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Awesome! Two things: 1) “We were” (sorry I had to do it). 2) Why NetBSD? Why not FreeBSD or Debian or heck even Ubuntu Server or RHEL/CentOS (forgot it was 2

by eahm 1mo ago

Awesome! Two things: 1) “We were” (sorry I had to do it). 2) Why NetBSD? Why not FreeBSD or Debian or heck even Ubuntu Server or RHEL/CentOS (forgot it was 2005)? Glad you got the spend more time with the family!

clort 1mo ago
As to why, Gary didn't say.. or even contribute again, so we could surmise it was a made-up name to make sure the company he worked for wasn't identified, but some of the replies to his mail went into more detail about why they did, you can find them here https://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-advocacy/2005/09/ https://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-advocacy/2005/09/
Brian_K_White 1mo ago
freebsd = utility: performance, gnu software compatibility, drivers, closest thing to useful as a desktop (still not very), but almost x86 only openbsd = security: internet exposed services netbsd = portability: already ported / most easily portable to every cpu arch & platform including old and new obscure ones. If you want a big-endian os for whatever academic reason, it's netbsd on an old sun sparc or pi3. I had an HP Jornada that had a SH3 cpu and shipped with wince, the only alternative os on that was netbsd.
- raddan 1mo ago
  NetBSD runs beautifully (but not quickly) on a 32-bit Raspberry Pi Zero. I hosted a mail server on that platform for about 7 years. I absolutely love how spare the system is when you start it up. You don’t even get a fancy shell, just sh. Running top on a new system is hilarious. It’s like init, your shell, and something else.
  - bitwize 1mo ago
    Linux was not quite that spare, but pretty spare when I first started using it (1995). I liked watching the text crawl while the kernel brought itself, init, and a few daemons up; and having to type "startx" to even get into a graphical environment (and even that was just fvwm). It was... cyberpunk. I can't think of any other way to describe the aesthetic, the feel, of early Linux. All these bits and bobs written by many hands yet somehow working together, none of them beholden to how some corporate overlord felt I should be using my computer. I became aware of the suck of proprietary software even in 1995. NetBSD is a lot like this, still even today. I love working with/in/on it.
    - exe34 1mo ago
      I used to have about 7 things running on my old laptop running vectorlinux. 600Mhz, 64 MB, 7GB.
- bitwize 1mo ago
  The sloppotrons are getting confused about old hardware support in the Linux kernel, so the kernel maintainers are simply removing it. NetBSD's portability is at significantly lower risk of being compromised like this, not least because the project bans sloppotrons outright. We may yet see a resurgence of NetBSD as "the OS for your toaster".
- inkyoto 1mo ago
  [dead]
jambalaya8 1mo ago
Or gentoo. Gentoo was pretty good around then, great to hack around with.
n4r9 1mo ago
> 1) “We were” (sorry I had to do it). He might be from around London

by eahm 1mo ago

clort 1mo ago

As to why, Gary didn't say.. or even contribute again, so we could surmise it was a made-up name to make sure the company he worked for wasn't identified, but some of the replies to his mail went into more detail about why they did, you can find them here https://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-advocacy/2005/09/ https://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-advocacy/2005/09/

Brian_K_White 1mo ago

freebsd = utility: performance, gnu software compatibility, drivers, closest thing to useful as a desktop (still not very), but almost x86 only openbsd = security: internet exposed services netbsd = portability: already ported / most easily portable to every cpu arch & platform including old and new obscure ones. If you want a big-endian os for whatever academic reason, it's netbsd on an old sun sparc or pi3. I had an HP Jornada that had a SH3 cpu and shipped with wince, the only alternative os on that was netbsd.

raddan 1mo ago
NetBSD runs beautifully (but not quickly) on a 32-bit Raspberry Pi Zero. I hosted a mail server on that platform for about 7 years. I absolutely love how spare the system is when you start it up. You don’t even get a fancy shell, just sh. Running top on a new system is hilarious. It’s like init, your shell, and something else.
- bitwize 1mo ago
  Linux was not quite that spare, but pretty spare when I first started using it (1995). I liked watching the text crawl while the kernel brought itself, init, and a few daemons up; and having to type "startx" to even get into a graphical environment (and even that was just fvwm). It was... cyberpunk. I can't think of any other way to describe the aesthetic, the feel, of early Linux. All these bits and bobs written by many hands yet somehow working together, none of them beholden to how some corporate overlord felt I should be using my computer. I became aware of the suck of proprietary software even in 1995. NetBSD is a lot like this, still even today. I love working with/in/on it.
  - exe34 1mo ago
    I used to have about 7 things running on my old laptop running vectorlinux. 600Mhz, 64 MB, 7GB.
bitwize 1mo ago
The sloppotrons are getting confused about old hardware support in the Linux kernel, so the kernel maintainers are simply removing it. NetBSD's portability is at significantly lower risk of being compromised like this, not least because the project bans sloppotrons outright. We may yet see a resurgence of NetBSD as "the OS for your toaster".
inkyoto 1mo ago
[dead]

jambalaya8 1mo ago

Or gentoo. Gentoo was pretty good around then, great to hack around with.

n4r9 1mo ago

> 1) “We were” (sorry I had to do it). He might be from around London