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>I actually came up with this myself just playing around with NetBSD. You will probably not find anyone advocating disabling swap. Actually I saw recently some

>I actually came up with this myself just playing around with NetBSD. You will probably not find anyone advocating disabling swap. Actually I saw recently some discussion exactly about that. I think many people would be glad to do it if they new how. It is not easy when you relatively new in the area. It is not too complicated but a lot of information and it is not obvious what is important and what not, so you read all and get overwhelmed easily. >I do not run X11 anymore. I stay in VGA textmode. Doubt anyone would want to do exactly what I do. I do exactly what you do, simply because x11 is not working on Pi with TV I have and I have nothing more since MBPro has simply died. (if you wish details, see here ”how“: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25778247 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25778247 ) >If you study how NetBSD's install media are created that will teach you almost everything you need to know. Happy to walk you through it though if you want to try NetBSD. Thank you very much. This advice is already precious, because it helps to orient yourself in tons of info, and now I would know where to start digging. I would love to try once I’ll have equipment and time. I really wish to encourage you though to write down this process, I am sure there are some people who are desperately looking for this setup and how to achieve it properly, bothered with many questions. This guide could also be a good practical introduction into a NetBSD by the way. >Chromebooks are claimed to be 100% safe from certain types of attacks. The developers came up with this silly "whitewash" gimmick. Their motivation for a disk-less-like system is to force users to store personal data in the cloud. Ugh. it’s a shame really and done for wrong purpose. I never considered Chromebooks seriously for that reason. >Well, the disk-less systems I have been creating for recreational use long before Chromebooks existed are just as safe. Probably safer because I do not use a graphics layer or a web browser with Javascript interpreter. What I really like about it is the ability of fast recovery, which gives more freedom for experiments. I love it.

1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago
Note I did all the experiments many years ago, on i386, and using NetBSD's venerable bootloader. For the Pi, some things will differ obviously. Not only does this type of setup give freedom for experiments (which NetBSD really does in general) but it makes expts easier. You can put multiple different kernels on the USB stick and reboot into each of them to test pros and cons of different release versions and/or configurations. Or you might boot one computer with kernel A, pull out the stick, insert into another computer and boot kernel B and run them simultaneously. No HDDs needed. I might do a writeup; some users have done writeups on "disk-less" in the distant past. I have some simplification tricks no one has ever written about. However NetBSD has such great documentation relative to almost every other project and the developers tend to be "quietly competent" in the best way. It was never a culture of "HOW-TO's" as you will find in Linux. Studying the source and following source-changes and other mailing lists is better than any writeup, IMO. It is like the old saw about teaching a man to fish. It is worth learning. Things do not change in NetBSD so fast or dramatically that what you have learnt will be later considered "obsolete".
- lovelyviking 6y ago
  I would agree that following source-changes is better then any writeups if there is time and dedication. I like the culture you describe and it could fit very well with the way I like to do things. I use those “how to” just as quick tutorial to get into the new topics and then I go deeper. It is easier to learn when you actually do something and if there is no person around who can introduce me into the topic properly which is much faster and better of course then I use some “how-to” for that. Writeups can help too so if you know some good ones it’s worth mentioning.

1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago

Note I did all the experiments many years ago, on i386, and using NetBSD's venerable bootloader. For the Pi, some things will differ obviously. Not only does this type of setup give freedom for experiments (which NetBSD really does in general) but it makes expts easier. You can put multiple different kernels on the USB stick and reboot into each of them to test pros and cons of different release versions and/or configurations. Or you might boot one computer with kernel A, pull out the stick, insert into another computer and boot kernel B and run them simultaneously. No HDDs needed. I might do a writeup; some users have done writeups on "disk-less" in the distant past. I have some simplification tricks no one has ever written about. However NetBSD has such great documentation relative to almost every other project and the developers tend to be "quietly competent" in the best way. It was never a culture of "HOW-TO's" as you will find in Linux. Studying the source and following source-changes and other mailing lists is better than any writeup, IMO. It is like the old saw about teaching a man to fish. It is worth learning. Things do not change in NetBSD so fast or dramatically that what you have learnt will be later considered "obsolete".

lovelyviking 6y ago
I would agree that following source-changes is better then any writeups if there is time and dedication. I like the culture you describe and it could fit very well with the way I like to do things. I use those “how to” just as quick tutorial to get into the new topics and then I go deeper. It is easier to learn when you actually do something and if there is no person around who can introduce me into the topic properly which is much faster and better of course then I use some “how-to” for that. Writeups can help too so if you know some good ones it’s worth mentioning.