NetBSD?

[kevCast]

I've been jumping around the internet, trying to desperately find some solid information and support forums for NetBSD. But alas, hardly anything comes up. Even it's relevance on bsdforums.org has wained. I don't understand though, why does no one show this distro love? It's wonderful for embedded systems, old oddball computers, and messing around with. To me, it has the most charm out of all the BSD derivatives.

What are your thoughts?

[Bachstelze]

Support for the BSD OSes is mostly provided through mailing-lists (this hols for FreeBSD and OpenBSD as well).

[theonlyrealperson]

I also tend to have good luck with Linux Questions (http://www.linuxquestions.org/) and Google BSD (http://www.google.com/bsd)

[kevCast]

Even then though, not many in the BSD crowd seem to huddle around NetBSD, most seem to drift toward FreeBSD or OpenBSD. Are those two better?

[scottro]

Well, better for who? :)

NetBSD is nice. It's somewhat slower (in my experience) than FreeBSD.

It has very clean code, it's pkgsrc package management has been adapted in a few places--a few Linux distributions use (or used it, I forget their names and don't know if they're still around). DragonFlyBSD adapted it.

Programmers tend to admire it because of its clean code base.

It does get less publicity than the other too--OpenBSD is famous for being inherently secure, FreeBSD is the first and probably most popular.
Being able to run on anything (but actually, I think Debian either beats or ties it now) isn't as cool as being super fast or super secure.

The rather quiet bsdnexus.com forums have a few real NetBSD lovers.
As for bsdforums--I assume you're talking about the freebsdforums site--most of us are more or less abandoning it due to the spam problems which I'm sure you've noticed. (Though that may soon be fixed, hopefully.)

If you have NetBSD questions, I'd say that right now, bsdnexus.com's forums are your best bet.

[D-EJ915]

NetBSD is ported for a wide variety of applications...so it is better if that is your need, BSD OSes are interesting is that they are kind of geared toward certain "features" and don't compete much with each other for those "features."

[stream303]

Even it's relevance on bsdforums.org has wained.

Every time I go there is see quite a few new posts. What can throw new viewers off is if they see that 2-year old home page, and not look at the forums. :)

http://www.bsdforums.org/forums/


I don't understand though, why does no one show this distro love? It's wonderful for embedded systems, old oddball computers, and messing around with. To me, it has the most charm out of all the BSD derivatives.

I think NetBSD can get overlooked since it doesn't have any eye-catching attributes like hard-core security (openbsd) or server speed (freebsd), yet if you configure it right, NetBSD can have many of those very same attributes! NetBSD is so general purpose, that I think it can get overlooked. I think some might equate general purpose with lack of quality - and that is totally wrong.

For the most part, the NetBSD users that I've met have been very low-key, and maybe they prefer it that way. :)

Funny thing - if it wasn't for the ATT / Berkeley lawsuit happening at the same time as Linus was gearing up, we might have all been running a *BSD today....

[jnbek]

NetBSD is a great flavor of BSD, It great strong point is it will run on anything from a super mainframe in the Pentagon to your wristwatch and it can turn your toaster into an mp3 player. It has all the toys of the other two, Packet Filter firewall/NAT from OpenBSD, the stability of FreeBSD and everything in between. NetBSD tends to be overlooked becuase it's a no nonesense set it up once and forget it type of system, where most of us are geeks who like to play with things and break things... If you really want support forums check out http://www.nabble.com/NetBSD-f12288.html Enjoy :)