5 ms·

Who's using NetBSD as a daily driver, then? What's the experience like?

rjsw 6y ago
I do, using it to type this. It runs almost everything that I would want to use, the only extra application that I need is a customized version of the Eclipse IDE.
hestefisk 6y ago
I’s be interested in hearing more.
znpy 6y ago
I remember trying that back in 2008 or so. Awesome system, but the lack of hardware support really hurt back at the time. I particularly liked the fact that OS-provided packages and user-istalled packages were two distinct and separate things, thanks to the pkgsrc black magic. It allowed for things like upgrading the underlying OS without touching the programs installed and vice versa. I tried creating a similar frankenstein system by using pkgsrc on a mostly base install of Slackware but I didn't go very far (tbh, I was quite junior at the time). It looked like a neat idea at the time though.
jayp1418 6y ago
I use it daily with Mate DE and sometimes switching to Xfce4. Have them both installed :)
- regularfry 6y ago
  On what hardware?
  - jayp1418 6y ago
    http://bsd-hardware.info/index.php?probe=99cf14c489 http://bsd-hardware.info/index.php?probe=99cf14c489
rvp-x 6y ago
I do. If you are a few years behind the latest GPU/wifi then there's a good chance your hardware will just work. It takes longer than usual to get a comfortable setup, but once you do it once it's very easy to keep the same for years/decades unchanged. There's not much proprietary software, and the way to do things is usually the bare bones one. If you want to run linux virtualized, you can do it using QEMU+NVMM, but there won't be a fancy GUI like VirtualBox. You might need to change some boot parameters too. People often run it on arm64, which has unusually good hardware support (it might have support for things faster than linux mainline kernel).
- oropolo 6y ago
  > If you are a few years behind the latest GPU/wifi then there's a good chance your hardware will just work. This doesn't quite mesh with the slogan "of course it runs NetBSD"...
  - samoa42 6y ago
    yes it does. mainstream os's usually deprecate _OLD_ hardware much faster.
  - smcl 6y ago
    I always thought that referred to how you can get a build of NetBSD running on a given cpu architecture. Might be a tad unfair to apply it to getting hardware accelerated rendering on bleeding edge graphics hardware and such.
II2II 6y ago
It has been many years since I used NetBSD as a daily driver, but it was (and I trust it stills is) an incredible operating system. That said, there is a major drawback in a modern context. A lot of modern software assumes a mainstream Linux system. While the ports collection will handle the patches and dependencies, much of the lean, cohesive, and traditional feel of NetBSD disappears as soon as you start pulling in those applications (e.g. an up-to-date web browser). Users of mainstream Linux distributions will also find that there are a lot of skills to relearn with respect to system management, or at least recall from earlier days.
- samoa42 6y ago
  > there is a major drawback in a modern context have been using it as a daily driver for a few years around 2005 and concur that there is a integration moat with software that is intended for linux (modern or not) and i guess systemd made that problem worse. the fact that i runs most linuxish software while beeing not a linux is usefull thou and, if one is inclined to, can learn a lot about systems engineering.
- rjsw 6y ago
  Latest Firefox builds fine on NetBSD without things like PulseAudio and D-Bus, it still feels like a traditional application to me.
kristopolous 6y ago
I put it on a Pentium 90 just last week. I got 1024x768, it was pretty nice to see some computer from 1994 running current software. I had a usb pci card in there and it just worked. I thought surely some nuanced part of the hardware will prevent a 256GB usb stick from just working. Handled it fine. Still pretty impressed. The only real dog was ssh setup because the entropy bits were hard to come by. It was all fun until one of my caps blew on the thing. I haven't turned it on since. Eventually I plan to make it publicly accessible in some way along with a 386 I have. I think it'd be hilarious In 2002 or so I had an SE/30 running netbsd. I had I think 64 MB of memory, and maybe 20 GB storage via external SCSI and an Ethernet add on card. I also had a scsi cdrom hooked up. At the time SCSI hardware was literally worthless and I picked up all this stuff lying next to dumpsters. This machine would probably fetch $1500 today. Kinda funny. Then again, an equivalent vintage machine, say from 2007 (core 2 duo with DDR1) would be equivalently worthless today. A regret of not hoarding more can't be healthy Anyway, compiled Mozilla for it. When it started up you could see the elements draw on the screen in human time. Pretty fun. I remember loading slashdot on its tiny black and white screen. I remember who I gave it to when I moved, I wonder if he still has it
- joombaga 6y ago
  Did you have to add entropy sources? Or just wait a while?
  - kristopolous 6y ago
    Just wait a while. The entropy conclusion is inferred here. The i/o was low, the cpu was low and it was generating keys and took about 2 minutes. This entropy claim be a fiction, I didn't step through the code. It was induced. Same thing happened earlier this year on a vax running simh on a fx-6300. Took about 15 minutes. I'm putting a 3970 together (although the 10k would probably be better for single threaded simh) but I intend to finish a project on emulated vax netbsd after it's up. You think "forget it, telnet is fine" but then realize how much more ssh is than just log in. It's almost like an entire networking layer, there's so many nice tools and conveniences. Really indispensable

rjsw 6y ago

I do, using it to type this. It runs almost everything that I would want to use, the only extra application that I need is a customized version of the Eclipse IDE.

hestefisk 6y ago

I’s be interested in hearing more.

znpy 6y ago

I remember trying that back in 2008 or so. Awesome system, but the lack of hardware support really hurt back at the time. I particularly liked the fact that OS-provided packages and user-istalled packages were two distinct and separate things, thanks to the pkgsrc black magic. It allowed for things like upgrading the underlying OS without touching the programs installed and vice versa. I tried creating a similar frankenstein system by using pkgsrc on a mostly base install of Slackware but I didn't go very far (tbh, I was quite junior at the time). It looked like a neat idea at the time though.

jayp1418 6y ago

I use it daily with Mate DE and sometimes switching to Xfce4. Have them both installed :)

regularfry 6y ago
On what hardware?
- jayp1418 6y ago
  http://bsd-hardware.info/index.php?probe=99cf14c489 http://bsd-hardware.info/index.php?probe=99cf14c489

rvp-x 6y ago

I do. If you are a few years behind the latest GPU/wifi then there's a good chance your hardware will just work. It takes longer than usual to get a comfortable setup, but once you do it once it's very easy to keep the same for years/decades unchanged. There's not much proprietary software, and the way to do things is usually the bare bones one. If you want to run linux virtualized, you can do it using QEMU+NVMM, but there won't be a fancy GUI like VirtualBox. You might need to change some boot parameters too. People often run it on arm64, which has unusually good hardware support (it might have support for things faster than linux mainline kernel).

oropolo 6y ago
> If you are a few years behind the latest GPU/wifi then there's a good chance your hardware will just work. This doesn't quite mesh with the slogan "of course it runs NetBSD"...
- samoa42 6y ago
  yes it does. mainstream os's usually deprecate _OLD_ hardware much faster.
- smcl 6y ago
  I always thought that referred to how you can get a build of NetBSD running on a given cpu architecture. Might be a tad unfair to apply it to getting hardware accelerated rendering on bleeding edge graphics hardware and such.

II2II 6y ago

It has been many years since I used NetBSD as a daily driver, but it was (and I trust it stills is) an incredible operating system. That said, there is a major drawback in a modern context. A lot of modern software assumes a mainstream Linux system. While the ports collection will handle the patches and dependencies, much of the lean, cohesive, and traditional feel of NetBSD disappears as soon as you start pulling in those applications (e.g. an up-to-date web browser). Users of mainstream Linux distributions will also find that there are a lot of skills to relearn with respect to system management, or at least recall from earlier days.

samoa42 6y ago
> there is a major drawback in a modern context have been using it as a daily driver for a few years around 2005 and concur that there is a integration moat with software that is intended for linux (modern or not) and i guess systemd made that problem worse. the fact that i runs most linuxish software while beeing not a linux is usefull thou and, if one is inclined to, can learn a lot about systems engineering.
rjsw 6y ago
Latest Firefox builds fine on NetBSD without things like PulseAudio and D-Bus, it still feels like a traditional application to me.

kristopolous 6y ago

I put it on a Pentium 90 just last week. I got 1024x768, it was pretty nice to see some computer from 1994 running current software. I had a usb pci card in there and it just worked. I thought surely some nuanced part of the hardware will prevent a 256GB usb stick from just working. Handled it fine. Still pretty impressed. The only real dog was ssh setup because the entropy bits were hard to come by. It was all fun until one of my caps blew on the thing. I haven't turned it on since. Eventually I plan to make it publicly accessible in some way along with a 386 I have. I think it'd be hilarious In 2002 or so I had an SE/30 running netbsd. I had I think 64 MB of memory, and maybe 20 GB storage via external SCSI and an Ethernet add on card. I also had a scsi cdrom hooked up. At the time SCSI hardware was literally worthless and I picked up all this stuff lying next to dumpsters. This machine would probably fetch $1500 today. Kinda funny. Then again, an equivalent vintage machine, say from 2007 (core 2 duo with DDR1) would be equivalently worthless today. A regret of not hoarding more can't be healthy Anyway, compiled Mozilla for it. When it started up you could see the elements draw on the screen in human time. Pretty fun. I remember loading slashdot on its tiny black and white screen. I remember who I gave it to when I moved, I wonder if he still has it

joombaga 6y ago
Did you have to add entropy sources? Or just wait a while?
- kristopolous 6y ago
  Just wait a while. The entropy conclusion is inferred here. The i/o was low, the cpu was low and it was generating keys and took about 2 minutes. This entropy claim be a fiction, I didn't step through the code. It was induced. Same thing happened earlier this year on a vax running simh on a fx-6300. Took about 15 minutes. I'm putting a 3970 together (although the 10k would probably be better for single threaded simh) but I intend to finish a project on emulated vax netbsd after it's up. You think "forget it, telnet is fine" but then realize how much more ssh is than just log in. It's almost like an entire networking layer, there's so many nice tools and conveniences. Really indispensable