NetBSD 4.0.1

I recently installed NetBSD 4.0.1 on an old 20GB hard drive which previously had been used for some Damn Small Linux-related work. The good news: NetBSD was able to install with USB keyboard and has no trouble with my crappy old BIOS and ACPI. The bad news: like the other BSDs, I have to use a powered USB hub to share the lone port through which the keyboard and ethernet adapter will function — neither will work in any other port. And this retarded computer only has USB ports and no PCI slots to insert a real NIC. At least the port works.

I did a  very slim install — base, development, and man pages — and I’m adding some stuff from source. I updated SSL and SSH and perl. I’m using emacs for the time being. I also installed thttpd and blosxom. That’s about it for now.

I wanted to automate blog post naming so I wrote a little script:

#!/bin/sh
# wrapper to open emacs for posting new blog entry named blog-$datestamp.txt 

BLOGDIRECTORY="/path/to/blogposts"
TIMESTAMP=$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M) 

emacs -fg cyan -bg blue $BLOGDIRECTORY/blog_$TIMESTAMP.txt

I chose emacs at least as a temporary measure because a lot of what I’ve been posting are outlines and I really like org-mode better than some of the vim outlining plugins. Now I can shell in and just enter “blog” and I don’t have to deal with random names. This works out fairly well because it’s unlikely — at least right now before I automate more stuff to post to the blog — I’ll make more than one blog entry in any given minute. If and when I start scripting things to add content, I’ll probably use a different naming convention like “autoblog” as a prefix before the time stamp. 

No immediate plans to go -current but I like what I’m hearing and reading about NetBSD 5.0.

Yes, All Three

Progress! Got everything set up this weekend. I initially was going to set up my computers on NetBSD. I decided, after some discussion, to install NetBSD, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD on different hard drives so I can switch them between computers and get an assessment of which works best with which hardware. With one exception, all are set up with pkgsrc. The one exception is a FreeBSD install with ports.

Everything has gone very smoothly save for a couple minor issues. One was with NetBSD and ethernet over USB while using a USB keyboard. The USB keyboard only works in one port (what’s up with that?). That’s the same one ethernet wants to use (what’s up with that?!). Not a big issue (more a matter of convenience), so I’m just using a standard NIC. No idea if the mouse wants that port, too, but it doesn’t matter since I don’t have plans to install X on any partition.

The second issue is the time required for compiling source on a RAM-challenged, slow CPU machine. Nothing that time won’t cure in the short term (if the electricity stays on). Short term is relative; I know it wouldn’t take so long if it weren’t a spanking fresh install with all kinds of dependencies to meet. The long-run fix for that is using binaries or a combination of more patience and less coffee.

I’m pressed for time and the lights are flickering (storm), so I’ll post impressions of installing and setting up each this week.

NetBSD Base Install Size

I wanted to find a frame of reference under which to compare a base install of NetBSD to a hard drive (Debian-type) install of Damn Small Linux. It’s hard to do apples-to-apples since they’re so different, especially at this point. So I’m keeping a running tally.

DSL typically installs to hard drive in a range of 200-250 MB. I just did a du (-h M) on a fresh NetBSD base install and it was 188 MB (that includes 4 MB of sources I copied to my /home directory but have yet to untar or compile).

There are some major differences, of course. I installed man pages. DSL doesn’t have those. NetBSD installs sendmail (edit: postfix instead of sendmail in NetBSD 4.0+), uses full /var, full kernel (with headers), etc. NetBSD isn’t stripped; DSL is. DSL comes with apps; I still have to add applications and programming utilities.

I really don’t anticipate this mushrooming into something that isn’t “damn small.” I’m not messing with X at all so that will help.

Change Sucks

I’ve added this blog because I’m going to start transitioning more of my computers to FreeBSD and/or NetBSD. One of my main reasons for changing is because it looks like the BSDs will retain better support for older hardware than Linux will moving forward.

One of the ironies is that the desktop-oriented BSD forks like PC-BSD are focusing squarely on bleeding-edge hardware and including Beryl by default. That leaves a void for those of us who want to use functional hardware we already own without having to buy more hardware just to stay current.

I’ve been tinkering with some of my ideas I implemented in various DSL remasters and am considering using FreeBSD in a similar fashion. I think a similarly-minded bloat-free project aimed at supporting older hardware could fill a niche (especially if DSL will move on and abandon older hardware). I don’t know if I’ll end up releasing anything yet because I really don’t care to have to support my own source repository for GPL compliance. Freedom has a price when FSF has lawyers to feed.