI), a new utility to select the port options using a Command Line Interface. It is suitable for a speech synthesizer (currently tested with the speech synthesizer of accessibility/orca), so it is accessible to users with vision impairment.

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The FreeBSD Operating System provides the Ports Collection to give users and administrators a simple way to install applications.

It is possible to configure a port before the building and installation. The configuration consists of a set of lists: checklists to enable or disable an option, radiolist to select at the most one option. Some list is mandatory, at least one option has to be active.

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Important: This post is now obsolete. Please refer to the FreeBSD 16 System Calls Table for the latest information.

A system call is the “tool” used by a software in the userspace to request a “service” to the kernel. The FreeBSD Operating System provides over 400 system calls. They are defined in syscalls.master, this file is processed by makesyscalls.lua to create: init_sysent.c, syscall.h, and so on.

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The FreeBSD Operating System provides the Ports Collection to give users and administrators a simple way to install applications. It is possible to configure a port before the building and installation. PortOptsCLI (Port Options CLI) is an utility to customize ports options via a command line interface.

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The bsddialog project provides bsddialog and libbsddialog, an utility and a library to build TUI dialogs and widgets. The version 1.0 is out!

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