I often wonder what the current status is of the BSDs (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD). Who uses them, who works on them, what is their motivation for doing so? How do they compare to Linux these days, in terms of size, feature set, security hardening, etc? Is their usage/development happening at a relatively constant level, or is it growing/shrinking?
As someone reading this fresh, they are almost apologetic for a release with open issues. But presumably the release closes off many more than it creates. I could see any other author/org approaching the messaging very differently!
Wow, I just learned that I can still buy a pack of new CD-RW discs. This is an almost 30 year old format that is still published for!
Long live ATAPI!
Seriously though, why still publish CD formats when a usb-stick is far more ubiquitous and much easier to actually write. Are there systems that can boot CD-ROM interfaces that don't have USB boot capability still?
Flash storage can’t sit on the shelf without bitrot as long as CD-R and DVD-R can, even though writable optical media itself isn’t the best for durability.
CD-RW/DVD+RW on the other hand are also even worse than flash in that regard and decay very quickly in my experience.
> Are there systems that can boot CD-ROM interfaces that don't have USB boot capability still?
New x64 systems? Probably not. But since it still supports x86 and a whole slew of other architectures[1] still that don't always, it probably wouldn't make sense to stop.
There are some ISA USB cards with custom drivers to support them and present them as normal drives under MS-DOS. Never tried it myself, but they exist and seem to work!
Other commenter is correct, there are some late 486 boards with PCI support that would allow USB 1.0 or even 2.0 cards to be installed and used. Probably slow, but should work.
On the topic of modernizing a 486-class machine, there also exist a few with native PS/2 mouse support, and certain Matrox PCI cards have digital out, so it'd be possible to build a 486-class machine with USB 1.1, DVI/HDMI, and PS/2.
Since some Logitech wireless mice support PS/2, one could connect a 486 rig to a crisp digital LCD, use a wireless mouse, and plug in USB flash drives, sound, 10/100 network, NT 4.0, etc. -- all supported. Can make a fairly "modern" machine out of a pre-Pentium chip.
Some higher-end 486 boards[1] were made with PCI slots, so retrofitting them with an USB controller shouldn't be difficult? You'll still need a boot floppy to actually boot from an USB drive, I think?
One thing ISOs are useful for is installation under a hypervisor, or BMC. You can usually do the exact same thing with USB images, but a lot of the UI/workflows are oriented around .iso files.
>Are there systems that can boot CD-ROM interfaces that don't have USB boot capability still?
Old Systems. I have one such system that will is in line to move to 11.0 from 9.3. To do that I will boot from CDROM. It does not have any USB ports.
NetBSD is probably the only UN*X Type OS that can run on many of these 32 bit systems. Plus the NetBSD team is doing their best to support these old systems.
That saves me $ and helps the environment a little bit :)
> That saves me $ and helps the environment a little bit :)
Seems like a tradeoff with power though. Even emulating hardware from that era is more power efficient than actually running it. Of course, if you have custom ISA cards or something then you are likely stuck :)
I don't know about the progression of PSU efficiency, but 32bit desktops were rocking 250-400w PSUs and modern desktops would be hard to find one less then 650w so sure maybe we're more efficient for the amount of compute/W but running flat out will still hit your pocketbook harder on a modern system.
I’m in favor of repurposing old machines, but for a lot of the use cases they serve would be more than adequately filled by those little mobile CPU mini-PCs and Mac Mini’s which can go as low as 2-15W and top out somewhere around 60-110W.
NetBSD feels like a high quality, ancient relic from the University of California, Berkeley, from the 1970s, made for munks, secret FBI databases and special military operations.
As someone who has used old BSDs, I can say from direct experience that it does not.
For starters, on the old BSDs there was no Almquist shell, unless you went to Usenet, grabbed the shar, and built it. The TENEX C shell was the hot new thing, as were BIND and Sendmail. And we got genuine Joy+Horton vi.
Whereas modern NetBSD does not have Sendmail any more, has nvi2, and supports access control lists. And of course under the covers has lots of things that the old BSDs didn't have, like UFS for TiB disc volumes and kqueue.
I've heard tell that they're even thinking of finally doing away with BIND in base.
I often wonder what the current status is of the BSDs (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD). Who uses them, who works on them, what is their motivation for doing so? How do they compare to Linux these days, in terms of size, feature set, security hardening, etc? Is their usage/development happening at a relatively constant level, or is it growing/shrinking?
I´m using NetBSD on a couple of x86 machines now that Linux distros have mostly dropped support for them.
The release announcement has better details: https://www.netbsd.org/releases/formal-11/NetBSD-11.0.html
> gcc(1) - updated to 12.5.0.
Anyone know why they are still on such an old version? The latest version is 16.1.
As someone reading this fresh, they are almost apologetic for a release with open issues. But presumably the release closes off many more than it creates. I could see any other author/org approaching the messaging very differently!
> CD-ROM media
Wow, I just learned that I can still buy a pack of new CD-RW discs. This is an almost 30 year old format that is still published for!
Long live ATAPI!
Seriously though, why still publish CD formats when a usb-stick is far more ubiquitous and much easier to actually write. Are there systems that can boot CD-ROM interfaces that don't have USB boot capability still?
Flash storage can’t sit on the shelf without bitrot as long as CD-R and DVD-R can, even though writable optical media itself isn’t the best for durability.
CD-RW/DVD+RW on the other hand are also even worse than flash in that regard and decay very quickly in my experience.
NetBSD even supports installing from floppies on old systems if you don´t have a CD-ROM drive.
> Are there systems that can boot CD-ROM interfaces that don't have USB boot capability still?
New x64 systems? Probably not. But since it still supports x86 and a whole slew of other architectures[1] still that don't always, it probably wouldn't make sense to stop.
[1]https://www.netbsd.org/ports/
NetBSD supposedly supports 486, I don't think you're going to have much luck with USB there.
There are some ISA USB cards with custom drivers to support them and present them as normal drives under MS-DOS. Never tried it myself, but they exist and seem to work!
Other commenter is correct, there are some late 486 boards with PCI support that would allow USB 1.0 or even 2.0 cards to be installed and used. Probably slow, but should work.
On the topic of modernizing a 486-class machine, there also exist a few with native PS/2 mouse support, and certain Matrox PCI cards have digital out, so it'd be possible to build a 486-class machine with USB 1.1, DVI/HDMI, and PS/2.
Since some Logitech wireless mice support PS/2, one could connect a 486 rig to a crisp digital LCD, use a wireless mouse, and plug in USB flash drives, sound, 10/100 network, NT 4.0, etc. -- all supported. Can make a fairly "modern" machine out of a pre-Pentium chip.
Some higher-end 486 boards[1] were made with PCI slots, so retrofitting them with an USB controller shouldn't be difficult? You'll still need a boot floppy to actually boot from an USB drive, I think?
1. https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/asus-pvi-486sp3
One thing ISOs are useful for is installation under a hypervisor, or BMC. You can usually do the exact same thing with USB images, but a lot of the UI/workflows are oriented around .iso files.
I am guessing, but many of us still use CDs / DVDs (/BluRays?) to make backups. It's cheap. Lasts long.
> Lasts long
My CD backups lasted about 10-12 years before the silver started peeling off the discs :(
Write once has some security benefits as well!
>Are there systems that can boot CD-ROM interfaces that don't have USB boot capability still?
Old Systems. I have one such system that will is in line to move to 11.0 from 9.3. To do that I will boot from CDROM. It does not have any USB ports.
NetBSD is probably the only UN*X Type OS that can run on many of these 32 bit systems. Plus the NetBSD team is doing their best to support these old systems.
That saves me $ and helps the environment a little bit :)
> That saves me $ and helps the environment a little bit :)
Seems like a tradeoff with power though. Even emulating hardware from that era is more power efficient than actually running it. Of course, if you have custom ISA cards or something then you are likely stuck :)
I don't know about the progression of PSU efficiency, but 32bit desktops were rocking 250-400w PSUs and modern desktops would be hard to find one less then 650w so sure maybe we're more efficient for the amount of compute/W but running flat out will still hit your pocketbook harder on a modern system.
I’m in favor of repurposing old machines, but for a lot of the use cases they serve would be more than adequately filled by those little mobile CPU mini-PCs and Mac Mini’s which can go as low as 2-15W and top out somewhere around 60-110W.
Blit the iso to a usb stick and boot it. If your PC is recent (made in the past 15-20 years or so), it'll understand it just fine.
> If you are using flash-based media (e.g. a USB drive), please use the .img files rather than the .iso images.
I have done that in the past but there are already .img files specifically for USB. Seems redundant.
Both are needed for different use cases. That they overlap for some use cases doesn't make them redundant.
Just finished upgrading, went easy. Because I am using cgd(4) I find it much easier to use sysupgrade(8) from pkgsrc.
I was running the R/Cs without any issues, so I am sure 11.0 will be very stable.
NetBSD feels like a high quality, ancient relic from the University of California, Berkeley, from the 1970s, made for munks, secret FBI databases and special military operations.
As someone who has used old BSDs, I can say from direct experience that it does not.
For starters, on the old BSDs there was no Almquist shell, unless you went to Usenet, grabbed the shar, and built it. The TENEX C shell was the hot new thing, as were BIND and Sendmail. And we got genuine Joy+Horton vi.
Whereas modern NetBSD does not have Sendmail any more, has nvi2, and supports access control lists. And of course under the covers has lots of things that the old BSDs didn't have, like UFS for TiB disc volumes and kqueue.
I've heard tell that they're even thinking of finally doing away with BIND in base.
What do you mean, it's as modern as a standard portable operating system gets.
Very nice, wonder what's the state of using NetBSD as a daily driver?
Desktop use is probably the best option for daily driver, since almost everything on the motherboard has support, most likely.
Does it have Bluetooth, because OpenBSD still doesn't.
NetBSD has had Bluetooth for 20 years?
Nowhere near as Linux, some can be better than others.