NetBSD 1.6 Has Been Branched

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Posted by Hemos on Tuesday May 28, 2002 @09:08AM from the sigmarril dept.

jschauma writes "Following Todd Vierlings announcement to the current-users Mailinglist, the NetBSD 1.6 Release Process has begun. This means not only that 1.6 has been branched off the cvs-tree, but also that daily snapshots will soon be available. Changes from 1.5 to 1.6 are listed here. A brief announcement including a best-case scenario release timetable is available from here. Whooot."

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Mmmm, should be good by LizardKing · 2002-05-28 21:16 · Score: 3, Interesting

As I understand it, this will be the first release where all architectures are ELF based. No more recompiling the linker to avoid annoying warning messages on the Vax! The compiler will also be brought more upto date, and X will be version 4.2.0. Having followed the NetBSD security mailing list for a while, there will also be some nice little tweaks to the default install.

I'm a little bit unclear on whether this release will feature native threading support, which is the only API I'm missing from a certain other Unix-like operating system. Anyone reading know the score on threading support in 1.6?

Chris
Re:Why *BSD is dying - an insider's view by Selmo · 2002-05-30 08:27 · Score: 3, Interesting

OpenBSD has a focus. FeeBSD has lost its focus and is spread too thin over the map. One time they had a good OS for the ia32. But now that focus is lost. FreeBSD is way behind. NetBSD diverts too many resources to avenues of no return (thinking Atari, Amiga, 68K, and other marginal platforms). Long term, probably only OpenBSD will survive.
Did you know that NetBSD's ports collection is actually slightly larger than OpenBSD's? Everyone knows that FreeBSD is a cornucopia of packages....possibly even more than Debian, depending on how you count.
Personally, I think if FreeBSD wants become more sucessful it needs to place the highest emphasis on porting to a few more architectures. Start with PPC and sparc64 since they're already fielded and widely used, then work on ia64 and x86-64 after that. I say this because x86 won't be around forever....look at all the consolidation and standardization among consumer PC's already...the trend is toward 'set top boxes' but I think it's been slowed with the tech economy's depression. Intel's insane price cuts on CPU's can only be hastening this devastation of profit margins.
With a commerical advocate in Wasabi Systems, NetBSD is poised to make a big splash in the growing embedded/wireless business and might well be the OS for anyone interested in wireless applications to focus on.