NetBSD 2.0 RC5 Tagged

ulib writes "NetBSD 2.0_RC5 has now been tagged. Changes since RC4 include fixes to various COMPAT_ emulations, IP Filter backward compatibility fixes, XFree86, pax(1), rsh(1), hp300 boot blocks, pthread fixes for amd64 and i386, documentation updates. Binary snapshots of NetBSD 2.0_RC5 are available in the daily builds directory on the main FTP site."

Re:1 comment?

[wooby]

Posting works. It's morning EST; the nerds slumber. I for one am pumped about 2.0. I'm a recent convert from Linux and I like NetBSD's installer as well as its bloat and crap-free default software arsenal.

With Fluxbox [sourceforge.net], the GNU coreutils, and bash, my P133 makes a reasonable desktop workstation. Though Linux would work, the low hard-drive footprint of a NetBSD install is what makes the installation trouble-free. Comparable modern Linux distros seem to me to take time to whittle down to a sub-300MB install. With NetBSD, the core system with XFree uses only 290.

Re:1 comment?

[peripatetic_bum]

any other reason why I would want to use netbsd instead of freebsd in an x86 machine?

THanks for the tips

Re:1 comment?

[Anonymous Coward]

Better networking in NetBSD. Basically, it boils down to this:

• If you need top of the line security, use OpenBSD.
• If you need a small footprint, use NetBSD.
• If you need to run on an odd architecture, use NetBSD.
• If you need a great BSD operating system, and know that everything you'll use is in NetBSD's package system, use NetBSD.
• If none of the above meet your criteria, use FreeBSD.

Also, FreeBSD has better hardware support than the other BSDs as far as number of supported devices. FreeBSD works wel

Re:1 comment?

[Megaweapon]

Just curious (as I've never installed or maintained any *BSD system): Suppose you have a FreeBSD and lets say a Mandrake workstation setup, complete with XOrg, GNOME, KDE, OpenOffice, etc. Are we talking a substantial bloat increase with the Mandrake setup just because it's "Linux"? Is it more libraries, bigger binaries, more software package dependancies...? Or are you talking a default install of *BSD versus a typical default install of a modern Linux distro?

Re:1 comment?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mandrake

I would recommend FreeBSD over Mandrake, if you're just looking for a non-Windows OS. FreeBSD's configuration takes place via direct manipulation of the text files that control the OS. It's generally not hard to find information on what to twiddle and how, and you end up learning more in the process. Mandrake (and Redhat, the last time I used it) uses GUI frontends to change these text files, and often uses its own nonstandard text files, so that anything you learn won't carry over to another

Re:1 comment?

[Homology]

One man's bloat is another ones needed features :-)

A commercial Linux distribution tends to install more programs and libraries by default than *BSD. On a *BSD it's more common to actually add the different applications you want from the ports system.

Re:1 comment?

[setagllib]

It's more than just base software choices actually. The BSDs have huge amounts of useful base system software, and depending on your needs you can get an amazing lot done without touching a single out-of-tree package. This includes relatively comfortable software development thanks to nvi, gcc/g++/etc, gdb, BSD make, and so on.

The difference comes in when you look at how bloated the software itself is. All the BSDs have libcs that are tiny (a couple of minutes to compile on even my slowest machines) and do everything a C library should, including full networking and everything. The GNU libc, which you'll find on every Linux system by default (there's a diet libc out there, but it isn't recognized), is a HUGE package that takes a very long time to compile and results in a hefty binary in the end. What does all this bloat go towards? Most say it's all because of its attempt at being completely internationalized, but this is hardly enough to warrant about a 10x size increase.

The same idea applies to all other software that wasn't imported from GNU. If you can do the same things smaller and more efficiently, do it that way. There's no point in having 90% of your source appeal to minor features few people will ever use. There's also a strict adherence to tradition where possible - nvi is kept instead of some stripped-down vim-alike (which would have more convenient features, for instance) because people coming from a BSD system a decade ago won't get culture shock. But all the same modern software is a 'make install' away on any of the BSDs.

The bloat difference in the Linux kernel and BSD kernels isn't even worth discussing. It's just not funny any more. Linux has inflated a LOT in recent times. I remember back when some 2.4 was about 25 megs tar.bz2, now look at it - 2.6.9 weighs in at 35 meg. Is it really 40% more functional? Nowhere near. If anything it should be getting smaller, since they insist they're refining to simpler algorithms that should work faster and take less code.

The NetBSD 2.0RC5 src/sys source compresses (bzip2 -9) to 20M, smaller than Linux 2.4 was. Compared to 2.6, it includes most of the same drivers, the same functionality (plus good security), the ability to run Linux binaries natively (and FreeBSD, SVR4, and some others I forgot), a network stack known to be better than Linux', and oh so much more. This source INCLUDES the ports of NetBSD for which Linux needs EXTERNAL patch sets to run on, meaning that this source tree is even more portable. We all know it's more stable, too. Where is the gargantuan (~175%) size of Linux going? It's all pure bloat. And I challenge even one person to come up with something Linux does that NetBSD can't do, and that takes up 15 meg when bzip2-9'd.

Re:1 comment?

[setagllib]

Actually, before some clueless newbie posts saying it's all file systems, take a look at this:

thor linux # pwd /usr/src/linux thor linux # tar -c fs | bzip2 -9 > fs.tar.bz2 thor linux # du -h fs.tar.bz2 2.8M fs.tar.bz2

Not to mention NetBSD supports a few file systems Linux doesn't in-tree (LFS, portalfs, nullfs...), and that many (NFSv3, UFS [NetBSD supports more of it anyway], ext2fs, SMBFS, ...) they have in common. Sorry folks, file systems doesn't answer for it.

Re:1 comment?

[setagllib]

Exactly, see? Good systems don't need code bloat. OpenBSD is yet another system which does what it does very well and obviously efficiently.

Linux doesn't have security, in 2.6 it doesn't even have stability, and performance seems limited to synthetic cases. Why it gets all the attention is beyond me.

BSD: The cathedral versus the bizarre.

Re:1 comment?

[setagllib]

You're right. I should join in and help make Linux a bigger, more 'forward' project.

cd /usr/src/linux
dd if=/dev/urandom of=l33t-new-functionality.c bs=1k count=10k

...and then email the diff to Linus who'll happilly include it. Seems that's how the coding is done, anyway.

Face it man, getting bigger doesn't mean getting better. It still suffers from very significant issues in stability, networking capability, security, and root@life knows how dirty it is in every way, even dmesg. That's what you get wh

Re:1 comment?

[setagllib]

It does not support more architectures in-tree. You need external patches for a great many of them. A person with a clue would know this. NetBSD supports them all in-tree and with mutual inclusion.

LFS is a journalling file system, which NetBSD has. A person with a clue would know this. If you looked at my self-reply post, I pointed out that the difference the Linux file systems makes is roughly "jack shit".

There are also few drivers Linux has the BSDs don't. These are mostly only the 'evil' new cards ma

Re:1 comment?

[TheRaven64]

I can't really comment on NetBSD (I've only run it on some old SPARC32 boxes being used as dumb X terminals - where it is about 50-100% faster than Linux due to appalling SPARC32 MMU code in the Linux kernel). FreeBSD, however includes soft updates which solve the same problem as journaling but without the performance hit of journaling and with fewer buzzwords. FreeBSD also supports background fsck for all except the root partition (which is usually FreeBSD also supports one particularly useful feature wh

Re:1 comment?

[setagllib]

Well log-structuring is said to be the 'more complete journalling' so I didn't figure the distinction would matter as much. Thanks for the extensive description though, that really depicts the differences. Even the online documentation on NetBSD's site didn't go into that much detail.

We need more people like you and less like great grandparent (fellow talking about Linux being the only one with journalling file systems and hence being so bloated, etc).

Re:An RC got tagged

[Piranhaa]

RC's aren't a huge deal (in my opinion anyways), compared to -RELEASES. I'm sure the 2.0-RELEASE will be on the frontpage of slashdot for surely!

Still XFree86 and not X.Org?

[HighOrbit]

Does NetBSD have any plans to migrate? Or do they have a good reason for sticking with XFree86?

Licensing aside

[HighOrbit]

Licensing aside, most of the development seems to be happening at X.Org and that is a good reason to migrate.

Re:Still XFree86 and not X.Org?

[Homology]

Moving to X.org because of licensing isn't a good reason.

It's a _very_ good reason if you don't accept the new license. As it is, NetBSD accepted the new XFree86 license. OpenBSD did not, and has recently imported X.org into -current.

Re:Still XFree86 and not X.Org?

[Ushakov]

The work on X.org support is being done in -current on rtr-xorg-branch [netbsd.org] branch.

How does NetBSD compare to OpenBSD?

[ceallaigh]

I understand the OpenBSD has its origins in NetBSD. I've been using OpenBSD for some time now and was curious if anyone knew any pros/cons of one versus the other. Thanks.

Re:How does NetBSD compare to OpenBSD?

[Piranhaa]

Well I am a big fan of Open and Free BSD's. As soon as I get my iBook back in from warantee I will be dualbooting OSx with netbsd. I tried Openbsd and it simply never had the support. Understand the BSD goals. Openbsd tries to be the most secure/stable OS. FreeBSD likes to be rich with features. NetBSD tries to get on as many architechtures as possible. It's all about flavors, just like various flavors of linux. There, I hope that helps you :)

Re:How does NetBSD compare to OpenBSD?

[Nimrangul]

You sure about that? Last hackathon there was a metric assload of improvements to the macppc port from what I hear; a fair number of developers use PowerBooks.

I realise that iBooks and PowerBooks use some different hardware, but the support should be there I'd think.

Re:How does NetBSD compare to OpenBSD?

[Nimrangul]

First, here are a few fundamental differences between the two operating systems, all the while I will list perceived pros and cons of NetBSD and OpenBSD in random spots.

OpenBSD broke from the NetBSD base over 9 years ago, that is nine years of code divergence in small ways even in the most similar of parts of the codebases.

NetBSD has a great deal of platforms that are supported, including architectures untouched by most other operating systems. OpenBSD supports only 14 platforms, with several discontinued ones as well. NetBSD's supported platforms however are not up to the same standard as OpenBSD's; OpenBSD requires that the port be compilable on it's given platform and many of NetBSD's cannot. This makes the overall codebase of NetBSD more portable and stable at the price of properly supporting it's platforms.

OpenBSD has in the past audited the codebase for it's entire system in order to remove as many programming errors as possible, this has lead to increased security as well as stability.

OpenBSD has in the past removed system tools and ports that it deems to be too insecure or bug ridden. NetBSD does not have this policy. Such as rlogin.

OpenBSD has in the past fought over licenses which they do not believe in having within their system; trying to relicense or replace code which does not conform with their level liberal code. NetBSD does not find this to be a priority. Such things include SSH/OpenSSH, IPF/PF, XFree86/X.org and GnuTAR/TAR.

OpenBSD integrates security minded protection into it's system whenever possible. NetBSD does not. Stack protection; stackghost on Sparc and propolice on I386 as well as taking them to other platforms in the future.

I honestly see no major pros to using NetBSD over OpenBSD on any of the overlapping platforms, but NetBSD is on more platforms.

Re:NetBSD is faster and more scalable then OpenBSD

[Nimrangul]

Your post doesn't work very well for supporting NetBSD nor Linux: Which Linux distrobution was used? Which NetBSD release was used? OpenBSD? FreeBSD? What tests were used to determine the scalability? Were the tests made fairly or optimized for one platform or system? Who ran them? Were developers contacted to help optimize the systems or were default installs used? What compilers were used? Which platform? You need to put this information in a post for it to be taken seriously when you talk abou

Re:NetBSD is faster and more scalable then OpenBSD

[Nimrangul]

Sorry about that, forgot to unselect HTML formatting.

Your post doesn't work very well for supporting NetBSD nor Linux:

Which Linux distrobution was used? Which NetBSD release was used? OpenBSD? FreeBSD?

What tests were used to determine the scalability? Were the tests made fairly or optimized for one platform or system? Who ran them? Were developers contacted to help optimize the systems or were default installs used? What compilers were used? Which platform?

You need to put this information i

Re:NetBSD is faster and more scalable then OpenBSD

[setagllib]

You'd know all of this if you didn't live under a rock. Almost all of Slashdot's OS zealots/trolls know about Felix' (very flawed but still popular, making Felix himself a great candidate for government, ) scalability benchmarks which compare apples and oranges and then slander perfectly good systems.

Nevertheless, NetBSD went from being second worst to second best in two weeks of work, all of which continues to work stably and all. This is a proud achievement that the other BSDs could learn from, and appa

Re:NetBSD is faster and more scalable then OpenBSD

[Nimrangul]

Oh yes, of course, how silly of me. Instead of telling some anonymous poster why their post cannot really be taken seriously I should have just assumed what they were talking about; filling in any blanks and correcting faults myself. Oh and Netcraft has confirmed that BSD is dying, so I better stop using it.

I was not talking smack about NetBSD's architecture numbers, I was more saying they do alot of cross compiling; a bad idea in my eyes as you no longer know for sure that the system can rebuild itself.

Re:NetBSD is faster and more scalable then OpenBSD

[setagllib]

That wasn't a flame, just wondering how anyone could ask at this point in time what scalability benches are being discussed. Don't take it so harshly.

The architecture numbers were a tangent mention that just happened to appear in a post otherwise replying to you. These things happen.

Take it easy, it's not worth popping a vein on Slashdot.

Re:NetBSD is faster and more scalable then OpenBSD

[Nimrangul]

I didn't take it as an attack on me or anything, it is simply that one cannot expect other people to know everything that they do. I have read a few trans-operating system scalability tests, none of them really any good; so I cannot just magically know what one AC means in their post.

Re:How does NetBSD compare to OpenBSD?

[tedu]

as one point of comparison, in the time NetBSD 2.0 has been in beta, OpenBSD has managed to ship two releases out the door.

Re:Why use NetBSD?

[setagllib]

Beautiful. The first 100% troll post I've seen in ages. Usually trolls have had at least one thing that was partially true, but not this one. Pure shit :)

A work of art, even. Thankyou sir, you give us something to mark other stupidities by.

Re:Why use NetBSD?

[DashEvil]

Hey, you. You're a NetBSD advocate.

Make them release 2.0 already. I bought CD-R's specifically for this and I'll be damned if I don't get a chance to use them soon!

Re:Why use NetBSD?

[setagllib]

I don't have that kind of power, nor would I do it if I could. You can install a 2.0RC5 system with a couple of floppies and FTP, or failing that, an unofficial ISO. You can then track (via cvs) netbsd-2-0 past its release and on to -stable. This will work very well for you and not require an official release, which, at this stage, could mean a flaky system for some other users (since there are still issues holding it back).

A lot happened to make 2.0, and given it's edging NetBSD out of 'old slow deprecat

Re:Why use NetBSD?

[ChristTrekker]

edging NetBSD out of 'old slow deprecated system' into 'holy sh*t-fast modern system'

I'm a NetBSD user but don't follow all the news about latest developments at this level. In a nutshell, what's responsible for such a large performance boost? The biggest new feature I'm looking forward to in 2.0 is native threading. I'm going to recompile a bunch of my apps to take advantage of it.

Re:Why use NetBSD?

[setagllib]

Native threading is one very big thing (surprisingly big thing even), but generally they seem to have optimized everything and it all adds up to blinding performance, especially in how well it uses hardware. You won't see any hardware NOT doing the best it possibly can, is what I mean to say. And the hardware support itself is what I would call "clean like Linux, but with sensible messages". Hotplugging and everything is kernel-level unlike FreeBSD, which I rather like.

More interesting changes will come i