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NetBSD 1.4.2 Poised For Release
Mike Lockwood writes: "I haven't seen a formal announcement yet, but the Releases page on the NetBSD Web site says, "The latest patch release, NetBSD 1.4.2, was released on March 19, 2000." Now that I have already downloaded a copy of the mac68k port and installed it on my Quadra 700, I figured it is safe to tell the rest of the world."
I like BSD, now if there were just some drivers. . .
NetBSD mac68k is a wonderful project. I had a Quadra 800 I wanted to put some sort of UNIX-like OS on. I started with Linux. Linux on a 68k mac is not very mature - it feels very developmental and there is not a lot of good documentation, and it is a pain to install. Once it is intalled you will find that you need to build everything as nothing is compiled. Then I found NetBSD. NetBSD for a 68k mac is very mature, has copious documentation - of which a lot is very useful for installing, and maintaining a system. On the Mac side you can mount the BSD filesystem and use a mini-shell to access it (and it is stable), you can install packages from the mac side into the BSD side (if you want to), and the original install is a snap. There are a lot of packages with 68k binaries. If I had an x86 box I would probably go with FreeBSD rather than NetBSD (and not Linux - I really like packages a lot more than RPMs, and I like the BSD /etc structure a lot more, it just makes more sense to me, there are linux compatibility libs for those few apps that do not have a native port), but on any other hardware netBSD kicks butt.
I don't mean to be disrespectful or anything, but can anybody tell me a single reason why I should choose BSD over Linux or Windows?
For selecting BSD over Winduhs, ditto most of the reasons for selecting Linux over Winduhs.
As for NetBSD over Linux, for myself, I'd started with NetBSD years ago because it ran on my Amy and Linux didn't. AFAIK Linux still isn't as ported as NetBSD. Later, when I got to play-admin Linux on a machine for a small ISP I found Linux to be pretty chaotic compared to NetBSD; the docs were inconsistent, out of date, the library calls felt inconsistent, the command arguments/switches felt inconsistent... It seemed a little harder to install, too. Maybe that's changed.
Linux is also just the kernel; you need to get the rest of the system software somewhere else. Fact is, you're never really sure what someone has when they say they have a Linux machine. NetBSD has one distro, and is a complete system. When I say I have NetBSD-1.4.1/i386 (1.4.2 by the end of the month :), you know pretty damn well what I have.
One thing that some people will love but which bit me several times was the tendency to do what I call "microupgrades" with Linux. You can easily patch a little piece here and a little piece there, whereas in NetBSD one tends to upgrade everything at once. While the latter is scarier, you don't get bitten by drift. One time I upgraded a library to something that ld was just a shade to old to handle; everything worked fine except the next reboot, weeks later, which jammed on one of the startup scripts.
The BSDs are reputed to be a little more robust thanks mostly to their head start, but myself I've had no particular complaints about Linux in that regard.
This may be a little off-topic and even naive, but in view of how the different *BSDs have evolved different strengths, can advances in one branch be applied to the others? For example, would it be practically insurmountable to make FreeBSD as secure as OpenBSD and to run on as many platforms as NetBSD? Are they truly incompatible with each other or are they more like overlapping subsets of a hypothetical uber-BSD?
RedHat is not the only linux distro out there. Unlike BSD, all linux distros use the same kernel (well, different versions of the same kernel), but they do have different package formats and apps to manage them. Give Debian a try. It has a _very_ powerful package system :)
#define X(x,y) x##y
#define X(x,y) x##y
Peter Cordes ; e-mail: X(peter@cordes ,
> It just felt more efficient...
Mandrake and RedHat aren't known for feeling efficient. They feel more like windoze unless you cut down on the massive GUI crap they like to set up. The side-by-side comparison won't be fair unless you're running the same window manager, with the same mouse (this makes a lot of difference to feel, IMHO), and with a comparable video card.
If you still find you like NetBSD more, then great, use it. As long as you use an OS which does what you want and you know how to use it, you've got my respect. (i.e. I'm not one of those annoying linux zealots.)
#define X(x,y) x##y
#define X(x,y) x##y
Peter Cordes ; e-mail: X(peter@cordes ,
> Since this thread dropped off the list (I'm writing this on Thurs.) ;-)
:) I check for replies to my posts on /users.pl.
:)
:)
> not sure if you'll even see this response...
I see ya
> I consider this a learning experience towards getting into finding my
> way around a "commercial" UNIX.
I do that with Solaris on UltraSPARCs at school, and via ssh from home
Thanks, for the reply, BTW. Unless I missed it, you didn't say whether you were running the same window manager or not. I find GNOME makes things noticeably slow, even on reasonable hardware. ude/uwm or fvwm fly
#define X(x,y) x##y
#define X(x,y) x##y
Peter Cordes ; e-mail: X(peter@cordes ,
are there any?
support gun control: take guns from cops
As to Linux slowly evolving into a microkernel, I thought that Linus explicitly denounced the microkernel approach in favor of the current monolithic kernel?
Russell Ahrnes
I can't tell you about the iBook (have LinuxPPC on an 8500)...
Yes, Open Firmware booting works ok, but sharing files is a little awkward. On the LinuxPPC side, it can mount r/w HFS partitions (but not HFS+), and on the MacOS side, you can use LinuxDisks by Michel Pollet to r/w ext2 partitions, but use this carefully!
http://slashdot.org/index.pl?section=bsd - there's room for everyone here.
Ceterum censeo Microsoftam esse delendam.
Not true. FreeBSD only supports i386 and alpha, NetBSD about 15 platforms (see the list in the article). OpenBSD also has more support for platforms since it was split off from NetBSD.
As for myself, since I only have PC hardware I use FreeBSD since it is the best for PC hardware from the three free *BSD's. But FreeBSD regularly takes things (drivers, such as USB) from NetBSD and OpenBSD and thus also owes to them.
Well, I'm using NetBSD 1.4.1 on a real old Mac IIx w/ 8 MB Ram and a 1GB drive (40MB swap, 40 HFS, the rest root/usr). I have it set up for my self and a friend (remotely) to learn Unix. It works pretty well if a little slow (I can run X but it takes 5 minutes to load and is slowwwww). It's running samba, netatalk, apache, ssh (slow to connect but runs fine), etc and I like it. I tried OpenBSD but it was dog slow on this box and asking any questions of the user community only got RTFM. NetBSD users are more willing to help.
- Apple Computer......proudly going out of business for over twenty years.
I kind of doubt it, but is elf merged in this release? The docs have said to use -current for a while and I suspect that means a patch-level release won't include it, but does anyone know for sure?
I have all x86 hardware at the moment, and I use FreeBSD as my Desktop and my Server OS. (Yes, to all of you who run Linux as a desktop, FreeBSD is just as viable, not to mention, looks and runs just as good on the same hardware). I'm getting a few FREE 68k MAC's from a company who is "upgrading to an all windows environment". Since there is no FreeBSD port, this sounds like a good OS to try.
Does anyone know if NetBSD has the ports collection? I'm quite fond of it.
Success is as dangerous as failure, hope as hollow as fear.
I recently posted to comp.sys.mac.portables about running *n*x on an iBook, since I'm considering getting one.
Constitutionally Correct
Yes, I know this is a little off-topic, but I didn't know where to put it.
For those few of you who do play around with Linux on Macs, what's your favorite distribution? I'm on a PowerMac, not a 68K, so I have a little more freedom, but I haven't been able to get good opinions either way.
If anything, I'd say this is the community I want my responses from.
-Max
-Max
Once I thought I was wrong, but I was mistaken.
Define "better". And by most resonable definitions, the answer is "no". Linux and BSD are really two sides of the same coin. To the user they are practically impossible to tell apart at first look - both are free *nixes with a shitload of good (and identical) software from the GNU projects.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
You could always run a binary from a different OS (but of the same architecture) with the emulation layer. Linux and FreeBSD clients come to mind..
;-)
That's the very first thing I tried (ie., running the i386 FreeBSD client).   My NetBSD didn't like that too much...  
-- Win2k: "It's not so much that it's only 65,000 bugs, it's just that they stopped at 65,535 to prevent an overflow."
the seti folks have ceased supporting the netbsd version of their software and have no plans to upgrade it to the 2.x version... :-(.
:-)   (I know... this is a shame... hee hee).
We'll see, but there's a chance that will be remedied.
Oh please please please hope this is true...   I'd be eternally happy!  
-- Win2k: "It's not so much that it's only 65,000 bugs, it's just that they stopped at 65,535 to prevent an overflow."
but on any other hardware netBSD kicks butt.
On x86 it kicks butt too.   A (subjective) side by side comparison between my K6-2/500, 160MB RAM Linux Mandrake 6.5 box vs. my K6-2/450, 64MB RAM NetBSD 1.4.1 box, both running (at the time) the 1.x seti@home clients, was pretty dramatic, IMHO.   NetBSD was kickin'!   It just felt more efficient...   Which is why I went head with running 2 simultaneous processes of seti@home on it, and it ain't even breathin' hard!
-- Win2k: "It's not so much that it's only 65,000 bugs, it's just that they stopped at 65,535 to prevent an overflow."
Mandrake and RedHat aren't known for feeling efficient. They feel more like windoze unless you cut down on the massive GUI crap they like to set up. The side-by-side comparison won't be fair unless you're running the same window manager, with the same mouse (this makes a lot of difference to feel, IMHO), and with a comparable video card.
;-) but in the case of my comparison, the 2 machines were virtually identical, hardware-wise, ie., both Compaq Presario 5000 models.   Both have the same on-board video (SiS 530 w/4MB) but my Mandrake is using an S3 Virge PCI card w/4MB that I added whereas the NetBSD box is using the onboard...   However, neither were running the X version of seti@home software (stuff was running in text mode - no window manager needed!) so except for how fast the console refreshes with either video, I'm not sure if that would impact it.
Since this thread dropped off the list (I'm writing this on Thurs.) not sure if you'll even see this response...
I know that the NetBSD kernel (especially after I recompiled it for my hardware, removing the unncecessary junk) is pretty streamlined as compared to my Mandrake's kernel (which I recompiled too, but there's so much other stuff there anyway), but it's been cool comparing the two regardless!
If you still find you like NetBSD more, then great, use it. As long as you use an OS which does what you want and you know how to use it, you've got my respect. (i.e. I'm not one of those annoying linux zealots.)
I could almost be considered a Linux zealot, but I'm very open-minded (and recognize that the *BSDs are what's really powering the 'net).   I consider this a learning experience towards getting into finding my way around a "commercial" UNIX.   It's been kinda fun.
-- Win2k: "It's not so much that it's only 65,000 bugs, it's just that they stopped at 65,535 to prevent an overflow."
... although the seti folks have ceased supporting the netbsd version of their software and have no plans to upgrade it to the 2.x version...
:(
Well, seeing as the Seti folks stopped allowing 1.x clients yesterday, you are in trouble now
Why is it red??!?!!?!
You only have 5k. X is painful below about 8.
:( ). Anyway, the big performance problem with X came from postscript fonts. Set applications to use non-postscript fonts, or at least set up xfs, so that single threaded X isn't tied up rendering and you can do other things.
About 4 years ago, I was using a IIci with 24-32 mb (it varied; there was 56 to split between it and the 486 linux box with 4 drives totaling about 1.4G).
Performance was acceptable, and it made a decent X terminal. It found a few bugs in the 1 bit version of lyx (note: lyx is about to [or already has] dropped support for 1 bit, as noone seems to be using it, and it's extra to maintain
About that time, someone discovered by accident that mosaic did indeed run on machines without math coprocessors--it's just that it took about 20 minutes to finish loading (it had been believed to hang and eat all cycles). He tried it, forgot about it when he went to do something else, and returned.
Anyway, more memory if you want X, and watch which fonts you use.
--
-- Slashdot sucks.
NetBSD is probably the closest I'll get to running a decent Unix on my NeXT. However, although it has support for 68040 based machines, it explicitly doesn't support my Turbo Colorstations :-( The Linux port to NeXT hardware is still a long way from usability. Guess I'm stuck with NeXTStep/OpenStep for now.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
You're right that the redhat installer tends to load up your system with crap. That only happens if you just let it take the defaults for packages to install, which is what a no-clue newbie would be best doing. If you know anything at all, you'll un-select all the stuff you don't need. Basically, BSD, and other Linux distros like Slackware and Debian, use an opt-in installer, where you have to ask for anything that you want, as opposed to redhat where you have to opt-out of stuff you don't want. :)
You are refering to the redhat way as the "linux way". Don't do that. Different distros have _very_ different flavours and philosophies. Give some others a try sometime. Stampede gives you a really raw system where you'll need to fix a lot of config files and stuff, but it's a learning experience to half-way roll your own system. AFAIK, slackware is most similar to the BSD package system (but BSD has some good stuff that slack doesn't, I think.) Debian is very concerned with having everything fit together well, and being well documented. Every package has someone specifically maintaining it, so things tend to be well set up for each other. It is also very concious of security, including out of the box security so you don't get cracked before you figure out how to pronounce "linux"
(BTW, I'm not calling you a newbie, but maybe you were when you installed redhat and had it litter your system with junk. Everyone is on their first install of any OS/distro.)
#define X(x,y) x##y
#define X(x,y) x##y
Peter Cordes ; e-mail: X(peter@cordes ,
Wow... 1.4.2... so refreshing to see such a low version number in today's climate of Slackware 7.0, RedHat 6.1, and so on :-)
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Thats the OpenBSD "theory" or way of doing it. They don't want to include applications you won't use, and make you install the ones you do want. Its more minimalistic and tailored to your needs. This may improve security somehow by removing the extra applications you don't need which could have a security issue or something. Some people don't like that or agree with that style at all. Thats ok, but its how OpenBSD does it. Here's a qoute from the OpenBSD site. Maybe it will help give you an idea of their philosophy.:
OpenBSD is a fairly complete system of its own, but still there is a lot of software that one might want see added. However there is the problem on where to draw the line as to what to include, as well as the occasional licensing and export restriction problems. As OpenBSD is supposed to be a small stand-alone UNIX-like operating system, some things just can't be shipped with the system.
Anyway, do check out the ports section if you haven't already. Its an easy way to install applications you want. I found it convienent.
While your at it, check out the Blowfish shirt, one of the more "cooler" computer shirts around. Any OS can use blowfish crypto so even Linux-only folks will like it.
It would usually be silly to choose BSD if what you want is compatibility with desktop software (but that applies to Linux too). BSD has other strengths. For example, you can get FreeBSD to webserve happily on a 3MB 386/12, which is really a bit too small for Linux. To be specific to NetBSD, it is the most widely ported OS in the world, so depending on your hardware it may be the only free unix which runs on it. OpenBSD has been security audited line-by-line so is probably the most secure free unix available.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
isn't Linux much better than BSD? Plus, this is a Linux site. Let the BSD guys get their own forum...if there are enough of them.
This sounds like a troll, but what the heck, I don't have anything else to do so I'll reply.. :-)
Since when has Slashdot been "a Linux site"? Slashdot is "news for nerds" imho. Linux is just a part of it.
--
It has to work - rfc1925
From what I hear, the main advantage of NetBSD over FreeBSD or OpenBSD is that it is ported to a huge number of architectures. So you get the whole BSD thang and all that's good with that, but it's more portable than the other BSDs and so you can use it on many more architectures.
Chris Hagar
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
That's strange. I have two FreeBSD machines and one Linux machine at home and both are running nearly the same set of software.
What software were you looking for on your OpenBSD machine that you couldn't find?
You do realize that after installing the base system, you need to go to the "Packages" installation portion and tell it what extra software above and beyond the base system you want to install, right? This is already-built software for your machine that you shouldn't have to compile. Not installing all these packages by default is a philosophical difference between Linux and the BSD's. Linux (RedHat) tends to put a lot of extra software on your machine by default at installation time. The BSD's tend to lay down just a bare Unix install and figure that you will use the package installer to add whatever you want. I personally prefer the BSD way of doing things (which is why I tend to favor BSD systems anyway) because it allows me to manage my disk space much more closely by not installing software that I don't use by default. Others like the Linux way because they want to get a lot of stuff on their machine right up front.
Choice is good.
The other process is at about 95% completed, so it'll try probably in the next half hour or 45 minutes.
;-)
Update - it uploaded it's completed work unit and downloaded another, so I'm still going on my NetBSD 1.x seti@home client!
-- Win2k: "It's not so much that it's only 65,000 bugs, it's just that they stopped at 65,535 to prevent an overflow."
Well, seeing as the Seti folks stopped allowing 1.x clients yesterday, you are in trouble now :(
Well... they said that it would happen on 3/6 and it didn't!   I'm looking at (switching between) both my NetBSD processes right now and one is at 6% completed (meaning it uploaded its work unit and downloaded a new one maybe in the past hour?).   The other process is at about 95% completed, so it'll try probably in the next half hour or 45 minutes.
Initially I thought their statement about not upgrading certain 1.xs meant that this would effectively kill them but then I began to get the impression that it may have meant not porting them to the newer 2.x version but still accepting the results.
Well... I'll let 'em keep going as long as they can... I just wish that seti's software team would allow some "outside" (and "seti-blessed") OSSers to port 2.x for NetBSD!
-- Win2k: "It's not so much that it's only 65,000 bugs, it's just that they stopped at 65,535 to prevent an overflow."
I don't mean to be disrespectful or anything, but can anybody tell me a single reason why I should choose BSD over Linux or Windows?
I did it as a learning experience.   I felt that it was probably closer "in structure" to commercial Unix than Linux, and since I had little or no experience with Unix, I thought that it would make a nice transition from Linux -> *BSD -> Unix.
I've never once seen BSD software advertised or shrink-wrapped. Does that mean all software would have to be downloaded over the internet?
I believe that places like CheapBytes offer the usual $2 CDs.   I also believe that each of the *BSDs offer CDs from their sites as well.
Is it only good for hobbyists or ISPs, or am I missing something here?
Probably good for both but being a sysadmin (and supervisor of sysadmins) it's been a GREAT learning experience!   Admining NT teaches you nothing, IMHO, whereas admining one of the *nixes is truly fascinating and makes you think in a truly organized fashion!
-- Win2k: "It's not so much that it's only 65,000 bugs, it's just that they stopped at 65,535 to prevent an overflow."
See the list in the right-hand column on www.netbsd.org
Porting NetBSD is so easy that even we developers lose track of how many ports have been checked in to the master sources..
I have a single x86 NetBSD 1.4.1 box amongst my Linux boxen.   Once I got it installed and compiled me a new kernel (wow... how easy!), I haven't had much chance to get back to foolin' around with it.   Now's my chance.
:-(.
;-)
I have to say that when I was trying to determine which *BSD to try, it really boiled down to FreeBSD vs NetBSD.   Reason why I picked NetBSD was because of their low-key, no hype profile and a pledge to "release no code before its time".   It's just a nice, all around good system and I got 2 processes of seti@home running on it too, although the seti folks have ceased supporting the netbsd version of their software and have no plans to upgrade it to the 2.x version...  
What was good was that it came with instant support, no questions asked, for all of my hardware (including ESS Solo-1 sound chip) plus it had USB support before Linux did, by the way!  
Look forward to trying the upgrade!
-- Win2k: "It's not so much that it's only 65,000 bugs, it's just that they stopped at 65,535 to prevent an overflow."
We use slightly different terminology -- a NetBSD "port" is a port of NetBSD to a particular platform, and we install into /usr/pkg by default instead of /usr/local, to leave /usr/local free for truly local software, but if you're familiar with the FreeBSD ports collection, it should look very familiar to you..