3 ms·

freebsd = utility: performance, gnu software compatibility, drivers, closest thing to useful as a desktop (still not very), but almost x86 only openbsd = secur

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 2mo 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 2mo 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 2mo ago
    I used to have about 7 things running on my old laptop running vectorlinux. 600Mhz, 64 MB, 7GB.
bitwize 2mo 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 2mo ago
[dead]

raddan 2mo 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 2mo 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 2mo ago
  I used to have about 7 things running on my old laptop running vectorlinux. 600Mhz, 64 MB, 7GB.

bitwize 2mo 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 2mo ago

[dead]