Let's Help NetBSD Cross the Finish Line Before 2025 Ends

Posted by jaypatelani 10/26/2025

Let's Help NetBSD Cross the Finish Line Before 2025 Ends(mail-index.netbsd.org)

406 points | 238 commentspage 4

tonyhart7 10/26/2025|

what is different than OpenBSD or just BSD???

dijit 10/26/2025||

"BSD" doesn't really exist as far as I'm aware. It was a proprietary operating system made at Berkeley for studying OS design.

OpenBSD/FreeBSD/NetBSD are open source continuations of the source-available 4.4-BSDlite code (removing AT&T proprietary extensions iirc).

OpenBSD follows BSD principles but focuses on code clarity and security.

FreeBSD tries to be very flexible, putting user-experience over security. (it has to be noted that OpenBSD is very usable, but lacks a lot of nice features like ZFS and DTrace that FreeBSD supports).

NetBSD is all about being incredibly lean and portable. NetBSD will run on basically anything, even things that Linux and other *BSD's have no hope of running on.

chuckadams 10/26/2025|||

There absolutely was a real-world non-research operating system called just "BSD", and it ran primarily on DEC VAX hardware to start. Other Unixes like SunOS eventually started basing themselves on it. The last official Berkeley Software Distribution was 4.4BSD-Lite in 1994, which by then had been ported to many other platforms, including i386. The Computer Systems Research Group which maintained BSD disbanded the next year.

mistercheph 10/26/2025|||

What about DragonFlyBSD?

dijit 10/26/2025|||

DragonflyBSD is trying to be extremely progressive in their OS design by leaning in to how we're architecting new computers.

So, leaning in to how SSD's behave instead of how HDD's behave- ensuring that the kernel can make effective use of multiple cores etc;

dlcarrier 10/27/2025|||

It forked off of FreeBSD, around 20 years after the creation of NetBSD, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD.

eschaton 10/27/2025||

“Just BSD” is effectively NetBSD; while a lot of BSD contributors work on FreeBSD, in terms of continuity of development NetBSD is the clearest direct successor to 4.4BSD.

sammy2255 10/26/2025|

What is NetBSD?

munchlax 10/26/2025||

It's the amount of BSD you have from gross BSD after paying all the technical debts.

rkomorn 10/26/2025|||

But then what does that make FreeBSD?

bombcar 10/26/2025|||

EBITDABSD.

torstenvl 10/26/2025|||

It's a BSD variant dedicated to running on a wide variety of hardware.

One of the running jokes is that you can "run it on a toaster" — see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45712368

bombcar 10/26/2025||

If it can run DooM it can run NetBSD.

justin66 10/26/2025||

Not really. Doom just requires a 32 bit CPU (maybe someone even kluged it together on a 16 bit platform?) but NetBSD requires a CPU with an MMU.

spauldo 10/26/2025|||

NetBSD is the slim, small, traditional BSD that has an emphasis on clean code and portability. It's great for small jobs and it'll run on that old SPARC that's collecting dust in the closet. It's simpler than FreeBSD (the industrial strength BSD) and doesn't have the hyper focus on security that OpenBSD does.

atomic_princess 10/26/2025||

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