5 ms·

Porting Wine to amd64 on NetBSD, first evaluation report

78 points by fcambus 7y ago

kylek 7y ago
(Off-topic, but there aren't many posts about NetBSD) Are there many users of NetBSD on amd64? What's your use case?
- MuffinFlavored 7y ago
  Imagine if the maintainers put their effort into projects that are used by more people...
  - fao_ 7y ago
    Do you mean to imply that projects with only a handful of people are worthless? That's how I read it. You might want to rephrase it if you don't mean that?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
      - vvvij 7y ago
        He's right, GP sounds condescending.
  - bildung 7y ago
    Imagine everone would follow this conservative view on optimal resource allocation - we wouldn't have none of the BSDs, no Linux, nothing open source/ free software at all. Windows wouldn't have been forced to modernize, instead we would probably all use a late descendent of windows 95. The open web probably wouldn't exist, instead we would all use AOL or one or two other private network providers, paying roaming fees wor inter-network communication. I absolutely applaud people sinking their minds into interesting niche projects like these. You never know the macro results 10 years down the road.
- bch 7y ago
  It’s a fantastic Unix-like general purpose operating system. It is (and has been for ~17 years) my default OS (primarily on thinkpads and VMs). Personally I find the development and priorities on-point, and the fit and finish excellent. On it I do “day to day” computer use, development, audio work, graphics work, and video/multimedia work, as well as my own other random play. It’s a complete, robust, fully integrated operating system with fine hardware and software support, in my experience. The community is savvy and mature; in a way I think this project (incl. the community) is flying under the radar.
  - logicprog 7y ago
    I've heard this kind of thing about all of the *BSDs, and I'd really like to try them out: I'm very appreciative of their system structure, package management, and greater focus on the UNIX philosophy. What concerns me most is that I had a very unfortunate experience with everything on MacOS being subtly incompatible with most Dev tools, which generally assume Linux. That's mostly what's scaring me away from trying to dual-boot. Would you be able to speak to the differences between OpenBSD, NetBSD, And FreeBSD? So far as I can tell, FreeBSD is generally focused on getting the most software and the most drivers, etc, in order to compete with Linux, while OpenBSD focuses on implementing everything in the "correct" way, and NetBSD focuses on being a lightweight OS for routers and the like. Is this about right?
    - bch 7y ago
      If I may pass on Free and Open (for now), I guess it’s fair to say Net has historically placed a lot of importance on what looks to be “running on lots of different hardware”. I’m not a core dev nor spokesperson, but I (would like to?) think this is related to: 1) people scratch their own itch; if something is important or interesting, they do it 2) the engineers are smart (though which project is going to say “I think engineering is our weak spot”?) The decisions that are made happen to mostly resonate with what I’d say are my values - pushing ahead with a semblance of respect for Unix. 3) NetBSD is (and has been) a research operating system. Microsoft used it to test out a new hardware arch they developed[0][1]. It’s (twice) held the “Internet Landspeed Record”[2]. It’s cutting edge in the unikernel/anykernel[3] space. 4) re: portability (“of course it runs NetBSD!”[4]), I like to think there’s a feedback loop where correctness and good design support porting and porting demands that correctness and design. Example when AMD first unleashed the now ubiquitous 64 bit architecture we all enjoy[5]. I don’t know what kind of development you do, but it supports gcc, clang, and PCC, Java, probably any dynamic language you care to name... it’s an SMP POSIX system running elf binaries on big and little endian architectures, all from a single codebase. I see why people would say it’s a stripped-down OS, or built to run in weird places like routers, but I see it as an effective, coherent, non-offensive Unix. I could go on, but let me close this with tongue planted in cheek, stealing from mutt[6]: All operating systems suck. NetBSD just sucks less. [0] http://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/emips/ http://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/emips/ [1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=52407&from=https%3A%2F%2Fresearch.microsoft.com%2Fen-us%2Fdownloads%2F754fee75-c5a0-4542-bf9b-47f236c0a90b%2F https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=524... [2] https://m.slashdot.org/story/45653 https://m.slashdot.org/story/45653 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rump_kernel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rump_kernel [4] http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=655422 http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=655422 [5] https://www.usenix.org/legacy/publications/library/proceedings/bsdcon02/full_papers/linden/linden_html/index.html https://www.usenix.org/legacy/publications/library/proceedin... [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutt_(email_client) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutt_(email_client)
- pmarin 7y ago
  Are there many users of NetBSD on amd64? yes What's your use case? Use my computer. It's a good solid unix system without pretending to be something else.
hedora 7y ago
Thanks to the people doing this work! I’m not a direct user of Wine or NetBSD, but these sorts of porting efforts improve code quality all around. I hope they learn skills that will be helpful down the road.
Quipunotch104 7y ago
Interesting read, thank you for sharing it. I can't for the life of me think of any Windows apps that I personally would want to run in BSD. Granted, I didn't think very hard. LoL. On my main rig (Arch Linux), the only thing I have ever run in Wine is World of Warcraft and I found the performance to be less than acceptable.

78 points by fcambus 7y ago

kylek 7y ago

(Off-topic, but there aren't many posts about NetBSD) Are there many users of NetBSD on amd64? What's your use case?

MuffinFlavored 7y ago
Imagine if the maintainers put their effort into projects that are used by more people...
- fao_ 7y ago
  Do you mean to imply that projects with only a handful of people are worthless? That's how I read it. You might want to rephrase it if you don't mean that?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
    - vvvij 7y ago
      He's right, GP sounds condescending.
- bildung 7y ago
  Imagine everone would follow this conservative view on optimal resource allocation - we wouldn't have none of the BSDs, no Linux, nothing open source/ free software at all. Windows wouldn't have been forced to modernize, instead we would probably all use a late descendent of windows 95. The open web probably wouldn't exist, instead we would all use AOL or one or two other private network providers, paying roaming fees wor inter-network communication. I absolutely applaud people sinking their minds into interesting niche projects like these. You never know the macro results 10 years down the road.
bch 7y ago
It’s a fantastic Unix-like general purpose operating system. It is (and has been for ~17 years) my default OS (primarily on thinkpads and VMs). Personally I find the development and priorities on-point, and the fit and finish excellent. On it I do “day to day” computer use, development, audio work, graphics work, and video/multimedia work, as well as my own other random play. It’s a complete, robust, fully integrated operating system with fine hardware and software support, in my experience. The community is savvy and mature; in a way I think this project (incl. the community) is flying under the radar.
- logicprog 7y ago
  I've heard this kind of thing about all of the *BSDs, and I'd really like to try them out: I'm very appreciative of their system structure, package management, and greater focus on the UNIX philosophy. What concerns me most is that I had a very unfortunate experience with everything on MacOS being subtly incompatible with most Dev tools, which generally assume Linux. That's mostly what's scaring me away from trying to dual-boot. Would you be able to speak to the differences between OpenBSD, NetBSD, And FreeBSD? So far as I can tell, FreeBSD is generally focused on getting the most software and the most drivers, etc, in order to compete with Linux, while OpenBSD focuses on implementing everything in the "correct" way, and NetBSD focuses on being a lightweight OS for routers and the like. Is this about right?
  - bch 7y ago
    If I may pass on Free and Open (for now), I guess it’s fair to say Net has historically placed a lot of importance on what looks to be “running on lots of different hardware”. I’m not a core dev nor spokesperson, but I (would like to?) think this is related to: 1) people scratch their own itch; if something is important or interesting, they do it 2) the engineers are smart (though which project is going to say “I think engineering is our weak spot”?) The decisions that are made happen to mostly resonate with what I’d say are my values - pushing ahead with a semblance of respect for Unix. 3) NetBSD is (and has been) a research operating system. Microsoft used it to test out a new hardware arch they developed[0][1]. It’s (twice) held the “Internet Landspeed Record”[2]. It’s cutting edge in the unikernel/anykernel[3] space. 4) re: portability (“of course it runs NetBSD!”[4]), I like to think there’s a feedback loop where correctness and good design support porting and porting demands that correctness and design. Example when AMD first unleashed the now ubiquitous 64 bit architecture we all enjoy[5]. I don’t know what kind of development you do, but it supports gcc, clang, and PCC, Java, probably any dynamic language you care to name... it’s an SMP POSIX system running elf binaries on big and little endian architectures, all from a single codebase. I see why people would say it’s a stripped-down OS, or built to run in weird places like routers, but I see it as an effective, coherent, non-offensive Unix. I could go on, but let me close this with tongue planted in cheek, stealing from mutt[6]: All operating systems suck. NetBSD just sucks less. [0] http://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/emips/ http://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/emips/ [1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=52407&from=https%3A%2F%2Fresearch.microsoft.com%2Fen-us%2Fdownloads%2F754fee75-c5a0-4542-bf9b-47f236c0a90b%2F https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=524... [2] https://m.slashdot.org/story/45653 https://m.slashdot.org/story/45653 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rump_kernel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rump_kernel [4] http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=655422 http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=655422 [5] https://www.usenix.org/legacy/publications/library/proceedings/bsdcon02/full_papers/linden/linden_html/index.html https://www.usenix.org/legacy/publications/library/proceedin... [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutt_(email_client) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutt_(email_client)
pmarin 7y ago
Are there many users of NetBSD on amd64? yes What's your use case? Use my computer. It's a good solid unix system without pretending to be something else.

hedora 7y ago

Thanks to the people doing this work! I’m not a direct user of Wine or NetBSD, but these sorts of porting efforts improve code quality all around. I hope they learn skills that will be helpful down the road.

Quipunotch104 7y ago

Interesting read, thank you for sharing it. I can't for the life of me think of any Windows apps that I personally would want to run in BSD. Granted, I didn't think very hard. LoL. On my main rig (Arch Linux), the only thing I have ever run in Wine is World of Warcraft and I found the performance to be less than acceptable.