
NetBSD 9.0 Coming Soon with Arm64, Updated ZFS, HW-Accelerated Virtualization - rbanffy
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NetBSD-9.0-RC2-Released
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parvenu74
"NetBSD 9.0 is bringing with it support at long last for ARMv8/AArch64 64-bit
ARM..."

Ironic that the BSD that's legendary for "running on a toaster" and whose
slogan is "of course it runs NetBSD" is just now gaining support for these
not-exactly-rare chips/architectures.

~~~
ianai
Hey, if you want netbsd to develop faster you can always donate to it. Edit-
and if you have already: Awesome! I’m sure every bit helps.

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mrweasel
NetBSD is a little weird, they have all these wonderful features and
platforms, but I always had the feeling that things are implemented, almost
never properly documented and rarely revisited in the future.

On NetBSD.org there is a link under documentation called: The guided. Neither
ZFS nor NVMM seems to be documented. ZFS does have manual pages, but if you
want to use NVMM you seem to be on your own.

There's a ton of interesting things in NetBSD, but you don't get the feeling
that there's a coherent plan behind it all, like you do with both FreeBSD and
OpenBSD.

~~~
anonsivalley652
It even can run as Xen dom0.

Well, that's software developer-led cowboy coding for you: prioritization
based on weekend impulses rather than user-driven urgency. Also, the hobbyist
and volunteer excuses don't fly because a professional effort with a saleprice
of $0 has to compete with non-free and is subject to forking and loss of
interest if it founders or stalls. Also, I don't think there are enough NetBSD
devs. It's main users are some ISPs for network infrastructure IIRC.

BTW, FreeBSD doesn't even run usably on RPi4, it boots and that's about it.
RPi3 support is somewhat better, but still worse than RPi2.

I hope all FOSS OSes, including Linux, get and stay organized and productive,
but not heading toward a greater unbalanced power law distribution (pun
unavoidable) monoculture where only Linux dominates, because then we're in
real trouble.

~~~
Santosh83
Volunteers can only do so much. Money is a powerful motivator and hence Linux
is head and shoulders above its brethren because it has vast corporate
involvement. And it still can't compete with Windows (in terms of hardware
support for desktops and workstations) which tells you how much the hardware
and software industries are black boxes...

~~~
MuffinFlavored
> Volunteers can only do so much.

Opinion: which is why I think the limited volunteer hours available for *BSD
projects shouldn't be fragmented across NetBSD/FreeBSD/OpenBSD/DragonFly BSD.

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alexellisuk
I'll be giving this a try when it's out. How does the support and ecosystem
compare to FreeBSD, and is there any armhf in sight, or technical challenges
around adding it?

~~~
cat199
> How does the support and ecosystem compare to FreeBSD

Haven't used NetBSD much directly, but used pkgsrc (NetBSD ports) on dragonfly
for several years before dragonfly switched back to running their own ports
system.

The netbsd ports build system at that time was much cleaner (buildlink to
ensure linking only to correct and explicitly managed libraries rather than
'whatever is in path') and the fact that there were pkgsrc 'release points'
made it easier to have coherent/reproducible applications (not sure if things
have changed on FreeBSD side). There were less ports, but generally most
things were covered.

As for the OS side, not so sure (see dragonfly), but the times I have
installed it seemed solid enough. Overall it feels more 'clean' whereas
freebsd feels more 'cosy'. Not sure how to quantify that. The system build is
cool because you can cross-build any system & toolchain, and this works even
across OS's (e.g. build NetBSD/arm from linux)

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branon
NetBSD 9.0 supporting aarch64 is nice, I believe there's support inbound for
the Pinebook Pro[0] as well.

[0]
[https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=8659](https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=8659)

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hestefisk
Does it allow ZFS on root?

~~~
kator
Sadly no..
[https://www.netbsd.org/releases/formal-9/NetBSD-9.0.html](https://www.netbsd.org/releases/formal-9/NetBSD-9.0.html)

> Updated ZFS. This is the first release with ZFS usable for daily use, but
> there is no support for booting from ZFS nor using ZFS as root filesystem
> yet.

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rbanffy
I still have a MIPS-based IBM z50 laptop I got in the late 90's or early
2000's. It runs NetBSD (albeit an ancient version).

------
non-entity
Also I think thos release will make UEFI installations easier on AMD64.

~~~
actionowl
I recently, installed NetBSD 9RC1 onto a UEFI system. FWIW NetBSD 8.1 also
installed onto that system.

~~~
non-entity
Its supported UEFI, but with 8.1 I beleive you ahd tovmanually created the fi
partition and such. I think the installer can handle that now

