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NetBSD v3.0 Released
FullMetalAlchemist writes "After six release candidates, the NetBSD project has finally released a gold version of a major mile stone; v3.0. I'm looking forward to this release a good deal. If I wanted to, I could build our entire office infrastructure on it thanks to Xen. Major Changes can be found on the NetBSD website, and there are several ways to get the release. Get downloading!"
I agree that it's frustrating to not be able to natively compile the VAX port, that's not really the same thing as saying (as in the subject line) that the VAX port "stopped working". It works just fine.
It's supposed to be comparable to the FreeBSD 5 series for speeds, I've seen no benchmarks against the newer 6 series, but can assume they're still within a pretty reasonable range of eachother, not too much else unless you want to run on a platform other than i386.
As far as OpenBSD comparisons go; performs better overall, less secure, pf is not integrated into the system as tighly, and it's support of it's various platforms aren't always as good as those of OpenBSD's, since they do their support through cross compiling instead of native work.
You may prefer NetBSD's speed over OpenBSD or NetBSD's support for alternative platforms, it's all in what you're trying to do.
I'm sick of following my dreams - I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.
NetBSD claims to be extremely portable - portability is the main stated goal.
Well, one of the goals, third down on the official list.
f it only runs well on x86, NetBSD becomes basically irrelevant - FreeBSD is far better on x86, and OpenBSD (whose goal is security and implenetation and correctness) is more portable (OpenBSD runs fine on VAX). Essentially, if NetBSD doesn't actually talk the talk they have about portability, all they are is an inadequate OpenBSD that is less secure and less portable - and it has no advantages.
Since FreeBSD 5 and NetBSD 2, performance on x86 has been very close and often better on NetBSD. Check out the benchmarks and studies posted on the advocacy mailing lists. FreeBSD is suffering portability issues thanks to the original focus on x86 alone. OpenBSD only works on a reasonable number of platforms because it absorbs a lot of work from NetBSD, the VAX port is a good example, where NetBSD supports more models of the VAX. NetBSD is arguably as secure as OpenBSD, but has far more features and performs much, much better.
One of the more proactive NetBSD/VAX users complained recently about the native build problems and a personal fear of "featureitis". It looks like some Slashdot cretin has picked up on that and decided to try and piss on the NetBSD 3.0 announcement with what is largely a non-issue.