this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2024
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What's the point of it?

OpenBSD = Security

FreeBSD = The main UNIX-like

NetBSD = ???

Based on the name of have assumed it's be used in things like network appliances but in 20 years I've never seen a single device use it.

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (5 children)

Yes, it is mostly appliances, but an (informal?) stated goal of NetBSD is too run on all computing hardware.

  • FreeBSD = user-friendly free Unix (plus ZFS and jails 😀)
  • OpenBSD = very secure free Unix (no ZFS 🙁 but has the VMM hypervisor 😀)
  • OpenIndiana = user-friendly free Unix that runs old Solaris software (plus ZFS and zones 😀)
  • NetBSD = runs on any computer chip ever built within the past 40 years (some ZFS support, but no zones, jails, or VMs 🙁)

Naturally, that makes NetBSD a good choice for appliances, especially ones that might only have limited memory.

(Here is a quick explainer on the difference between Jails, Zones, Containers, and VMs)

EDIT1: someone pointed out to me that ZFS is not supported on OpenBSD. Sorry about that everyone.

EDIT2: there is a ZFS driver for NetBSD

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

There’s no ZFS support in OpenBSD is there?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

No, but I think someone made read only support for ZFS available on OpenBSD. Freebsd is obviously the best for ZFS. It works on NetBSD too.

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