This is my attempt to get Vulkan going on NetBSD

Post by anthk » Fri, Jul 03, 2026, 6:48 AM UTC

spijdar wrote: post #12

iberator wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oldest supported machine for NetBSD is VAX 780 from 1978(!!!). One of the first system supporting mmu, 32 bit cpu, virtual memory etc etc This machine is so slow that it takes a lot of time to generate ssh keys etc. We talking here hours hehe NetBSD is known to support like 60 architectures - many of them low end embedded systems: so ftp AS A CHOICE (you have other options!) is very smart and easy

I think GP is confused why the ftp command also handles http(s) :) I hate to imagine what a 780 running NetBSD would be like, too. I tried netbooting NetBSD on my MicroVAX 3400, which is about 2.5x the performance of the 780. It did, literally, take 6+ hours to slog through making RSA keys.

Post by anthk » Fri, Jul 03, 2026, 6:52 AM UTC

spijdar wrote: post #21

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elliptic curve key gen is much faster on slow hardware. You're waiting around on primality tests that aren't necessary with modern keys.

Yep, it's a loooot faster. But then, when you decide to boot NetBSD on these boxes, you're not really doing it for practical reasons anyway, so part of the experience is waiting a few hours for /etc/rc.d/sshd to do its thing. Probably more relevant on more "borderline" hosts. My SPARCstation 2 can just barely run NetBSD 10 at what I'd call "tolerable speeds" for some concept of "real work", and it's something like 50…

Post by saidnooneever » Fri, Jul 03, 2026, 6:58 AM UTC

klibertp wrote: post #13

spijdar wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think GP is confused why the ftp command also handles http(s) :) I hate to imagine what a 780 running NetBSD would be like, too. I tried netbooting NetBSD on my MicroVAX 3400, which is about 2.5x the performance of the 780. It did, literally, take 6+ hours to slog through making RSA keys.

> I think GP is confused why the ftp command also handles http(s) :) Exactly - I even suspected for a second that `ftp` on NetBSD is something else entirely, not an actual FTP client with HTTP/HTTPS URLs bolted on. It's not - it still accepts a host as an argument and opens a CLI if there's an FTP server to talk to.

Post by rvz » Fri, Jul 03, 2026, 8:10 AM UTC

Post by ChocolateGod » Fri, Jul 03, 2026, 8:36 AM UTC

saidnooneever wrote: post #25

Tiberium wrote: post #5

Lavapipe is CPU rendering, it doesn't really prove much. But also, Vulkan on BSDs is totally possible and isn't something esoteric, FreeBSD has it. > Build goal only: This targets compilation and linkage of the Vulkan stack. Runtime GPU acceleration is not available under VirtualBox; the software driver (Lavapipe) is the target. I don't understand why this would ever be a problem, even without LLM assistance it's som…

this is what i would recommend. hoist it over from freebsd. it works well vulkan is fully usable, mesa works nicely. Even seen people playing with CUDA tho i didnt get that workin myself yey.