NetBSD
A free (as in freedom) UNIX-like system from the BSD family, that first appeared publicly on April 20th, 1993 (NetBSD 0.8). It is recognized for its outstanding portability.
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Pic 1. NetBSD - random desktop
Portability — Of course it runs NetBSD
NetBSD is recognized for its portability. The source code is divided into two layers: machine dependent and machine independent. Porting NetBSD to another platform requires a rewrite of the dependent layer only. The functions implemented in the machine-independent layer are automatically available for all supported architectures. Drivers are bundled in the two frameworks: Machine independent driver framework and Machine independent audio framework. This feature also improves portability. All mentioned features make NetBSD the most portable OS on the planet. By the way, recently, it has been deployed on a toaster :-) NetBSD's selling phrase is "Of course it runs NetBSD".
Security
The security level is very high. Both system and pkgsrc vulnerability database are regularly updated.
One can activate CGD (CryptoGraphic Disk Driver), to enable encryption of data transfer when writing and reading from HDD. More information can be found in guide and in Inside NetBSD's CGD article. A combination of CGD and Vnode Disk Driver called CGF (CryptoGraphicFile) is also possible to set up. This can be useful for notebook systems.
Additionally there is a possibility to use a sysjail tool which is designed to be close FreeBSD jails replacement.
Some interesting comparisons between NetBSD and other systems in terms of security can be found in the Wikipedia entry: Comparison of operating systems (security). And here are the NetBSD security statistics by Secunia. Many NetBSD's security features is described in Recent Security Enhancements in NetBSD article.
Pkgsrc package system
In contrast to the FreeBSD and OpenBSD, in the NetBSD terminology word "port" means platform and has nothing to do with ports collection. In NetBSD pkgsrc is called Packages Collection (in short or The NetBSD Packages Collection in full). pkgsrc allow you to install the additional software directly from the source code. The advantage is ability to customize all settings to one's preferences. The disadvantage is sometimes long compilation time, especially for such big programs like KDE or GNOME. Installing software is trivial. All you have to do is go to a proper directory in pkgsrc and type make install (for example: # cd /usr/pkgsrc/wm/ratpoison/; make install for installing ratpoison window manager).
Precompiled binary packages do not give us such flexibility, but installation time is much shorter (installing ratpoison is as simple as # pkg_add -v ratpoison, provided that PKG_PATH variable is set). In both cases, dependencies are automatically resolved. Pkgsrc is of course a multiplatform application.
Currently there is more than 7000 packages available for NetBSD. Including wip (work in progress) packages, which are not yet finished but usable, the total number of packages is increasing to more than 9000.
Pkgsrc installation time can be shortened by downloading and unpacking pkgsrc.tar.gz file (current version) or pkgsrc-2008Q1.tar.gz file (stable version) to /usr. Regular pkgsrc updating is important.
Documentation
Like all major BSD flavors, NetBSD is very well documented. A good place to start with is the documentation page of the project.
After installation
After installing NetBSD, it is worth to read the manual for afterboot which contains lots of information useful for new users. Performing the software update is a good idea as well.
After the first and the second boot-up, we can start full customization.
If you need some commercial support for NetBSD — it's available as well.
External NetBSD resources
- Official NetBSD website
- NetBSD Security Advisories
- Description on Wikipedia
- NetBSD@DistroWatch
- NetBSD@OnLamp
- Get to know NetBSD
- NetBSD: Not Just for Toasters
- Unofficial graphical installers: ECBSD, OFInst
- Alternative logos of NetBSD
- NetBSD gadgets
- SUNET Internet2 Land Speed Record: 69.073 Pbmps
- The NetBSD Project's roadmap
- NetBSD SMP status
News
- NetBSD news@DistroWatch
- NetBSD Events
- NetBSD Events Gallery
- Current events — wiki
- planet.NetBSD.se — BSD News Watcher
- NetBSD News Beat
- The NetBSD CVS Digest
- #NetBSD Community Blog
- Hubert Feyrer's blog
- What Do You Want?
- unsigned long geek = random();
- Odds and ends
- The Julipedia
- Quarterly Report: January — June 2007
- Status Report 2006/Q2 — Q4
Documentation, guides and tips
- Documentation for: users, developers
- The pkgsrc guide
- NetBSD Wiki
- UBC: An Efficient Unified I/O and Memory Caching Subsystem
- An Implementation of Scheduler Activations
- An Implementation of User-level Restartable Atomic Sequences
- Splash screen boot HOWTO
- PF loadable kernel module for NetBSD 2
- The NetBSD Xen Guide
- Debugging NetBSD kernel with qemu
- A Few NetBSD Tips for the FreeBSD User
Software
- Application Software for NetBSD
- NetBSD Binary Emulation
- pkgsrc snapshots (stable and current)
- pkgsrc.se
- pkgsrc statistics
- pkgsrc-wip.sourceforge.net
- CD with packages for NetBSD 4.0 (i386) and MD5 control sum, list of packages
- Keeping pkgsrc packages up to date
- How to upgrade packages
Help, forums, community
- NetBSD subforums: BSDForums, KernelTrap, Nabble Forums, BSDnexus
- forum.netbsd.se
- Mailing lists
- Archive of mailing lists
Derivative works and LiveCD
- NetBSD LiveCD NetBSD Live! 2007
- Unofficial LiveCDs: Jibbed, polyBSD, NAMP, wifiBSD
- NetBSD LiveKey — for USB stick
- 1.44MB floppy disk versions: fdgw, g4u — Harddisk Image Cloning for PCs
- sBSD — compact flash version
- Debian GNU/NetBSD
- Buy CD in Linux CD
Reviews
- 4.0: www.internetnews.com
- 2.0: NewsForge
- 1.6.2: OSNews, ServerWatch
- 1.5.2: NewsForge
- NetBSD vs. OpenBSD: out-of-box experience
- Observations and Comparison with Linux Porting Efforts
- NetBSD Multimedia Resources List
Interviews
- Hubert Feyrer: netbsd-pt.org, Daemon News
- Joachim Schueth, Iain Hibbert, Christos Zoulas, Elad Efrat, Charles M. Hannum, Daniel Sieger
- bsdtalk: Sidsel Jensen, Lubomir Sedlacik, Jeff Rizzo, Johnny Lam
- How to get world-class SMP performance with NetBSD, by ad and rmind
- 10 years of pkgsrc!, 10 years of pkgsrc! (part 2)
- Pkgsrc on non-NetBSD
Download
- 4.0: i386, amd64 and MD5 control sums
- List of the NetBSD mirrors
- NetBSD BitTorrents
- Unofficial current ISO images
- Get NetBSD — downloading summary
Screenshots
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6 Comments
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Hello Guys
I am still having problem in having my NetBSD works. Please if you have any simple tutorial that I can read please kindly send it to me.
All I am trying to do is to have i386 on my pentium III machine. I also want to have X windows on it. I have no problem with partitioning and using my DHCP procedure.
The major problem that I am facing is how to continue the packages for the X windows. I keep on getting error whenever I intend to buid a package.
I have installed pkgsrc into my machine.
Do I still need libraries and gcc compiler or alike ??
Please let me know.
Thanks
Matt
@Matt
You probably have NetBSD 3.0.1 and try to use packages built for NetBSD 3.0 (pkgsrc-2006Q2 branch). Solution: if You have NetBSD 3.0.1, use only sources from pkgsrc (not packages for NetBSD 3.0 release). You may also install older NetBSD 3.0 and use packages for it, however because of security reasons, it is not recommended. Or You can also may wait for NetBSD 3.1 and precompiled packages for it…
@Matt
Try to install new NetBSD 3.1 and during installation choose ALL distribution sets (You will get all necessary tools and X-Window, however HDD consumption will not be very big). Then checkout pkgsrc 2006Q3 or pkgsrc-current. Then try to install Fluxbox/KDE/GNOME etc.
Hi,
“In the NetBSD such tool is named package collection or pkgsrc.”
In NetBSD pkgsrc is called Packages Collection (in short or The NetBSD Packages Collection in full).
Regards,
P2O2
Thanks Przemysław. fixed.
NeTBSD \o/ I am brazilian, i use NetBSD.