Expanding Small NetBSD Systems

BSD Forums writes "Anyone who has worked with any BSD knows that the base operating system doesn't include many programs that most people use in day-to-day work. Unless you only need vi and ssh, you must install additional software to make your palmtop useful and comfortable. OnLamp's Michael Lucas says that if you're running a palmtop -- or, indeed, any sort of small hardware with NetBSD installed -- you'll probably want to expand the system."

Er...

[inertia187]

What ever happened to NetBSD by Wasabi [blat.info]?

Re:Er...

[Dahan]

Wasaaaaaaaaaabi! [ifilm.com] Wasabi! [wasabisystems.com]

Seems pretty basic

[e5z8652]

OK, so the article points out that there are additional ports & packages available for NetBSD that are not in the base install, and if you want your handheld (!) to be an NFS server you should add that port.

I guess I'm missing the news value here.

Re:Seems pretty basic

[ChristTrekker]

Maybe it's basic to you. It might be in the "whoa, cool" realm for someone else. I'm glad Slashdot caters to a large spectrum of geeks. I think the fact that you added "(!)" to your post in regards to using NFS on a handheld signifies the accomplishment is somewhat noteworthy.

Re:Seems pretty basic

[Xiamin]

NFS is already in NetBSD. It's useful for adding more storage and swap (though swap over nfs is pretty painful) to limited systems.

The point of the article is that you should add NFS if you want to add packages on a palmtop. It'll give you enough storage for the pkgsrc tree and swap and so on.

You're forgetting

[agent dero]

NetBSD is not exactly meant to be a large robust desktop type system, or support everything like the latest GNOME, or KDE versions or various servers. FreeBSD is meant for that, NetBSD is to work on almost everything with a CPU, RAM, and storage device. (OpenBSD is meant for security, duh)

Each of these has their niche, robustness is not NetBSD's, sorry

Re:You're forgetting

[ChristTrekker]

What exactly do you mean? What's not "robust" about NetBSD?

NetBSD has a clean, lean design (forced upon it by the multi-architecture ideal) and a stable kernel. What you do with it beyond that is up to you. There are many (relatively speaking of course) people who find NetBSD to be a perfectly acceptable desktop OS.