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NetBSD 2.0 RC5 Tagged
ulib writes "NetBSD 2.0_RC5 has now been tagged. Changes since RC4 include fixes to various COMPAT_ emulations, IP Filter backward compatibility fixes, XFree86, pax(1), rsh(1), hp300 boot blocks, pthread fixes for amd64 and i386, documentation updates. Binary snapshots of NetBSD 2.0_RC5 are available in the daily builds directory on the main FTP site."
Posting works. It's morning EST; the nerds slumber. I for one am pumped about 2.0. I'm a recent convert from Linux and I like NetBSD's installer as well as its bloat and crap-free default software arsenal.
With Fluxbox, the GNU coreutils, and bash, my P133 makes a reasonable desktop workstation. Though Linux would work, the low hard-drive footprint of a NetBSD install is what makes the installation trouble-free. Comparable modern Linux distros seem to me to take time to whittle down to a sub-300MB install. With NetBSD, the core system with XFree uses only 290.
The work on X.org support is being done in -current on rtr-xorg-branch branch.
It's a _very_ good reason if you don't accept the new license. As it is, NetBSD accepted the new XFree86 license. OpenBSD did not, and has recently imported X.org into -current.
It's more than just base software choices actually. The BSDs have huge amounts of useful base system software, and depending on your needs you can get an amazing lot done without touching a single out-of-tree package. This includes relatively comfortable software development thanks to nvi, gcc/g++/etc, gdb, BSD make, and so on.
The difference comes in when you look at how bloated the software itself is. All the BSDs have libcs that are tiny (a couple of minutes to compile on even my slowest machines) and do everything a C library should, including full networking and everything. The GNU libc, which you'll find on every Linux system by default (there's a diet libc out there, but it isn't recognized), is a HUGE package that takes a very long time to compile and results in a hefty binary in the end. What does all this bloat go towards? Most say it's all because of its attempt at being completely internationalized, but this is hardly enough to warrant about a 10x size increase.
The same idea applies to all other software that wasn't imported from GNU. If you can do the same things smaller and more efficiently, do it that way. There's no point in having 90% of your source appeal to minor features few people will ever use. There's also a strict adherence to tradition where possible - nvi is kept instead of some stripped-down vim-alike (which would have more convenient features, for instance) because people coming from a BSD system a decade ago won't get culture shock. But all the same modern software is a 'make install' away on any of the BSDs.
The bloat difference in the Linux kernel and BSD kernels isn't even worth discussing. It's just not funny any more. Linux has inflated a LOT in recent times. I remember back when some 2.4 was about 25 megs tar.bz2, now look at it - 2.6.9 weighs in at 35 meg. Is it really 40% more functional? Nowhere near. If anything it should be getting smaller, since they insist they're refining to simpler algorithms that should work faster and take less code.
The NetBSD 2.0RC5 src/sys source compresses (bzip2 -9) to 20M, smaller than Linux 2.4 was. Compared to 2.6, it includes most of the same drivers, the same functionality (plus good security), the ability to run Linux binaries natively (and FreeBSD, SVR4, and some others I forgot), a network stack known to be better than Linux', and oh so much more. This source INCLUDES the ports of NetBSD for which Linux needs EXTERNAL patch sets to run on, meaning that this source tree is even more portable. We all know it's more stable, too. Where is the gargantuan (~175%) size of Linux going? It's all pure bloat. And I challenge even one person to come up with something Linux does that NetBSD can't do, and that takes up 15 meg when bzip2-9'd.
Sam ty sig.
Well I am a big fan of Open and Free BSD's. As soon as I get my iBook back in from warantee I will be dualbooting OSx with netbsd. I tried Openbsd and it simply never had the support. Understand the BSD goals. Openbsd tries to be the most secure/stable OS. FreeBSD likes to be rich with features. NetBSD tries to get on as many architechtures as possible. It's all about flavors, just like various flavors of linux. There, I hope that helps you :)
OpenBSD broke from the NetBSD base over 9 years ago, that is nine years of code divergence in small ways even in the most similar of parts of the codebases.
NetBSD has a great deal of platforms that are supported, including architectures untouched by most other operating systems. OpenBSD supports only 14 platforms, with several discontinued ones as well. NetBSD's supported platforms however are not up to the same standard as OpenBSD's; OpenBSD requires that the port be compilable on it's given platform and many of NetBSD's cannot. This makes the overall codebase of NetBSD more portable and stable at the price of properly supporting it's platforms.
OpenBSD has in the past audited the codebase for it's entire system in order to remove as many programming errors as possible, this has lead to increased security as well as stability.
OpenBSD has in the past removed system tools and ports that it deems to be too insecure or bug ridden. NetBSD does not have this policy. Such as rlogin.
OpenBSD has in the past fought over licenses which they do not believe in having within their system; trying to relicense or replace code which does not conform with their level liberal code. NetBSD does not find this to be a priority. Such things include SSH/OpenSSH, IPF/PF, XFree86/X.org and GnuTAR/TAR.
OpenBSD integrates security minded protection into it's system whenever possible. NetBSD does not. Stack protection; stackghost on Sparc and propolice on I386 as well as taking them to other platforms in the future.
I honestly see no major pros to using NetBSD over OpenBSD on any of the overlapping platforms, but NetBSD is on more platforms.
I'm sick of following my dreams - I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.