NetBSD is an open-source, Unix-like operating system known for its portability, lightweight design, and robustness across a wide array of hardware platforms. Initially released in 1993, NetBSD was one of the first open-source operating systems based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) lineage, alongside FreeBSD and OpenBSD. NetBSD’s development has been led by a collaborative community and is particularly recognized for its “clean” and well-documented codebase, a factor that has made it a popular choice among users interested in systems programming and cross-platform compatibility.
↫ André Machado
I’m not really sure what to make of this article, since it mostly reads like an advertisement for NetBSD, but considering NetBSD is one of the lesser-talked about variants of an operating system family that already sadly plays second fiddle to the Linux behemoth, I don’t think giving it some additional attention is really hurting anybody. The article is still gives a solid overview of the history and strengths of NetBSD, which makes it a good introduction.
I have personally never tried NetBSD, but it’s on my list of systems to try out on my PA-RISC workstation since from what I’ve heard it’s the only BSD which can possibly load up X11 on the Visualize FX10pro graphics card it has (OpenBSD can only boot to a console on this GPU). While I could probably coax some cobbled-together Linux installation into booting X11 on it, where’s the fun in that?
Do any of you lovely readers use NetBSD for anything? FreeBSD and even OpenBSD are quite well represented as general purpose operating systems in the kinds of circles we all frequent, but I rarely hear about people using NetBSD other than explicitly because it supports some outdated, arcane architecture in 2024.
It would surprise many how pervasive is *BSD code. The BSD license is much more business-friendly and permissive than GPL version *. although arguably less effective in furthering the objectives of much of the Free Software community (due to the ability to take added code private).
MS Windows famously used some BSD code in the TCP stack back in the NT days. Many of the “set top boxes” provided by cable and Internet providers ran or still run *BSD as the base OS.
The goal of NetBSD to run on pretty every platform is a noble endeavor that must be respected: It is powerful force to make FOSS an option on those platforms, while also enhancing the business possibilities of those platforms.
And yet it always seems to be toasters that get the most support
Naturally, on everything as the main OS. 🙂
The most common uses of NetBSD are probably in education and by Japanese ISPs. The thin clients at Cambridge University run it, and pkgsrc is quite popular in scientific computing.
It seems like they have embedded systems focus, which could explain those use cases.
That being said, pfSense / OPNsense is based on FreeBSD and works fine on resource constrained systems. (Our definition of “resource constrained” could of course be different).
NetBSD development doesn’t have a specific focus on the embedded systems. NetBSD is general purpose OS and it can be used from small devices to modern powerful systems, including as desktop or server OS, given drivers are available for the hardware. I think portability focus and support for ancient hardware played a bit disservice on how the system goals are perceived outside the community. It is a goal to keep code portable, however it is not the goal to focus on ancient (or embedded) systems only. In fact, some ancient ports have more of experimental status (and may not even boot) or maintained by few dedicated developers, main focus is still to support modern hardware I would say… Issues are a bit different, modern GPUs support is likely trailing behind other BSDs for example, lack of development resources (more contributors would be really welcome), etc. pkgsrc is also a different story :), because it goes beyond NetBSD.
The referenced article is likely not the best imho, very general information which sounds more like summarized wiki page, but still better than nothing :).
A few years ago I built an embedded NetBSD system with the crunchgen toool and replaced the Linux-based firmware on a Linksys router. With the crunchgen tool it was small enough to fit in 32M of flash
Can it do 120hz on a amd system? No?
Ill just wait then, 60 hz is great if that is all you know. Going back, not so much.