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The NetBSD Organization
A reader writes: "Stumbled across a nice article about how the NetBSD Project is organized and some interesting ways users can help out." Good stuff, for those who want to get involved.
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Those who hate windows use Linux.
Those who love Unix use BSD.
lookie here
...the OpenBSD banner ad at the bottom of the page?
This article is formatted for the blind, right? Header size: 120px; text size: 80px; ...
*g*
Are there any bootable-CD distributions of *BSD, like the Knoppix distro for Linux? It would be really cool to bring a couple of CDs with you in case you ran into some open-minded person willing to look at a free OS, and not have to worry about partitioning or overwriting anything.
Needless to say if anyone ever asks you a question of what runs NetBSD ... you can safely say more things than any other operating system. NetBSD runs on everything from a supercomputer to a dreamcast and everything in between. The most impressive things I've seen from NetBSD is the ability to get the OS running on anything that can process information and NFS ... second to none.
There are ninches for everything ... portability ... netbsd wins hands down.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
Programming can be fun again. Film at 11.
I help out on some sites, and they all use Apache and freeBSD, and I've never had a problem. I believe it makes it less expensive for people to host on non-Microsoft servers, and having and open mind is important to keeping open software. If a fraction of the users of Microsoft and other commercial software spent a fraction of their time and effort (instead of downloading pr0n) to projects...well, who knows what could happen. A movement, perhaps?
Netbsd Live...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It's probably not as elegant or as well known as Beowulf clustering, but it has been done :)
You must be a newbie or something. I'm sorry. I'd say more, but what a waste of time. Although, I do hope they don't change the installer, because it's fast, simple, and easy for those of us with a clue.
I don't like the installation system that it uses either. When you first sit down in front of it you don't think there will be any problems. At first it reminded me a lot of slackware which is the version of Linux I started out on. However if you're not careful before you're done you will have installed the OS TWICE without meaning to, among other things. The biggest challlenge is to get it to do the things you want without doing the things you don't because you've already done them. The main reason for this is that the install routine does not really work in an entirely step-by-step chronological manner even though its interface would lead you to believe that it does.
Once the system is installed the package/ports system works beautifully and the system is very fast and stable. It runs well on a P-200 with 96 megs of memory. The last version of Redhat that would do that was probably 6.2 or 7.0 at the latest. The 2.4 kernel increased the minimum system requirements a great deal.
Overall I think that Linux's evolutionary and laise faire(sp?) development model will lead to the best solutions. The speed of its development is a testament to that. The problem is that the road to get there is a rocky one. There is something to be said for a mature code base that is maintained and carefully pushed forward by a small group that is dedicated to making sure it gets the job done and works right, right now. Linux, on the other hand, can be thought of as being in continuous beta. The degree to which it is solid and secure depends upon the bugs and quirks getting shake-and-baked out by dozens of independent companies and hundreds of individuals. This is why the dot-zero versions of Redhat are always quirky and poorly optimized while the dot-two versions generally work well.
If I was going to set up a web server I'd probably use FreeBSD. If I was going to set up a desktop system I'd use Mandrake or Redhat. If I was going to set up a system where security was the most important thing I'd use OpenBSD. The only reason I can think of to run NetBSD is if you've got some oddball hardware that you can't afford to replace with an x86 system.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Damn, got here late, this story was posted while I was at work, and now probably no one will even see this comment :P
:) For those that like KDE or Gnome, they run, in fact NetBSD had KDE 3 way before Debian ever did. So what's the fuss?
:)). If BSD wasn't around, alot of other operating systems would have gotten crappier TCP/IP stacks, OSX would probably be in much worse shape than it is (if it ever came to light at all), and many other things. So what if a vendor doesn't want to release their changes? They paid their people to write the code, let them have it. The original source will always be around.
:)
Some random thoughts:
I've run Linux for about a year and a few months, I've run Debian *only* for about a year, and recently I started running NetBSD on my desktop machine (yes, my desktop machine, not my server, router, or toaster). I don't see why people denounce the BSD's for desktop use. Mozilla runs, Xterm's run, irc clients run, Gaim runs, XMMS runs, MPlayer runs, damn, everything on my desktop runs
I moved from Linux to BSD for many reasons, BSD is much more tightly integrated. You don't get the "oh, that's Jim Bob Developer's fault, email him", etc. You don't get manual pages that state "This manual page is old and incomplete - please read the GNU info manual". Of course opinions differ, but I _like_ man pages. I don't like info manuals.
Another factor is the license and attitude of the community as far as licensing. I don't really like the GPL. Sure, in a perfect world, all software would be free, there would be no evil corporations, and everyone could sit around reading fine literature and hiking out in the mountains - BUT that's not going to happen. If people want to make a product and sell it, let them do it (as long as they're not breaking the law
BSD init is alot cleaner than Sys V init - no piles of symlinks with funny names - and NetBSD's rc.d system takes care of Sys V init-style init scripts (/etc/rc.d/named restart). In fact, NetBSD's rc.d system is being ported to FreeBSD.
ipf is, IMO, a hell of a lot nicer than IPTables.
The whole base system is consistant, well documented, well thought out, and easy to use as long as you know how to read. The userbase is *much* more intelligent and experienced, on average, however it is quite a bit smaller, than Linux's.
For software - there is pkgsrc, which is like Free/OpenBSD's ports system, or Gentoo's portage. pkgsrc is kept very up to date, I'm running Mozilla 1.2.1 from it right now.
As far as being a server or firewall/router, NetBSD runs any OSS Server stuff great, and I'm sure most Linux-only stuff would run fine under emulation.
Any other NetBSD users out there in the wasteland that is Slashdot? Speak up!
i agree! :)
the installer is simple and no-frills, and gets the job done well, without confusing the hell out of you in the process.
just like Latin is a dead language.
Well, I learnt latin at school (only language I was any good at).
And many languages have Latin roots.
And Latin is used in the taxonomy of may things.
And I believe Latin is still used in the legal profession.
So if, in death, *BSD is destined to end up just like Latin all I can say is....
Great!
Do you mind, your karma has just run over my dogma.