For FreeBSD users, and those who've ever used FreeBSD, share your NetBSD experience. Including, if you've used NetBSD for complementary use with FreeBSD, such as needing hardware support for access.
Keep in mind: Thread why-is-freebsd-not-more-like.66591. For other discussion and technical help about NetBSD, use daemonforums.org, unitedbsd.com or NetBSD mailing lists.
Trying NetBSD
I've tried NetBSD before 2016, but had trouble with the network card, so couldn't continue. The network card had to be physically removed for it to boot up. I don't remember if that was the wireless card which didn't work with it, which I needed at that time.
NetBSD as a desktop
My first time using NetBSD successfully on the desktop was in February or March of 2018 until May or June of that year. It was likely the 7.1.2 release in mid March, or 7.1.1 of the end of the previous year.
NetBSD, by default, mounts the kernel and pty on their own filesystem.
NetBSD pkgsrc uses a file rather than an ncurses menu for configuring its ports. It has less ports, but they're sturdy and seemed less complicated or simpler. Their dependency choices were set from a file, rather than from an ncurses menu.
My desktop froze up a lot from Internet browser's runaway processes. This hasn't happened on FreeBSD, until more recently, as it became a frequent occurrence with Firefox: this was largely fixed by limiting the amount of RAM of the (login) user account which this program ran under.
Native audio only allowed 1 application to play at a time on NetBSD. It used EsounD (Enlightened Sound Daemon; ESD) or PulseAudio more often than oss or sndio. Former member Sensucht94 showed me a link which shows how to use ESD to take audio from multiple applications, and output it for the speaker.
At the time, I've heard that the 8 series (including while it was current) of NetBSD uses an improved native sound server which allows multiple sound sources to play at the same time.
Their ttys file was simple, as it used
The desktop of NetBSD was in very low resolution. If this was the default that could have been adjusted, I didn't know how to.
Since then, it has been said that the Video display and sound system on NetBSD have been improved.
The time I've used NetBSD for legacy and specialty hardware support
I used NetBSD, in an attempt to use legacy and specialty hardware in 2022, after my computer broke. The attempt was to get a 32bit PC with IDE cables with an old SATA card to access a SATA harddisk. It was a RAID card, which use was attempted in JBOD (Just a Bunch of Disks) mode.
The /dev/ directory was overwhelming to use, because it listed all possible devices, whether they were loaded or not, instead of autoloading drivers when needed.
In this, the people in the NetBSD IRC rooms were friendly and eager to help.
It turns out, that my RAID card was bad. Then, tried another solution of using a USB to SATA cable, for my laptop on FreeBSD, which the harddisks were damaged and important data couldn't be accessed.
Related:
According to https://freebsdfoundation.org/wp-co...nterface-Device-HID-Support-in-FreeBSD-13.pdf, NetBSD and OpenBSD have had the improved HID stack for a while, that is recently being implemented in FreeBSD.
Related threads:
Keep in mind: Thread why-is-freebsd-not-more-like.66591. For other discussion and technical help about NetBSD, use daemonforums.org, unitedbsd.com or NetBSD mailing lists.
Trying NetBSD
I've tried NetBSD before 2016, but had trouble with the network card, so couldn't continue. The network card had to be physically removed for it to boot up. I don't remember if that was the wireless card which didn't work with it, which I needed at that time.
NetBSD as a desktop
My first time using NetBSD successfully on the desktop was in February or March of 2018 until May or June of that year. It was likely the 7.1.2 release in mid March, or 7.1.1 of the end of the previous year.
NetBSD, by default, mounts the kernel and pty on their own filesystem.
NetBSD pkgsrc uses a file rather than an ncurses menu for configuring its ports. It has less ports, but they're sturdy and seemed less complicated or simpler. Their dependency choices were set from a file, rather than from an ncurses menu.
My desktop froze up a lot from Internet browser's runaway processes. This hasn't happened on FreeBSD, until more recently, as it became a frequent occurrence with Firefox: this was largely fixed by limiting the amount of RAM of the (login) user account which this program ran under.
Native audio only allowed 1 application to play at a time on NetBSD. It used EsounD (Enlightened Sound Daemon; ESD) or PulseAudio more often than oss or sndio. Former member Sensucht94 showed me a link which shows how to use ESD to take audio from multiple applications, and output it for the speaker.
At the time, I've heard that the 8 series (including while it was current) of NetBSD uses an improved native sound server which allows multiple sound sources to play at the same time.
Their ttys file was simple, as it used
xdm_enable="YES"
for turning on xdm. It has been reported that FreeBSD could also be configured with this, but I haven't gotten it to work like that.The desktop of NetBSD was in very low resolution. If this was the default that could have been adjusted, I didn't know how to.
Since then, it has been said that the Video display and sound system on NetBSD have been improved.
The time I've used NetBSD for legacy and specialty hardware support
I used NetBSD, in an attempt to use legacy and specialty hardware in 2022, after my computer broke. The attempt was to get a 32bit PC with IDE cables with an old SATA card to access a SATA harddisk. It was a RAID card, which use was attempted in JBOD (Just a Bunch of Disks) mode.
The /dev/ directory was overwhelming to use, because it listed all possible devices, whether they were loaded or not, instead of autoloading drivers when needed.
In this, the people in the NetBSD IRC rooms were friendly and eager to help.
It turns out, that my RAID card was bad. Then, tried another solution of using a USB to SATA cable, for my laptop on FreeBSD, which the harddisks were damaged and important data couldn't be accessed.
Related:
According to https://freebsdfoundation.org/wp-co...nterface-Device-HID-Support-in-FreeBSD-13.pdf, NetBSD and OpenBSD have had the improved HID stack for a while, that is recently being implemented in FreeBSD.
Related threads: