[midmagico]

Maybe in the 1990s. Now, try getting it running even on a network edge platform like those from Netgate. NetBSD's hardware support is singularly unstable and unusable.

Most new platforms port to Linux, commit drivers to the Linux kernel, and ignore the other platforms. The other platforms don't really seem to bother anymore, unfortunately. Things have bit-rotted to such an extent that FS will destroy large amounts of data and.. nobody seems to notice. Kernel panic reports are ignored. Debuggers fail to set functional breakpoints on native hardware. CPU quirks that need workaround to prevent panics are never committed.

Meanwhile, developing this kind of expertise is about as far from the minds of younger experimenters and hackers now as baking cakes and permaculture gardening were from the 00s hardware hackers decades ago. Not only is it far from the minds of younger experimenters, but even attempting to develop it hits a hard wall of hardcore, draconian behavioural purists, secops fashionistas who deride essentially any burgeoning attempts at writing drivers, and language revolutionaries who rage extensively at people for writing any new code in any language but their own favourite.

The situation is pretty harsh and it's likely not going to get any better anytime soon.