Edwards family web pages:Chris/Computing/NetBSD

Chris's Completely Unofficial NetBSD Page


What is it?

NetBSD is a free UNIX-like operating system (OS) available for a whole host of architectures: Amiga, Atari, m68k Macintosh (PPC is in the works), Alpha, VAX, Sun Sparc, PC, Motorola VME 68k, PMax, HP300, ...

NetBSD is derived from the 4.4BSD-lite Berkeley Software Distribution and Berkeley Networking Release 2 (Net/2), and is the result of the collaborative effort of members of the Internet community.

It features cool stuff such as:

Where do I get it?

The main Internet sites for NetBSD are http://www.netbsd.org and ftp://ftp.netbsd.org. Check out the Website for more extensive and up-to-date information, mirrors, and installation instructions.

Obtaining and installing the system is largely painless: the FTP site is sensibly organised, and the installation program is nice, although downloading the sets can take a while. Just be careful when you're selecting disk partitions that you choose the right ones, and back up any data on your system you might want to keep, just in case.

You might want to download just the install files initially to verify that NetBSD will boot on your system, before committing to downloading the bulk of the distribution. The install files (the kernel for your architecture, the miniroot filesystem, and platform-specific boot tools) amount to about 2.3 MB (compressed), while the main sets total around 21 MB (compressed). The X archives add another 11.3 MB (compressed). If this sounds like too daunting a download mission, have a look through the NetBSD web site for information on distributions on CD-ROM.

If you're installing on an Amiga, have a look here.

More NetBSD resources, please!

OK, how about:


Questions, comments or complaints? Send me an e-mail!
(E-mail address munged for anti-spam effect; just delete the ".nospam")
This document last modified and © 1998-12-29

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