NetBSD

NetBSD 11 is Awesome!!

Installed this on a system with a 500MHz Pentium iii, 512MB ram and an Nvidia RIVA TNT2. Runs surprisingly VERY well.

https://x.com/IRIXpilled/status/2087761963791290598

#install #system #feedback

NetBSD 11.0 release.

The NetBSD project is pleased to (finally) announce the NetBSD 11.0 release! See the release announcement for details.

#release

Better late than never... Let's back to the channel. 🎸

Rust in the Kernel, and other odd decisions.

NetBSD already has taken a much odder decision in the same space, by adding Lua into the kernel! This was also much discussed at the time. I have not used it, but apparently Lua is useful for rapid development and prototyping of kernel drivers.

Note that in general, NetBSD is more conservative in its technical decisions than FreeBSD or Linux. Rust in the core of NetBSD is probably a non-starter for multiple reasons...


https://bentsukun.ch/posts/netbsd-rust-kernel/

#kernel

smolBSD.

smolBSD is a meta-operating system built on top of NetBSD. It lets you compose your own UNIX environment - from a single-purpose microservice system to a fully-custom OS image - in just a few minutes.

The smolBSD environment uses the netbsd-MICROVM kernel as its foundation, leveraging the same portable, reliable codebase that powers NetBSD itself. You decide what to include - sshd, httpd, or your own service - and smolBSD builds a coherent, minimal, bootable image ready to run anywhere.

https://smolbsd.org/

#system #microvm

Adventures in porting a Wayland Compositor to NetBSD and OpenBSD.

#video #wayland

This blog is hosted on a Nintendo Wii.

While browsing the NetBSD website recently, I noticed the fact that there was a ‘Wii’ option listed right there on the front page in the ‘Install Media’ section, nestled right next to the other first-class targets like the Raspberry Pi, and generic x86 machines.

Unlike the other outdated and unmaintained examples above, clicking through to the NetBSD Wii port takes you to the latest stable NetBSD 10.1 release from Dec 2024. Even the daily HEAD builds are composed for the Wii.

As soon as I discovered this was fully supported and maintained, I knew I had to try deploying an actual production workload on it. That workload is the blog you’re reading now...

https://blog.infected.systems/posts/2025-04-21-this-blog-is-hosted-on-a-nintendo-wii/

#wii #install #system

Installing NetBSD on the Nintendo Wii!.

It's about time for another Wii homebrew project! Because thanks to some recent developments, it's possible to get NetBSD working on this thing. Oh... and it's the latest version too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO9bNwE3Vps

#system #install #nintendo

NetBSD on a ROCK64 Board.

Long story short, I had the chance to resurrect 4 single-board computers that were collecting dust in my office. I decided to install FreeBSD on one of them and it was a success. This time I will show you how and why I installed NetBSD on a second ROCK64 board.

https://simonevellei.com/blog/posts/netbsd-on-a-rock64-board/

#hardware #install #rock64

BSDCan 2024:

- NetBSD on RISC-V - It Finally Runs NetBSD By: Dylan Eskew & Dr Phil Nelson;
- NetBSD Subfiles By: Elijah Sherwood & Dr Philip Nelson;
- Making NetBSD as a fast(er) booting microvm By: Emile Heitor;
- Alamosa: A Tiered Disk Block Cache for NetBSD By: Kira Ash;

All videos - Youtube, Peertube.

#video #conf

Swap the operating system of any remote Linux server by the one of your choice.

For a long time, I have been curious whether there were ways to swap out the operating systems of a remote server without having access to a BIOS/UEFI nor to a good cloud control panel with ISO/images loading capabilities, but only throughout a remote SSH access to an existing system...

https://cloudbsd.xyz/

#cloud #system #install

Why I Like NetBSD, or Why Portability Matters

So why use NetBSD? Many of its proponents would argue that NetBSD also has its own niche: the focus on portability. At the time I first heard about portability, I took it to roughly mean that you can run it on any machine. Now my understanding of the concept has evolved and I want to talk a bit about why portability is awesome, and why I think people undersell its importance...

https://mccd.space/posts/netbsd-review/

#system

NetBSD 9.4 released!

It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons since the release of NetBSD 9.3 in August 2022, as well some enhancements backported from the development branch. It is fully compatible with NetBSD 9.0. Users running 9.3 or an earlier release are strongly recommended to upgrade...

https://blog.netbsd.org/tnf/entry/netbsd_9_4_released

#release #system

NetBSD 10.0 available!

The NetBSD project is pleased to announce the eighteenth major release of the NetBSD operating system NetBSD 10.0! See the release announcement for details...

https://blog.netbsd.org/tnf/entry/netbsd_10_0_available

#release #system

Finding NetBSD Kernel Bugs through LockDoc.

This post will be my attempt to package up my master’s thesis in a format that can be read comfortably. I’ve spent the last 15 months mostly on this topic, and if you’ve noticed that some of my past posts mostly revolved around NetBSD, this is why. I hope this also gives me the opportunity to shine a light on some implementation details, since the thesis itself had to be mostly focused on the academic stuff...

https://scholz.ruhr/blog/finding-netbsd-locking-bugs/

#kernel #system

NetBSD 10: Thirty years, still going strong!

In 2023, the NetBSD project celebrated 30 years since its first release, 0.8. Now, four years after NetBSD 9, NetBSD 10 brings a huge number of changes and improvements. This talk will dive into the most important new features of NetBSD 10, such as performance and security improvements, expanded CPU and GPU support, improved virtualization and more!

https://fosdem.org/2024/schedule/event/fosdem-2024-3508-netbsd-10-thirty-years-still-going-strong-/

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ZzaW9eI4wmMRGOnJ1uo-kGk5b_UvIOuU9Zgur4au_8s/edit#slide=id.p

#system #fosdem

Tinkering with Manjaro and NetBSD on the Pinebook Pro: a crumbs-in-the-forest tutorial & review.

I found a used Pinebook Pro on Craigslist for $100 CAD, invented some flimsy excuse, and bought it. Then I went much farther down the rabbit hole than I expected, trying to get it functional. Here are my first impressions of the journey to get (semi-) functional Linux and BSD systems installed on the Pinebook Pro...

https://www.autodidacts.io/pinebook-pro-linux-bsd-laptop-review-tutorial/#installing-netbsd

#install #arm #system

A NetBSD/amd64 guest can now boot in 40ms.

I've been working the past 3 months into catching up with Colin Percival's work on FreeBSD with the Firecracker hypervisor.

The result is that NetBSD/amd64 can now boot in PVH mode, i.e. directly into the kernel using qemu's -kernel flag or the PVH-enabled version of AWS's Firecracker.
I then added support for MMIO kernel command line parameters, so NetBSD now supports memory mapped backed devices like ld(4) or vioif(4). Last but not least, I've been tracking boot time until reaching 40ms from the assembly entry point to handling over to userland...

https://www.reddit.com/r/BSD/comments/197vfmq/a_netbsdamd64_guest_can_now_boot_in_40ms_details/

#virtualization #boot

NetBSD 10.0 RC2 available.

The NetBSD project is pleased to announce the second (and probably last) release candidate of the upcoming 10.0 release, please help testing! See the release announcement for details...

https://blog.netbsd.org/tnf/entry/netbsd_10_0_rc2_available

#system #release

Building a NetBSD ramdisk kernel.

When I used OpenBSD, I was a big fan of bsd.rd: a kernel that includes a root file system with an installer and a few tools. When I invariably did something bad to my root file system, I could use that to repair things. bsd.rd is also helpful for OS updates. And there is only a single file involved.

On NetBSD however, there is usually no netbsd.rd kernel installed, or even available by default. The facility is there, it’s just not standard. To be fair, there are a number of architectures that use kernels with a ramdisk for installation. Recently, I have been toying with NetBSD on an Orange Pi 5. This is a 64-bit ARM board, using the evbarm-aarch64 architecture. I am booting from an SD card (details in a followup post) but once booted, the kernel does not see the card any more, only the NVMe SSD. So my thoughts went back to bsd.rd and I decided that I want one...

https://bentsukun.ch/posts/ramdisk-kernel/

#system #ramdisk