Debian NetBSD

bXTr writes "Interesting project over at SourceForge. Quoting from the website, 'Debian NetBSD is a port of the Debian Operating System to the NetBSD kernel. It is currently in an early stage of development and cannot currently be installed from scratch. Instead, a tarball of the current envionment is available and can be extracted into a handy directory on a NetBSD system.' Check out the reasons why they're doing it and some interesting commentary at DailyDaemonNews on this."

Comments

take a poop in my butt

[Anonymous Coward]

NetBSD can suck some great shit if you say "first post!"

uhh

[Anonymous Coward]

Does that mean that *BSD is not dying?

That is so exciting *yawn*

[J.D. Hogg]

which piece of news do you think is more insignificant ?

- Debian runs on NetBSD (two minority join forces, can produce larger minority)
- NetBSD can now runs Debian (dying Unix variant meets geek Linux distribution in dazzling display of nothing)

NetBSD is dying

[Anonymous Coward]

It is now official - Netcraft has confirmed: *BSD is dying

Yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered *BSD community when recently IDC confirmed that *BSD accounts for less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of the latest Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as further exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood. FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.

Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS hobbyist dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.

*BSD is the weakest link. Goodbye.

Re:I would prefer the other way around

[Anonymous Coward]

FreeBSD has SMP. It's true that Linux has better SMP, but that advantage is mitigated by its VM so, overall, FreeBSD is at least as performant as Linux. (My dual pentium system runs better and faster with FreeBSD, for example.)

But you know what? None of that matters. FreeBSD 5.0 is doing SMP right, not as graft on top of the usual UNIX semantics like Linux. You silly Linux advocates who like to make an issue out of SMP will be eating more crow than ever.

Face it, FreeBSD is a better operating system than Linux. It isnt hard to be better than Linux, every OS is better than Linux.

Re:I would prefer the other way around

[asyncster]

FreeBSD is just plain better. At least for now. Think about it for a minute, FreeBSD is a UNIX. It's essentielly been in development for nearly 20 years. You would expect it to be more stable and mature. Linux, on the other hand, has been around for what? 10 years? The rate at which linux is being developed and improved is much greater than FreeBSD. Few people write native applications for FreeBSD. They all write things for Linux and then the a BSD port is released. Linux has many advantages, such as the ability to strip a kernel down to almost nothing (512 k even). This is useful in embedded development. Then there is the whole money issue. FreeBSD seems to change hands all the time (Wind River, FreeBSD mall, etc...). Linux, on the other hand, is getting multi-billion dollar investments from IBM and other companies.

In a few years, the Linux kernel may even match the FreeBSD kernel in stability and whatnot. It is hard to say that, though, with the kick-ass work the BSD developers have been doing, and the recent conflicts between the Linux developers. We'll have to wait and see.

Incestuous or not?

[alex_delarge]

Feels right, but is it really wrong?

I support it as a server over debian linux

[Billly Gates]

Linux has some serious issues . I like the Freebsd development model better then linux thanks to all the issues with the 2.4 patches. My problem with FreeBSD is that its cripppled after the install is done. Hardly anything is configured. I feel like a kid stuck on a pogo stick when trying to do anything. For example under WindowMaker you need to put every item one by one to the x menu. No config menu's here. Also not even bash or frankly any shells besides the crippled bsh is installed by default. You need to edit all the files yourself assuming your unix literate. All just to learn it. That is crazy. Why? What a pain. Its not FreeBSD per say but unix in general that suffers from this. Linux breaks the mold. Unless you have 5 years expereince or a cs degree you can not really tune it or highly configure it. In Windows you can just point and click and all the items are in the start menu by default. There is an old saying. IF computers were airplaines the unix one would be the best. However you would need to assembly it yourself. I believe Linux took off because the distro's configure everything for you. Don't get me wrong when I say that BSD is a great server OS. I just hope debian *bsd will fix this which actually knowcked unix almost out of the workstation market. I have never used debian linux so I don't know how much is configured by default during installation. I just assume its better then the current netbsd.

Re:kernel performance

[someonehasmyname]

Off the top of my head NetBSD-stable kernels don't corrupt all dismounting filesystems. Only one linux kernel has so far, but I'm sure there's more to come.

I don't think Linux was prepared for the mass hysteria surronding linux, and is becoming bored of supervising the kernel.

quiet you!

[gnurd]

no linux! please leave bsd alone. we were doing just fine thank you, go make another revolution somewhere else. we dont want microsoft targeting us next. we are much happier having them use our code instead.

Re:quiet you!

[Anonymous Coward]

Face it.

You BSD people need to be saved from yourselves.

Embrace the GPL and you'll be saved!

*BSD is dying

[Anonymous Coward]

Netcraft has confirms: *BSD is dying

Yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered *BSD community when recently IDC confirmed that *BSD accounts for less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of the latest Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as further exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood. FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.

Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS hobbyist dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.

Fact: *BSD is dead

Troubled times for *BSD

[Anonymous Coward]

So why now? Why did *BSD fail? Once you get past the fact that *BSD is fragmented between a myriad of incompatible kernels, there is the historical record of failure and of failed operating systems. *BSD experienced moderate success about 15 years ago in academic circles. Since then it has been in steady decline. We all know *BSD keeps losing market share but why? Is it the problematic personalities of many of the key players? Or is it larger than their troubled personalities?

The record is clear on one thing: no operating system has ever come back from the grave. Efforts to resuscitate *BSD are one step away from spiritualists wishing to communicate with the dead. As the situation grows more desperate for the adherents of this doomed OS, the sorrow takes hold. An unremitting gloom hangs like a death shround over a once hopeful *BSD community. The hope is gone; a mournful nostalgia has settled in. Now is the end time for *BSD.

Re:I would prefer the other way around

[Anonymous Coward]

So why now? Why dd *BSD fail? Once you get past the fact tht *BSD is fragmented between a myriad of incompatible kernels, there is the historical record of failure and of failed operating systems. *BSD experienced moderate success about 15 years ago in academic circles. Since then it has been in steady decline. We all know *BSD keeps losing market share but why? Is it the problematic personalities of many of the key players? Or is it larger than their troubled personalities?

The record is clear on one thing: no operating system has ever come back from the grave. Efforts to resuscitate *BSD are one step away from spiritualists wishing to communicate with the dead. As the situation grows more desperate for the adherents of this doomed OS, the sorrow takes hold. An unremitting gloom hangs like a death shround over a once hopeful *BSD community. The hope is gone; a mournful nostalgia has settled in. Now is the end time for *BSD.

Re:I would prefer the other way around

[Anonymous Coward]

Weall know that *BSD is dying. It is common knowledge that *BSD is dying, that *BSD is mired in a mortifying tangle of fatal trouble. It is perhaps anybody's guess as to which *BSD is the worst off of an admittedly suffering *BSD community. The numbers continue to decline for *BSD but NetBSD may be hurting the most. Look at the numbers. The loss of user base for NetBSD continues in a head spinning downward spiral.

OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.

Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Major marketing surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS hobbyists (i.e. those who dabble with Minix, Xinu, etc). *BSD is already dead. It is a dead man walking.

Noooooooo! Stay away!

[The Ape With No Name]

I am not a NetBSD user, but I love FreeBSD like Madonna loves dick. Debian's pkgs are interminably behind the curve relative to the rest of Linux-land and this would only serve to slow down NetBSD's acceptance. As far as BSDs go, NetBSD aims for hardware-indpedence/multiple platform acceptance. It is already behind the curve as far as pkgs go. The Debian "keep it stable at the cost of progress" mentality might hurt NetBSD. Please keep these people away. They might come after FreeBSD and really dick up things. Luckily, OpenBSD has Theo -- who is just plain mean as shit -- to protect the very important security work that is done over there. I don't see Hubbard as such a crusader to stop the "everything-that-is-bad-about-linux" crowd from poking their heads in.