Post AaroRPAMFbI2k4ACLA by sehnsucht@social.sdf.org
(DIR) More posts by sehnsucht@social.sdf.org
(DIR) Post #AaqAxTzbeNgreZuplY by ParadeGrotesque@mastodon.sdf.org
2023-10-16T21:46:03Z
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If the people working on #NetBSD focused as much on OS quality as the #OpenBSD dev I would switch over without a second thought. (Think syspatch, sysmerge, hardware support,docs, docs, docs).If the #OpenBSD dev could only offer LVM and #NetBSD stuff such as fss and WABPL, anything to go over the limitations of FFS... I would probably install OpenBSD everywhere and ditch Linux for good.Yes they are both beautiful and dev working on them are also beautiful! Run BSD. :runbsd:
(DIR) Post #AaqslClAIAcKiN7I48 by joel@piou.foolbazar.eu
2023-10-17T05:56:44Z
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@ParadeGrotesque last time I wrote something similar, I saw the army of Mordor raising on HN 😂
(DIR) Post #Aar2tcIyCMbPnfZvOq by ParadeGrotesque@mastodon.sdf.org
2023-10-17T07:50:10Z
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@joel Let them come.
(DIR) Post #AarRoWOTFMBAsAoo7s by ParadeGrotesque@mastodon.sdf.org
2023-10-17T12:29:36Z
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@ezaquarii @crc On the other hand, it says the same thing in the equivalent repository of Hammer 2 for NetBSD...
(DIR) Post #Aargp0gE8ols7IoaBM by sehnsucht@social.sdf.org
2023-10-17T15:17:55Z
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@ParadeGrotesque aside from the wireless support lagging behind a bit, the only "real" reason why people give up on running NetBSD baremetal is the drm/kms stack for amd64: constantly old, and constantly buggy.From my point of view, taking care of the drm/kms stack is too much work for a single developer (not mentioning who), and a few more casual committers. Unfortunately these drivers have become increasingly complex over the years and NetBSD is too much of a niche project.
(DIR) Post #AarhiF6AEg00lHHdyq by sehnsucht@social.sdf.org
2023-10-17T15:27:52Z
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@ParadeGrotesque On the other hand, nouveau on NetBSD supports Nvidia GPUs up to Pascal (10xx) very well.A non exhaustive write-up I made on NetBSD hardware support is available here [1].As for documentation, many things are indeed outdated or missing. The NetBSD guide and the new wiki have been improving steadily though since 9.0 :|. I think the quality of man pages is no way inferior to that of other BSDs.[1] https://www.unitedbsd.com/d/1158-netbsd-hardware-compatibility-thread
(DIR) Post #AarlHIlqsDcI9JBxBo by ND3JR@social.coop
2023-10-17T16:07:49Z
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@sehnsucht "A bit" is an understatement. I've got a wireless USB adapter that I bought back in 2012 that's _still_ not supported in NetBSD as of version 9.3. In fact nothing that uses Wireless N seems to be supported in NetBSD as of 9.3. Considering that it's been out for over a decade that's pretty sad.A bit off-topic, but I've also got two RT Systems serial-to-USB adapters I bought in 2016. Still not supported in NetBSD as of 9.3.@ParadeGrotesque
(DIR) Post #Aarn3CQVrdJ6KLc7wu by pdt@mastodon.sdf.org
2023-10-17T16:27:37Z
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@sehnsucht @ParadeGrotesque i don't really get it. i run NetBSD on bare metal everywhere from laptops to servers to RPis (although my systems tend to be a tad old) and i'm blissfully unaware of anything i may be missing...
(DIR) Post #AarnIcMJjLzP6B0H8S by ND3JR@social.coop
2023-10-17T16:11:41Z
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@sehnsucht Now, don't get me wrong; I like NetBSD and it's been my primary OS since 2005 and I've donated money to the NetBSD Foundation. But lack of hardware support in some areas is a major reason why I've had to use Linux on some of my systems even though I'd very much prefer to use NetBSD instead. @ParadeGrotesque
(DIR) Post #AarnId76vNQ5RIte4W by sehnsucht@social.sdf.org
2023-10-17T16:30:29Z
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@ND3JRThe "bit" was relative to OpenBSD support (still too gentle perhaps). Compared to Linux, NetBSD is much further behind. 802.11n is currently supported only by bwfm(4) and athn(4), but is going to be supported on Intel chips following the wifi renewal, with the introduction of iwlwifi(4). Hopefully 802.11ac will come too.This is the serial-to-USB adapter I use with NetBSD, and it's supported by ulpt(4): https://macrotronics.net/ugreen-usb-to-rs-232-db9-serial-adapter-cable-20210-p-37148.html@ParadeGrotesque
(DIR) Post #Aarnr8TkodUMYwwQpk by sehnsucht@social.sdf.org
2023-10-17T16:36:44Z
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@ND3JRAs a final note, 9.x is too old at this point to be expected to support contemporary consumer grade hardware. While I happily run it on servers and retro machines, any recent amd64/arm64 device will have better luck with 10.0_BETA.@ParadeGrotesque
(DIR) Post #AaroRPAMFbI2k4ACLA by sehnsucht@social.sdf.org
2023-10-17T16:43:17Z
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@pdtRelatively old is my stuff too (side-note I prefer second-hand hardware), and I've never had great problems running NetBSD wherever I wanted, but I see many users complaining about support on more recent laptops, the main reason being graphic acceleration and, secondly, wireless support.I run 10.0_BETA on a Thinkpad T460, on a homebuilt workstation from 2017, and on Raspberry Pi4. I run 9.x on sparc64, i386 and macppc. @ParadeGrotesque
(DIR) Post #AasC69wW3La2LY5ilM by ParadeGrotesque@mastodon.sdf.org
2023-10-17T21:08:07Z
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@solene I think it means the dev started work on OpenBSD and NetBSD and decided Linux and FreeBSD were more interesting.The interesting thing is that, based on what little information is available in README, the port was at least semi-functional on both #OpenBSD and #NetBSD ... @ezaquarii @crc
(DIR) Post #AasCkDsUqEJY8PJaMa by ParadeGrotesque@mastodon.sdf.org
2023-10-17T21:15:35Z
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@sehnsucht This is kind of a surprising statement, given that #NetBSD 9.3 came out a year ago, while 9.0 came out in 2020.Does that mean there are very little changes to the source code of a branch in 3 years?@ND3JR
(DIR) Post #AasCqLbd1Qbvq8LTpQ by ParadeGrotesque@mastodon.sdf.org
2023-10-17T21:16:17Z
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@sehnsucht Can you elaborate on that "wifi renewal" thing? @ND3JR
(DIR) Post #AasD2C901hQzyBbUkS by ND3JR@social.coop
2023-10-17T21:18:39Z
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@ParadeGrotesque @sehnsucht See, once a NetBSD major release is made only security fixes make it in after it's released, the new release is cut, and they focus on that. Backporting features rarely happens.And telling people to use a beta version of the OS because it has basic features like drivers for newer hardware is like telling someone to move into a half-finished building because it has elevators (which may or may not work) when their current one has only stairs.
(DIR) Post #AasrYS02bk8QZtLhh2 by sehnsucht@social.sdf.org
2023-10-18T04:52:54Z
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@ND3JR This is not how NetBSD release engineering [0] works.NetBSD usually supports 2 major stable branches (which a formal release exists for) while actively working on the HEAD development branch. Currently 8.x and 9.x are supported (the former shall be dropped once 10.0 comes to light). @ParadeGrotesque[0] https://wiki.netbsd.org/releng/
(DIR) Post #Aass9gRTsDSQ5LwCtU by sehnsucht@social.sdf.org
2023-10-18T04:59:37Z
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@ND3JRSupported stable branches only receive security fixes *AND* other bug fixes, as well as important changes backported from HEAD due to maintainance reasons (e.g. updated toolchain). See the various CHANGES files [1] for all changes applied to the 9.x branch. Daily snapshots for stable branches are marked as N.0_STABLE (e.g. 9.0_STABLE), and are eventually cut into minor formal releases (9.3, and the upcoming 9.4).[1] https://cdn.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-9.3/@ParadeGrotesque
(DIR) Post #AastBxtc3GmGkakRV2 by sehnsucht@social.sdf.org
2023-10-18T05:11:14Z
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@ND3JRIt's not within the scope of a stable branch to see new drivers backported from HEAD (think of it more like Linux LTS kernels, considered production-ready).@ParadeGrotesque
(DIR) Post #AastfHOcd6DBcwEMb2 by sehnsucht@social.sdf.org
2023-10-18T05:16:32Z
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@ND3JRThe number of changes in 10.0 is massive; unfortunately some of those have hold back a formal 10.0 release for quite some time: the introduction of FFSv2ea, the new entropy subsystem, the drm/kms stack update, switching base to OpenSSL 3, just to mention some of the most problematic ones (now sorted, except for few reported bugs in the graphic stack). @ParadeGrotesque
(DIR) Post #Aasu6TWNemD33EpMlU by sehnsucht@social.sdf.org
2023-10-18T05:21:27Z
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@ND3JRCurrently 10.0_BETA is the equivalent of a STABLE pre-release (it only gets fixes and important changes from HEAD). It works very well as a daily driver for desktop and users willing to contribute are encouraged to use it and possibly file any bug report before the upcoming formal release.Given the exceptionally long (and unheard) time lapse since the last major release, desktop users are often encouraged to switch to 10.0_BETA starting from now. @ParadeGrotesque
(DIR) Post #Aasui7YBnAThujclcm by sehnsucht@social.sdf.org
2023-10-18T05:28:15Z
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@ParadeGrotesque @ND3JR See https://wiki.netbsd.org/wifi_driver_state_matrix/
(DIR) Post #Aat0kaKSMfd1TOl82y by josephholsten@mstdn.social
2023-10-18T06:35:54Z
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@sehnsucht @ParadeGrotesque @ND3JR I’ve been wondering how the NetBSD Wi-Fi renewal is lining up with the FreeBSD effort to get Intel drivers renewed by Bjoern Zeeb: https://wiki.freebsd.org/WiFi/IwlwifiI don’t love going down the LinuxKPI path, but I’m not sure what alternative will get recent drivers.
(DIR) Post #Aauo402Q5olLcfAag4 by ND3JR@social.coop
2023-10-19T03:23:05Z
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@sehnsucht You're right, and my mistake for not making it clear that what I was describing was more my perception than reality. Admittedly this whole conversation has me considering switching to a different OS as it seems NetBSD may no longer be the one for me. But most likely I'll put 10.0_BETA on my laptop (once I fix the issue with its hard drive, ro replace the drive) and see how well it works. @ParadeGrotesque