Re: What makes NetBSD special?

[Andy Ruhl <acruhl%gmail.com@localhost>]

On Sun, Jul 31, 2011 at 1:47 PM, Daniel Carrera <dcarrera%gmail.com@localhost> 
wrote:
> So, what I'm looking for is the difference in actual usage. For example, I

There isn't much difference in actual use. It's some minor differences
in package management for the most part.

The difference for the lay person is functionality and supported
hardware. NetBSD is ahead as far as number of platforms, but FreeBSD
has all of the really popular ones as far as I remember. FreeBSD also
has support for ZFS which some people consider important.

This is what makes NetBSD totally worth it to me:

cvs -d <cvs server> update -PAd -r<release you're using> src
cd src
./build.sh release

Then you can install/upgrade your OS from that. It's so easy to
maintain the OS. I know others strive for this simplicity, but they
aren't quite there yet in my opinion.

I was using NetBSD on a Cobalt in "production" for years up until the
hardware started getting flaky. You can do that with Linux, but you
can't do it with another BSD. I'm trying to switch to a Seagate
Dockstar (Sheevaplug), and it's mostly working so far. Only FreeBSD is
close, but it's still pretty hokey to get it working compared to
NetBSD. There is 1 person working on FreeBSD for this device, and
they've got their work cut out. The NetBSD port mostly "just works". I
like this.

Andy