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.
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
There’s no ZFS support in OpenBSD is there?
Thanks, I had to double check that but you’re right, ZFS isn’t on OpenBSD. What a shame. Anyway I edited my above post.
But there is zfs support in netbsd… https://wiki.netbsd.org/zfs/
According to the wiki, ZFS “works well” but doesn’t seem to be as stable as in FreeBSD or OpenIndiana, and is not enabled by default so you have to update your
rc.conf
file to build the ZFS drivers.
There’s no specific point in any of *BSD. They all are general purpose OSes. NetBSD forked from FreeBSD, OpenBSD forked from NetBSD. Conflicts between developers were main reasons for that.
Pretty much like all Debian forks. They’re all forked from Debian because of conflicts between developers / different ways of seeing things. :P
From “back in the day” the big claim was that NetBSD would run on anything. Portability seemed to be their major goal.
deleted by creator
OpenBSD = Security
It is actually correctless. OpenBSD = Correctness + Simple + Free (free from copyleft too)
FreeBSD = The main UNIX-like
Citation???
NetBSD
maximum portability??
But up to NetBSD 10 (at the time writing it was not released) YOU DON’T HAVE SSL CERTIFICATES INSTALLED IN THE BASE SYSTEM !
That’s my warning :)
And then you have NomadBSD if you need an OS in a usb stick :)