💾 Archived View for sdf.org › jmccue › computer › netbsd.gmi captured on 2023-12-28 at 16:37:24. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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This is the second BSD I tried after FreeBSD. I had a AMD333 (PII) System that survived a lot of abuse, the newer towers I had since then had given up their ghost.
When I heard NetBSD updated i386 to solve the 2038 issue, I decided to install it on this old mothballed system. The intent was to use it as a backup system. I think version 6.0 was the first version with the fix and the version I installed.
The system was fun to use as a retro system. One thing I found very useful was the rump kernel. I had some files on an old MS-DOS Diskette I needed to get. When I mounted the diskette on Linux, it crashed the system, FreeBSD ditto. So, off to NetBSD. First attempt the same, but then I decided to try rump. After a couple of attempts, I was able to get the files off the diskette without issues. The NetBSD system did not crash, but the rump kernel did on a couple of tries.
That alone sold be on NetBSD :)
I had to move a few years ago, so it was put in mothballs for 2 reasons. The CDROM was constantly opening and closing, plus in the new place, no place to set it up.
But it was brought out of retirement for the Old Computer Challenge (occ) 3, where it performed very well.
occ3, additional info about NetBSD on this old system.
Since then, I inherited a T420, and I picked up a 2nd HDD with more space. So I have 2 HDDs, one with NetBSD 10-BETA and another with OpenBSD. This allows me to test items I write on both systems.
Other things I really like about NetBSD, pkgsrc, I wish many other systems used this instead of their homegrown package managers. Also, NetBSD far less pedantic about licenses, it has a more relaxed outlook than OpenBSD and even Linux in some cases.
$Id: netbsd.gmi,v 2.5 2023/10/17 15:00:14 jmccue Exp $