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.

  • Ramin Honary@lemmy.mlEnglish
    421·
    9 months ago

    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