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NetBSD-Current Gets SMP

Posted by timothy on from the build-a-bigger-box dept.

MobyTurbo writes "NetBSD-current for the i386 architecture now has SMP. (It used to be that only FreeBSD had this feature among the free BSDs.) See the announcement on the current-users mailing list."

4 of 41 comments (clear)

  1. Re:This can only be a good thing by jonestor · · Score: 2, Informative

    According the the summary at the top, it's FreeBSD that has it and OpenBSD doesn't.

  2. netbsd and smp by rplacd · · Score: 4, Informative

    Note that while the i386 port just got SMP support, other ports have had it for a while. NetBSD/macppc got it in August, NetBSD/sparc got it over a year ago, etc.

  3. Re:Silly BSD question / Mac question by josepha48 · · Score: 3, Informative
    Hmm well sort of.. it actually is build on the mach kernel which was a fork of bsd way back when.

    Of course this is NET-BSD not BSD. FreeBSD I believe has had SMP support for a while now. FreeBSD is more like Darwin / Mac OS X than NetBSD. Also they are referring to the i386 which is way different from Mac which uses the motorola processor.

    NetBSD runs on just about all processors out there, does Mac OS X? No and neither does FreeBSD. That is what the whole NetBSD project is about. Mac OS X is about a pretty gui on the foundations of UNIX / BSD. Kinda about time someone did what Mac did, but then again about a year before Apple announced their plans of OS X I suggested that someone put a nice GUI on UNIX. Guess what. They listened and now everyone is really taking to Mac.

    --

    Only 'flamers' flame!

  4. Re:This can only be a good thing by MobyTurbo · · Score: 3, Informative
    Blockquoth the poster:
    Finally OpenBSD will ahve some straight up competition. For a long time it has been the most secure, and the only BSD with SMP support.

    Can't wait to see what FreeBSD does to top this!

    According to the official OpenBSD FAQ, OpenBSD does not have SMP. Either in -CURRENT (development branch) or in release form, though apparantly there is a group working on it. FreeBSD on the other hand will have an improved fine-grain implementation of SMP, in their upcoming 5.0 release, and already have a more primative version in the 4.x releases. It's really the reverse, OpenBSD is the only free *BSD *without* SMP being tested. I have no idea why you thought otherwise.