Jan Schaumann announced that the second NetBSD Quarterly Status Report for 2004 is now available online. It covers the major recent developments within the NetBSD project during April, May, June.
Second NetBSD Quarterly Status Report for 2004
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I’ve been using NetBSD (Currently 2.0F) on my server (sparc64) and my desktop (i386) for a while now, and it’s definitly my favorite OS of time. (Other than Dr. DOS of course
) I started using it before I had a sparc box off and on during my “OS testing frenzy days” (1.5.2), and liked it back then. If you havn’t tried it because its just “portable”, you should take it for a spin. I tried it after the other BSD’s because I always thought – “I only use i386, so it is of no use to me”. I was wrong. Its clean, small, organized, pkgsrc kicks ass, stable and secure. There isn’t and cruft and very nice box to learn on. If your not a big unix dork, just read the NetBSD guide for a bit and you should be fine.
Can’t wait for the new logo!
-adam
Is it possible to use the Xserver from X.org instead of XFree86 in NetBSD? Also, what’s the difference between the Xservers in xsrc and pkgsrc?
As it stands now, X.org is not supported by NetBSD. The Xservers in xrc is generally the “older” version that was shipped with the -release at the time and the pkgsrc version is generally more up-to-date.
And yes, NetBSD is an awesome OS, whether it be as a server or a desktop.
The Xservers in xrc is generally the “older” version that was shipped with the -release
Well, if you are using an old (binary) release, you of course get an old Xserver. However, NetBSD xsrc is not tagged and branched for different NetBSD releases, as the main src tree is.
So if you grab the source, either for -current or -release, and also grab xsrc, you always get the latest NetBSD xsrc. And NetBSD xsrc has been following XFree very actively for a couple of years now. And current xsrc is 4.4 (with local patches and fixes), so it is by no means “old”.
Xorg can be cleanly compiled on NetBSD from official sources (got at freedesktop.org). It works for me on NetBSD 1.6.1/i 386. Additionally Xorg can utilize binary driver modules made for XFree86 4.0.2-4.4.0 on any i386 unix platform. (E.g. drivers for matrox GXXX cards made for linux work on NetBSD with Xorg)
Well, I’m anxiously waiting for the Release Candidates for NetBSD-2.0. I’ve tried -current for fun and there are really noticeable performance improvements to 1.6.2. But -current is for experienced users, who can deal with the occasional “hiccups”, so I’ll just stick to the official releases.
Also seeing the winner for the logo design competition will be quite exciting — according to this report it will be announced on the project’s website “by the end of the month”. A groovy logo can do much to advocate NetBSD for potential new users.
These Quarterly Status Reports make interesting reading for occasional users, like myself, who don’t have time or energy to track what goes on in mailing lists.
You should go try 2.0F snapshot. Just burn the necessary files and use the boot image to boot. Very easy, and runs great.
-adam
Says in the Status Report:
Currently there are still a handful of bugs that need to be resolved before a first Release Candidate (ie NetBSD-2.0_RC1) can be tagged.
Actually I’ve already burned the 2.0F snapshot on CD, but haven’t yet installed it. I assume that the “handful of bugs” are related to building NetBSD from source, so it may make sense to install the snapshot binaries and to download src after 2.0_RC1 is announced.
I am looking forward to the 2.0 release myself namely for the Alpha platform and hopefully decent SMP support. I could never find clear instructions on how to build a SMP Kernel for 1.6.X i386 on the NetBSD website.
netbsd upgraded (eg via cvs) from the 1.6.2 compiles fine… and works fine for me… i’ve been serving from it for weeks with no issues.