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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!"
Hrrmph. As a loyal VAX owner, I need to note that it seems that although NetBSD claims to support some gawd-awful high number of architectures...many are left behind to basically fend for themselves.
Just because NetBSD v3 is out, doesn't mean it runs on anything except a few of the common Intel/PPC chips.
It would be nice to be able to complete a full VAX build without some bizarre GCC error forcing me to go look for a workaround.
VAX 4-ever!
I can install NetBSD on my, oh, (picks obscure platform) VAX, and have xen run multiple virtual vaxes?
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Anyone got any?
A server os that works on dreamcast. Duh.
Exactly. It is just about the only thing that runs on my Qube. The OS is actually pretty good, easy to use and secure. Very good server OS to run on mips hardware.
"Of course it runs NetBSD" - the old saw, it seems. But I think that NetBSD is falling down in this regard. Many ports don't work properly, or haven't been updated in ages. Mailing lists lie dormant, waiting for attention, such as SBMips (BroadCom Sybyte MIPS) - in spite of Wasabi Systems (which is basically the commercial arm of NetBSD) having a press release about Broadcom support back in 2002, not much is being done in extending NetBSD to the CPUs used in consumer-grade equipment like Linksys routers. It's not even available for a fee: Wasabi doesn't have it in their development products and doesn't plan to. Linux is clearly quite far out in front in this regard.
And it's not only MIPS: VAX ports are stale as well, from what I see here. This is sad. I like the idea of portability, and I like NetBSD - but I don't find that it lives up to its repuation in portability. Yes, someday I'll shut up and work on ports to the platforms I care, but in the meantime I am using Linux on the Broadcom CPUs and finding I enjoy it..almost too much to bother with NetBSD.
I was about to say the same. It started with my laptop - OpenBSD not supporting the modem part of a Xircom combo cardbus adapter, FreeBSD completely failing even to begin installation - and that's the whole sequence of them between 4.4 and 5.3 (haven't tried since). NetBSD (1.6 at the time) ran first time and the Xircom got me connected to the ISP first time. Since then I have it running permanently on some five machines in the office doing various In(ter|tra)net serving and desktop duties; only one box is running FreeBSD (6.0 currently) because NetBSD's INSTALL kernel (at least) did not find the RAID part of a HighPoint card; FreeBSD did - I wanted it mirrored and setting up RaidFrame on a boot disk was a bit over what I wanted to do quickly... Anyway, I carried on adding additional software on that box via source ports; this has been mostly succesful, but nowhere as smooth as is normally with pkgsrc. I do run two or three OpenBSD firewalls (including several at customer sites), but generally performance issues have stopped me from other deployment.
NetBSD performance has been excelent recently; BTW I run -current on all but one system (that one follows the latest release, therefore will get 3.0 this Wednesday).
I also maintain some five Solaris(mostly 10/11) systems - the latest Express with the ZFS id awesome!
Haven't touched the L*x thing for some three years now - don't start me on it...
I have a special place in my heart for NetBSD. I once was living poor, and was given a small, mips based computer. The only modern OS I could run was NetBSD, and it ran great! Never crashed and was well documented enough for me to figure out whatever I wanted to do.
;) In this day and age, with distros like Ubuntu and Linspire, even my mom can run linux, let alonse a lowly Windows Admin. Being able to setup and run NetBSD restores my geeky feeling of supiority!
Here are some reasons you might want to try it out:
1. Geeky history lesson. In my mind there was a golden age of geekiness going on during the 70s and early 80s centered around the creation of BSD. Reading the many stories in the Jargon File gives you an idea of the times. NetBSD is a decendent of that OS and those times. Using it gave me a taste of times I would love to visit if I ever had a time machine. Geeky!
2. It is simple. Install a basic machine and look at the process list. On my 1.6 machine there would be maybe 5 lines. Interesting to see how little an OS needs to be useful.
3. It is something new to learn. I love tinkering and learning new things. Instead of a train set, I have a network of old and/or unusual computers. Not an x86 in the bunch. NetBSD and linux power most of it.
4. You can me more of an elitest