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Where Does NetBSD Fit In?

Posted by timothy on from the just-about-anywhere-apparently dept.

NetBSD Fan writes "KernelTrap offers a fascinating summary of the recent 2004 Annual NetBSD Group Meeting. Included is an introduction by NetBSD foundation president Christos Zoulas discussing NetBSD's relevance in light of competition from well known operating systems such as Linux and Windows which he acknowledges 'both offer more features than we do, and they have behind them the resources of very large commercial organizations.' He also talks about FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris and Darwin, ultimately concluding that they all are facing their own serious challenges, and that plenty of opportunities remain for NetBSD. The NetBSD project recently released NetBSD 2.0."

4 of 380 comments (clear)

  1. On the firewall by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    NetBSD my firewall OS of choice.

  2. runs on old and rare archs by lanc · · Score: 5, Informative


    NetBSD runs on 17 CPU architectures. Can you count up 17?

    NetBSD will be the OS what you can always use on your old boxes, when you don't get running anything else on them.

    --
    "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
  3. Re:Read the WHOLE article. by HyperChicken · · Score: 3, Informative

    Wrong on so many counts.

    NetBSD was the first open source OS to have IPv6 support. Yeah, "way out of date" IP stack.

    NetBSD was the first open source OS to have USB support. Yeah, "way out of date" hardware support. Further, NetBSD allows for "Machine Independent" drivers, leading to portability far beyond other operating systems.

    Not enough developers? You don't need a lot of developers. Code remains cleaner when only educated people submit features.

    Unlike with other operating systems -- including FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and Linux -- NetBSD holds off on releasing features until they are stable. That's why there are few releases. This is a good thing.

    It's one of the most secure operating systems in the world. Compare the NetBSD 1.6.2 security patch list to the OpenBSD 3.5 security patch list.

    --
    Free of Flash! Free of Flash!
  4. Re:Read the WHOLE article. by MobyTurbo · · Score: 4, Informative
    NetBSD isn't as feature rich as more modern kernels such as Linux, or even Free/OpenBSD. Its IP stack is way out of date;
    Incorrect: NetBSD's IP stack is more scalable than all others, it broke the internet land speed record (twice).
    its filesystem is way out of date
    Maybe it doesn't have journaling by default (though a log file system is under development) but FFS and FFS2 in NetBSD have reliability that others could only dream of. Or you've never heard of Reiserfs and XFS loosing data?
    its hardware support is out of date
    That's laughable. NetBSD has some of the cleanest device driver system in existance. It was the first free OS to include USB, and it's continued porting to various platforms increase its hardware support, because thanks to its device driver infrastructure, if a piece of hardware is available for one platform, it's available to any platform that can run it.
    It's not easy to get security updatesWhich is better, having to patch or use cvs a few times a year, or having to download every week new security fixes to keep from getting rooted? You decide.