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by bch 3907 days ago
I am, and love it.

It's not without flaws, but it's compelling enough that I live with its shortcomings.

What do I like ?

1) One codebase that supports 57 targets. This code is well exercised.

2) Nice balance of conservatism and progressiveness. Seems well-rooted in tradition, but still progressive/interesting with things like the RUMP kernels[0], Lua kernel interface[1], etc.

3) Plays well with others. It's probably out-and-about more than people realize. I once had a printer that had NetBSD as its OS. Original Apple airport units[2] were NetBSD (as is a good amount of MacOS X userland[3], apparently) -- but as an explicit product (i.e.: using it directly by choice), it's nice, and it interacts well enough with other systems as well. It's got a simple httpd in the base, and ftpd, ssh, etc for swapping files in/out in an emergency. It will read FAT filesystems, or ext2,3(,4?), it runs firefox, etc. (admittedly, I don't care too much about high-level end-user software, and depending on what you think you need, you might be better served elsewhere -- including moving to Windows or MacOS X).

4) I've used NetBSD as my principle OS since 1.6 (2002). It has supported my work, taught me things, and kept my interest. If you're interested in seeing what it's about, you should install it and give it a good try.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rump_kernel

[1] https://www.netbsd.org/gallery/presentations/mbalmer/fosdem2...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4117803

[3] http://www.netbsd.org/gallery/products.html#darwin

2 comments

Thanks for the informative reply. One thing I don't quite know: what is the package ecosystem like? Are packages generally up to date? Do people usually install from source, or use binaries?
OK, what is laptop support like? I may try a test install over the weekend.
I've historically run on Thinkpads.

I've had accelerated Intel integrated gfx, working wireless (Intel Centrino 4965/5000/1000, 1000/2000/6000, 7260/7265/3160), tuneable CPU frequency...

If you've got the luxury of some medium that you can do a test install on, just do it. The install is text-based and really simple, so you shouldn't get hung up there. I assume you'll want X11, so you'll run "X -configure" to generate an xorg.conf. Grab the pkgsrc[0] framework to build 3rd party apps from source, or, use pkg_add(1)[1] (I don't know what's currently available for NetBSD7 in terms of pre-built packages; quick check shows at least some packages are, and they're _probably_ the most popular ones)

#netbsd on freenode.net IRC is your friend, too.

Good luck!

[0] https://www.pkgsrc.org/

[1] http://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/current/pkgsrc/README-all.h...

Thanks for reply. I shall indeed try an install and see what I can get from pkg_add. OpenBSD works fine with suspend functionality on the X61s.
Ya, OpenBSD has done some pretty remarkable work on the laptop front, and I find it interesting, because it's not where I would have guessed they'd be interested. They're leaders in the accelerated gfx and wireless. I'm used to thinking of the project being more focused on hardening applications. Certainly NetBSD has benefited from the work done in Open, by way of the famous *BSD cross-pollination.

I hope you enjoy Net even a fraction as much as I do.

  > Ya, OpenBSD has done some pretty remarkable work on the
  > laptop front, and I find it interesting, because it's not
  > where I would have guessed they'd be interested.
My guess is this stems from the very strong dogfooding culture the OpenBSD devs seem to have. If most/all of them are running OpenBSD on their main systems, and some subset of those folks use laptops as their main systems, then I am sure they are motivated to make it not a shit experience.
OpenBSD with xfce4 and toad for user mounting of USB sticks is most useable as a desktop on a core-duo thinkpad.