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NetBSD 11.0

blog.netbsd.org

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Re: NetBSD 11.0

#61

Post by aleph_minus_one »

haberman wrote: post #29

I often wonder what the current status is of the BSDs (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD). Who uses them, who works on them, what is their motivation for doing so? How do they compare to Linux these days, in terms of size, feature set, security hardening, etc? Is their usage/development happening at a relatively constant level, or is it growing/shrinking?

> I often wonder what the current status is of the BSDs (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD).

DragonFly BSD ([1], [2]): "Am I a joke to you? :-("

;-)

By the way: If you look for a BSD-based desktop OS, have a look at GhostBSD ([3], [4]) (based on FreeBSD) and/or MidnightBSD ([5], [6]) (forked from FreeBSD). Both are under active development.

---

[1] https://www.dragonflybsd.org/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DragonFly_BSD

[3] https://www.ghostbsd.org/

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GhostBSD

[5] https://www.midnightbsd.org/

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MidnightBSD

Re: NetBSD 11.0

#62

Post by CodeCompost »

haberman wrote: post #29

I often wonder what the current status is of the BSDs (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD). Who uses them, who works on them, what is their motivation for doing so? How do they compare to Linux these days, in terms of size, feature set, security hardening, etc? Is their usage/development happening at a relatively constant level, or is it growing/shrinking?

The current status? If you're considering doing anything serious with Unix, absolutely you should use Linux. No question. Don't waste your time with any BSDs.

But ... if you want to teleport back to the 90s and go back to an era before Linux took off on a rocket ship to universal dominance then the BSD are for you. You will find a much more curated experience when people thought that documentation mattered. It is the road less traveled.

Re: NetBSD 11.0

#63

Post by saghm »

imoverclocked wrote: post #5

> CD-ROM media Wow, I just learned that I can still buy a pack of new CD-RW discs. This is an almost 30 year old format that is still published for! Long live ATAPI! Seriously though, why still publish CD formats when a usb-stick is far more ubiquitous and much easier to actually write. Are there systems that can boot CD-ROM interfaces that don't have USB boot capability still?

> Seriously though, why still publish CD formats when a usb-stick is far more ubiquitous and much easier to actually write. Are there systems that can boot CD-ROM interfaces that don't have USB boot capability still?

I mean, you could also ask "why use NetBSD when Linux or even Windows is much more ubiquitous and much easier to install?", but I feel like that would be missing the point. Once you're off the beaten path, you have to update your priors a bit about how likely it is to need to support something that isn't as common.

Re: NetBSD 11.0

#64

Post by bch »

CodeCompost wrote: post #62
haberman wrote: post #29

I often wonder what the current status is of the BSDs (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD). Who uses them, who works on them, what is their motivation for doing so? How do they compare to Linux these days, in terms of size, feature set, security hardening, etc? Is their usage/development happening at a relatively constant level, or is it growing/shrinking?

The current status? If you're considering doing anything serious with Unix, absolutely you should use Linux. No question. Don't waste your time with any BSDs. But ... if you want to teleport back to the 90s and go back to an era before Linux took off on a rocket ship to universal dominance then the BSD are for you. You will find a much more curated experience when people thought that documentation mattered. It is the…

> If you're considering doing anything serious with Unix, absolutely you should use Linux. No question. Don't waste your time with any BSDs.

Can you expand on that?

Re: NetBSD 11.0

#65

Post by kmbfjr »

CodeCompost wrote: post #62
haberman wrote: post #29

I often wonder what the current status is of the BSDs (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD). Who uses them, who works on them, what is their motivation for doing so? How do they compare to Linux these days, in terms of size, feature set, security hardening, etc? Is their usage/development happening at a relatively constant level, or is it growing/shrinking?

The current status? If you're considering doing anything serious with Unix, absolutely you should use Linux. No question. Don't waste your time with any BSDs. But ... if you want to teleport back to the 90s and go back to an era before Linux took off on a rocket ship to universal dominance then the BSD are for you. You will find a much more curated experience when people thought that documentation mattered. It is the…

Serious like a great file system that is ZFS?

Re: NetBSD 11.0

#66

Post by PuercoPop »

microtonal wrote: post #48
mghackerlady wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't like GPLv3. The other BSDs used similarly old versions until they moved to clang, but netbsd is pretty tied to the gnu toolchain and aims to be as portable as possible, so they kinda have to stick to gcc

But the licensing didn't change between gcc 12 and gcc 16, so that doesn't seem like a good explanation?

It is not a good explanation because that is not the reason. That reason is for Mac OS. I don't know the details, but BSDs normally modify the GCC version they use. IIRC OpenBSD used to use GCC 2.95 for years. Porting NetBSD base to compile with a newer GCC version is not as simple as a version bump. My guess is that they haven't prioritized that work yet.

Patches welcome!

Re: NetBSD 11.0

#67

Post by sunshine-o »

somat wrote: post #51
haberman wrote: post #29

I often wonder what the current status is of the BSDs (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD). Who uses them, who works on them, what is their motivation for doing so? How do they compare to Linux these days, in terms of size, feature set, security hardening, etc? Is their usage/development happening at a relatively constant level, or is it growing/shrinking?

I use obsd as a desktop system, I would not necessarily recommend this to anyone, you give up a lot, but obsd is my ultimate comfort system, it is small but full featured. I feel I understand the system far more than I ever did linux, which is one of the good guys. Compare to windows where despite using it my whole life I always feel I understand barely at all. But openbsd is so well put together I love using it, So…

I am tempted, how do you deal with the non journalized filesystem?

This is the one "modern" comfort that makes me hesitant to try.

Re: NetBSD 11.0

#68

Post by BoingBoomTschak »

kmbfjr wrote: post #65
CodeCompost wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current status? If you're considering doing anything serious with Unix, absolutely you should use Linux. No question. Don't waste your time with any BSDs. But ... if you want to teleport back to the 90s and go back to an era before Linux took off on a rocket ship to universal dominance then the BSD are for you. You will find a much more curated experience when people thought that documentation mattered. It is the…

Serious like a great file system that is ZFS?

And dozens of critical bugs because it's basically the X.org of filesystems, complete with horrible quality C and half of Solaris tacked to it in the form of a shim?

Re: NetBSD 11.0

#69

Post by bjornnn »

haberman wrote: post #29

I often wonder what the current status is of the BSDs (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD). Who uses them, who works on them, what is their motivation for doing so? How do they compare to Linux these days, in terms of size, feature set, security hardening, etc? Is their usage/development happening at a relatively constant level, or is it growing/shrinking?

are you asking these questions sincerely or is this just your passive-aggressive way of saying that netbsd is dead and nobody uses it? and why does everything have to be compared to linux? isn't the whole reason we developed free and open-source operating systems is to have lots of different choices and not just one universal corporate-controlled OS that everyone thinks of as the yardstick by which all other OSes are measured?

Re: NetBSD 11.0

#70

Post by prmoustache »

AAAAaccountAAAA wrote: post #15
bpye wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NetBSD supposedly supports 486, I don't think you're going to have much luck with USB there.

Some higher-end 486 boards[1] were made with PCI slots, so retrofitting them with an USB controller shouldn't be difficult? You'll still need a boot floppy to actually boot from an USB drive, I think? 1. https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/asus-pvi-486sp3

It is still easier to find cdr than floppies anyway. I can still find some in brick and mortar supermarkets. Still useful when you have an old car and want to keep the original audio system.
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