4 ms·

For someone used to Linux, what are the selling points of NetBSD?

by frr149 5y ago

bluGill 5y ago
TL;DR: Odds are though if you installed NetBSD, once you got past the learning curve (less than a week) it is about as different from any Linux as Debian is from Fedora - enough things to be annoying, but not enough that you notice most of the time. Big is it runs on nearly anything. If you like odd/rare computers netBSD is probably the only modern operating system choice you have. Collectors like it. As do people who run an environment of mix computers [for whatever reason] as the common OS makes it easier to remember the obscure options of whatever program they use. If you stick to the common x86-64 systems Linux is going to have better driver support and more optimizations (some of those optimizations would be a pessimization on something else - a tradeoff Linux can make but netBSD cannot), and of course Linux has the most mind share and so there are a number of programs that won't work though nothing very common. I would have put ARM in the list of ones Linux is better on because odds are you are interested in one of those - but ARM has lots of obscure variants and so there is a chance NetBSD works better there. Long ago it was said that BSD is for those who love unix, Linux for those who hate Windows. While the tone has moderated a bit over the years, there is still some truth to the idea that BSD sticks closer to the unix roots (whatever they are).
washbear 5y ago
Aside from the obvious BSD things (clean separation of base and third-party software, very different networking stack, etc), notable NetBSD things include a lot more security and hardening features enabled by default, a powerful and versatile default package manager (https://pkgsrc.org/ https://pkgsrc.org/), very good support for ARM (all 'mainline', etc). The NPF firewall is also quite nice.
- throw0101a 5y ago
  > a powerful and versatile package manager (https://pkgsrc.org/ https://pkgsrc.org/) That's multi-platform as well. If you want/need the same packages on Linux, macOS, other, then you can use the same code on all of those platforms. No needs to worry about using {Homebrew, Macports} on your Mac and {Deb, RPM} on your Linux infrastructure.
  - guerrilla 5y ago
    A long time ago I maintained my own Linux from Scratch [1] installation using pkgsrc rather than BLFS or something ad hoc. It worked surprisingly well. It was a bit like Gentoo (whih is what I had migrated from.) Fun times! [1] https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/ https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/
jmclnx 5y ago
One neat thing is the rump kernel. I had a very old DOS formatted diskette and when I tried to mount it on Linux, FreeBSD and got a panic. NetBSD just came out with rump and I did some reading and gave it a try. I was able to mount after a couple of attempts and copy about 90 % of the Text File (a large file). No panics except under rump, but main system was happily moving along.
- anthk 5y ago
  How does that work? I would like to see an example.
  - jmclnx 5y ago
    That was a while ago, but docs were great and easy to follow. I have not needed to try rump in a while so all forgotten.
LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
Lean and mean!

For someone used to Linux, what are the selling points of NetBSD?

by frr149 5y ago

For someone used to Linux, what are the selling points of NetBSD?

TL;DR: Odds are though if you installed NetBSD, once you got past the learning curve (less than a week) it is about as different from any Linux as Debian is from Fedora - enough things to be annoying, but not enough that you notice most of the time. Big is it runs on nearly anything. If you like odd/rare computers netBSD is probably the only modern operating system choice you have. Collectors like it. As do people who run an environment of mix computers [for whatever reason] as the common OS makes it easier to remember the obscure options of whatever program they use. If you stick to the common x86-64 systems Linux is going to have better driver support and more optimizations (some of those optimizations would be a pessimization on something else - a tradeoff Linux can make but netBSD cannot), and of course Linux has the most mind share and so there are a number of programs that won't work though nothing very common. I would have put ARM in the list of ones Linux is better on because odds are you are interested in one of those - but ARM has lots of obscure variants and so there is a chance NetBSD works better there. Long ago it was said that BSD is for those who love unix, Linux for those who hate Windows. While the tone has moderated a bit over the years, there is still some truth to the idea that BSD sticks closer to the unix roots (whatever they are).

washbear 5y ago

Aside from the obvious BSD things (clean separation of base and third-party software, very different networking stack, etc), notable NetBSD things include a lot more security and hardening features enabled by default, a powerful and versatile default package manager (https://pkgsrc.org/ https://pkgsrc.org/), very good support for ARM (all 'mainline', etc). The NPF firewall is also quite nice.

throw0101a 5y ago
> a powerful and versatile package manager (https://pkgsrc.org/ https://pkgsrc.org/) That's multi-platform as well. If you want/need the same packages on Linux, macOS, other, then you can use the same code on all of those platforms. No needs to worry about using {Homebrew, Macports} on your Mac and {Deb, RPM} on your Linux infrastructure.
- guerrilla 5y ago
  A long time ago I maintained my own Linux from Scratch [1] installation using pkgsrc rather than BLFS or something ad hoc. It worked surprisingly well. It was a bit like Gentoo (whih is what I had migrated from.) Fun times! [1] https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/ https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/

jmclnx 5y ago

One neat thing is the rump kernel. I had a very old DOS formatted diskette and when I tried to mount it on Linux, FreeBSD and got a panic. NetBSD just came out with rump and I did some reading and gave it a try. I was able to mount after a couple of attempts and copy about 90 % of the Text File (a large file). No panics except under rump, but main system was happily moving along.

anthk 5y ago
How does that work? I would like to see an example.
- jmclnx 5y ago
  That was a while ago, but docs were great and easy to follow. I have not needed to try rump in a while so all forgotten.

LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago

Lean and mean!