Subject: Re: NetBSD being used as the core for secure OS distro
To: Shane M. Coughlan <firstname.lastname@example.org>
From: Greg A. Woods <email@example.com>
Date: 09/25/2003 13:38:35
[ On Thursday, September 25, 2003 at 11:38:36 (+0100), Shane M. Coughlan wrote: ]
> Subject: NetBSD being used as the core for secure OS distro
> Now, my question...I was drawn to NetBSD because of its small size (not much
> package litter in basic install...wonderful) and its portability. However,
> I notice the consensus online appears to be that NetBSD is mainly for
> academic use, and that FreeBSD is better for commercial use, especially
> things like servers. Given that you guys are experienced in such things,
> and honest, can you tell me what you think about that? OpenBSD is
> interesting, but it seems to have a lot of hiccups with things like laptops.
> I'm not looking at it for this reason.
I don't know that I would break down the differences between NetBSD and
FreeBSD as being primarily "academic" and "commercial" in that sense.
I think NetBSD could be a very excellent base for your project. However
there are some known limitations w.r.t. hardware support in
NetBSD-1.6.1, especially on i386, and for those reasons FreeBSD may make
a more practical base for your project.
(I use NetBSD as the basis for similar types of projects, though my
applications are much more server oriented and I also desire much more
architecture independence than FreeBSD currently offers.)
Greg A. Woods
+1 416 218-0098 VE3TCP RoboHack <firstname.lastname@example.org>
Planix, Inc. <email@example.com> Secrets of the Weird <firstname.lastname@example.org>