this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2024
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53
NetBSD - thoughts? (self.linux)
submitted 6 months ago by cashews_win to c/[email protected]
31 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

What's the point of it?

OpenBSD = Security

FreeBSD = The main UNIX-like

NetBSD = ???

Based on the name of have assumed it's be used in things like network appliances but in 20 years I've never seen a single device use it.

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

Yes, it is mostly appliances, but an (informal?) stated goal of NetBSD is too run on all computing hardware.

  • FreeBSD = user-friendly free Unix (plus ZFS and jails 😀)
  • OpenBSD = very secure free Unix (no ZFS 🙁 but has the VMM hypervisor 😀)
  • OpenIndiana = user-friendly free Unix that runs old Solaris software (plus ZFS and zones 😀)
  • NetBSD = runs on any computer chip ever built within the past 40 years (some ZFS support, but no zones, jails, or VMs 🙁)

Naturally, that makes NetBSD a good choice for appliances, especially ones that might only have limited memory.

(Here is a quick explainer on the difference between Jails, Zones, Containers, and VMs)

EDIT1: someone pointed out to me that ZFS is not supported on OpenBSD. Sorry about that everyone.

EDIT2: there is a ZFS driver for NetBSD

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

There’s no ZFS support in OpenBSD is there?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Thanks, I had to double check that but you're right, ZFS isn't on OpenBSD. What a shame. Anyway I edited my above post.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

But there is zfs support in netbsd... https://wiki.netbsd.org/zfs/

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

According to the wiki, ZFS "works well" but doesn't seem to be as stable as in FreeBSD or OpenIndiana, and is not enabled by default so you have to update your rc.conf file to build the ZFS drivers.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago (1 children)

"I just threw a dead squirrel in a shoe box and installed NetBSD on it." is one of the bash.org quotes I still remember.

[–] Vendetta9076 1 points 6 months ago

And damnit we did it too

[–] atzanteol 15 points 6 months ago

From "back in the day" the big claim was that NetBSD would run on anything. Portability seemed to be their major goal.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Somewhat confused this is in a linux community when none of these OS are linux based. Are we lacking on BSD communities?

[–] cashews_win 17 points 6 months ago (2 children)

We don't have BSD communities and even if we did they probably wouldn't be big enough to get a decent answer.

So I asked here cos there's a high chance that some Linux users will also know something about *BSD.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

You'd probably get better conversations at selfhosted I know some folks there run *bsd network appliances. NASs, firewalls, etc.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago (1 children)

There are some BSD communities on Lemmy/kbin, but they don't have many subscribers yet.
Here are the ones I know of:
@openbsd
@openbsd
@bsd
@netbsd
@bsd
@freebsd
@freebsd
@netbsd
@bsd
@freebsd
@FreeBSD

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn't work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It's not like the interests are not aligned.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago (1 children)

There's no specific point in any of *BSD. They all are general purpose OSes. NetBSD forked from FreeBSD, OpenBSD forked from NetBSD. Conflicts between developers were main reasons for that.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Pretty much like all Debian forks. They're all forked from Debian because of conflicts between developers / different ways of seeing things. :P

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I think the point is network appliances but it seems mainly used by hobbyists from what I’ve seen.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

If you look at the supported platforms you kind of get an answer here. There’s support for the m68k Macintoshes and other similar ancient devices still.

netbsd platforms

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

The main point was always portability, and the ability to run NetBSD on basically ANYTHING.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

And then you have NomadBSD if you need an OS in a usb stick :)