“NetBSD runs on more hardware platforms than any other UNIX derivative due to smart design decisions and a commitment to portable code. Whether you’re porting an operating system to a proprietary embedded system or looking for stability and compatibility across hardware platforms in the lab, NetBSD and its open license is a compelling alternative to Linux and the GNU Public License.”
> NetBSD’s small footprint, ease of portability, and BSD
> license make it a perfect choice for embedded systems.
…provided the CPU/MCU has a MMU.
Linux 2.6 kernel can run on MMUless CPU/MCUs.
I know there exists last year a proposal for a google summer code project to porting NetBSD kernel to MMUless CPUs but it remanied only a proposal (as far as I remember).
Sooooo… respond to an article about BSD (which makes no mention of any drawbacks of other operating systems) by throwing in “but linux is better because” comments.
Comments on OSNews are in rare form today.
Edited 2006-08-30 19:53
In defense of the OP, he does mention the prospect of NEtBSD on mmu-less systems.
Actually, you can probably blame Greg Kroh-Hartman for this style of attack.
In fact, looking at the number of fires he’s started already, I suspect that a number of us are going to rue the day that the name Greg Kroh-Hartman bacame well known.
I fear he might push things to the point that Linux has no wireless support at all. 🙁
That’d certainly make OpenBSD more attractive, and NetBSD might be in a good position to capitalize on that.
Yes, he does, I guess I am just touchy today. Sorry.
“All three BSD versions have strong points, with FreeBSD leading the way in user base, OpenBSD leading in security, and NetBSD leading in portability.”
The evolution of FreeBSDs role is quite interesting. It was formerly called the most performant and stable of all BSDs, then, after getting more buggy and also slower, it became the BSD that wants to be Linux and now it’s just the BSD with the largest user base. FreeBSD seems to lack focus these days…
It still seems pretty stable and performant to me.
I can assure you that FreeBSD is the fastest BSD.
Edited 2006-08-31 14:45
Well I wish the netbsd-office guy would make make a new release. I liked what he did and it was simple enough that I did not have to learn anything to have a cool netbsd system. Yes I realize my statements make me lazy and unwilling to learn something else. I am afraid I believe in the GPL and do not want to abandon it also so I feel wrong when I try a bsd product.
that Charles Hannum just posted to netbsd-users telling us that it’s irrelevant
# of Linux Platforms
http://en.tldp.org/HOWTO/User-Group-HOWTO-1.html
# of NetBSD Platforms
http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/
i’m sure you know that linux is just a kernel not a complete system. you can compare netbsd with debian or gentoo but not only with linux. Netbsd runs everywhere without a modification.
i’m sure you know that linux is just a kernel not a complete system. you can compare netbsd with debian or gentoo but not only with linux. Netbsd runs everywhere without a modification.
True. The politically correct term for a complete distribution is GNU/Linux.
Actually I think RMS is moving toward suggesting GNU+LINUX to clarify the meaning a bit. Since it is the GNU operating system (plus) the linux kernel. I think that is more reasonable. Sort of.
“I can assure you that FreeBSD is the fastest BSD.”
It’s a known fact that the 4.x FreeBSD line was more performant than the 5.x and 6.x lines are. At least on UP machines: http://geri.cc.fer.hr/~ivoras/web2/papers/osbench.html
I don’t know about SMP. There’s a lot of talk about SMP scalability, but I don’t know of ANY single benchmark that actually compared SMP performance, let’s say between FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, DragonFlyBSD, OpenSolaris and Linux.
Can you prove your statement for SMP?
btw, I really don’t think these UP performance differences are important at all. But the unproven performance argument in favour of FreeBSD just shows that FreeBSD lacks focus on goals of real importance.
FreeBSD still has superb real-world performance stability. There were some problems with early 5.x releases, but all of those were clearly labeled unstable. On the same system 6.1 has superior performance to 4.11. Since I’ve never seen FreeBSD crash, ever, I can’t comment on any differences in stability.
Whether or not NetBSD or OpenBSD is a smidgeon or iota better in one benchmark versus another is irrelevant.