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No, the build system is completely unique to NetBSD. To my knowledge no other OS has the ability to cross-build any platform from any POSIX OS. NetBSD can build

by zoulasc 10y ago

No, the build system is completely unique to NetBSD. To my knowledge no other OS has the ability to cross-build any platform from any POSIX OS. NetBSD can build the whole OS from source tree to distribution media with a single command.

aseipp 10y ago
> NetBSD can build the whole OS from source tree to distribution media with a single command. This one, at least, can be done in NixOS/Guix once you check out the source -- and the Nix package manager can technically be installed on any Linux distro, too (and some other ports to Cygwin/FreeBSD/Mac etc) and run a single command to get the ISO, or any kind of build product you want. The carefully tested and maintained portability/cross-compilation is another thing though: NetBSD has fantastic support here that is not easily replicated without just doing a ton of work. So its universal basically-always-works cross compilation, everywhere -- is rather unique here. You can't build NixOS ISOs natively e.g. Nix-on-Darwin, which is rather unfortunate.
ajdlinux 10y ago
The article specifically mentions that they borrowed the reproducible-builds.org analysis infrastructure that was developed by Debian. "I would also like to acknowledge the work done by the Debian folks who have provided a platform to run, test and analyze reproducible builds. Special mention to the diffoscope tool that gives an excellent overview of what's different between binary files, by finding out what they are (and if they are containers what they contain) and then running the appropriate formatter and diff program to show what's different for each file."
- fnord123 10y ago
  zoulasc is the author of the article. So I don't know what to think anymore.
  - liveoneggs 10y ago
    NetBSD is built using build.sh + bmake, including inside of the debian-provided jenkins. The output of those jenkins builds is then run through debian-provided test suites to validate the reproduce-ability of aforementioned NetBSD builds.
    - fnord123 10y ago
      Thank you for patiently explaining the separation of the build and CI/verification system. Now I see how zoulasc's article and comment fit together.
  - ajdlinux 10y ago
    Oh, huh, I didn't notice that!

by zoulasc 10y ago

aseipp 10y ago

> NetBSD can build the whole OS from source tree to distribution media with a single command. This one, at least, can be done in NixOS/Guix once you check out the source -- and the Nix package manager can technically be installed on any Linux distro, too (and some other ports to Cygwin/FreeBSD/Mac etc) and run a single command to get the ISO, or any kind of build product you want. The carefully tested and maintained portability/cross-compilation is another thing though: NetBSD has fantastic support here that is not easily replicated without just doing a ton of work. So its universal basically-always-works cross compilation, everywhere -- is rather unique here. You can't build NixOS ISOs natively e.g. Nix-on-Darwin, which is rather unfortunate.

ajdlinux 10y ago

The article specifically mentions that they borrowed the reproducible-builds.org analysis infrastructure that was developed by Debian. "I would also like to acknowledge the work done by the Debian folks who have provided a platform to run, test and analyze reproducible builds. Special mention to the diffoscope tool that gives an excellent overview of what's different between binary files, by finding out what they are (and if they are containers what they contain) and then running the appropriate formatter and diff program to show what's different for each file."

fnord123 10y ago
zoulasc is the author of the article. So I don't know what to think anymore.
- liveoneggs 10y ago
  NetBSD is built using build.sh + bmake, including inside of the debian-provided jenkins. The output of those jenkins builds is then run through debian-provided test suites to validate the reproduce-ability of aforementioned NetBSD builds.
  - fnord123 10y ago
    Thank you for patiently explaining the separation of the build and CI/verification system. Now I see how zoulasc's article and comment fit together.
- ajdlinux 10y ago
  Oh, huh, I didn't notice that!