NetBSD 9.3: A 2022 OS that can run on late-1980s hardware
&gt; Thanks for taking the time to read my comment and respond!<p>It is a pleasure to engage. :-)<p>&gt; I hope you try out NetBSD and give it more time when 10 is released.<p>I plan to, certainly. I need to get my editor&#x27;s agreement.<p>My main worry is that if it&#x27;s not a big change, not much difference, he won&#x27;t think it&#x27;s worth the time.<p>&gt; Even with all of NetBSD&#x27;s faults, I&#x27;m not entirely sure you gave it a fair shot.<p>TBH, whenever I have written about any BSD, I&#x27;ve had similar comments.<p>I am a tough critic. I see that as part of my job.<p>&gt; I don&#x27;t see a situation where someone installs a new, slightly obscure OS and then needs answers NOW...<p>Really? That <i>astonishes</i> me.<p>It is a busy, fast-changing world. Basically, when I look for answers to tech problems, I Google for them. I do not usually have time to ask, and then to wait.<p>There are exceptions, and Cunningham&#x27;s Law applies. I used it recently, in fact, with great success.<p>But no, usually, when I am evaluating something, I go Googling. I do have over 30Y of xNix experience.<p>Asking is an absolute last resort when I can&#x27;t find an answer out there somewhere.<p>And I&#x27;m afraid the same applies to reading manuals. A README.TXT file may get skimmed, but I expect answers to be findable by a search. I am not going to read hundreds of pages to find them.<p>I <i>do</i> participate in lots of mailing lists and a few fora and newsgroups, including here.<p>&gt; I mentioned unitedbsd.com because if you google something about netbsd, that forum seems to come up.<p>Never has for me yet, TBH.<p>&gt; You&#x27;re trying to come from the perspective of a new user. I would think people using something new for the first time might google it,<p>As I said in the article, just to get the thing installed at all, I did a <i>lot</i> of Googling.<p>Youtube? Oh no. Oh H3LL no. I can&#x27;t watch video tutorials. They are way <i>way</i> too slow. I am not a millennial and I do not use video to get info.<p>&gt; I did see the reg commenter who said that they didn&#x27;t know what pkgin in is.<p>Oh good.<p>&gt; Pkgin is in the official documentation for NetBSD.<p>Indeed so, and I replied to that effect.<p>But this shows the broad spread of knowledge and preferences among experienced users.<p>&gt; Honestly, my biggest gripe and the only thing I really didn&#x27;t get is how you went about installing it.<p>As I said: I basically did what any newbie would do. Yes, yes, yes, yes, everything, yes, yes... Until it was done.<p>&gt; You said you just followed defaults, but the install is menu driven?<p>I picked the first option or the next step or whatever seemed most obvious.<p>I went through, step by step, doing everything that it asked me to do, until it said it was installed.<p>I had never heard of `pkgin` before, and if that was an option install then I probably would have skipped it.<p>I don&#x27;t really want to go through the whole process again, TBH. I am surprised that here and in the comments, people find this hard to believe or understand, and ask foolish questions like &quot;maybe he was in single-user mode and didn&#x27;t  notice&quot;.<p>&gt; Or are you suggesting they would just skip the whole process entirely and reboot their system?<p>I&#x27;m not suggesting anything. I went through all the indicated steps it asked me and the end result was no pkgin command in the path and no online repos configured.<p>&gt; &gt;For non-specialists, all PC Unixes are one.<p>&gt; I wrote a long paragraph here then deleted it; this is one of those things we can just agree to disagree on.<p><i>Shrug</i><p>The world is mostly Windows users with some Mac users. On the desktop, everything else is a rounding error.<p>There are hundreds of millions of ChromeBook users now, but they mostly don&#x27;t know what Linux is. They&#x27;ve never heard of it, and that is right and good. They should not have to.<p>&gt; &gt; I am writing for a general non-specialist audience of IT people who are mainly familiar with Windows<p>&gt; The Register seems to have a pretty knowledgeable audience, and they must be familiar with at least mainstream linux distros?<p>You&#x27;d think that, wouldn&#x27;t you?<p>You&#x27;d be surprised, then. I was. The comments and the emails contain a very broad span of knowledge and experience, as you would expect. But the fat part of the curve is not expert.<p>Mostly it&#x27;s people who need to get their job done. And that means a lot of Windows people who never even look at Linux.<p>&gt; I&#x27;m just talking about understanding that NetBSD!=Linux, just like debian!=fedora. They all have different quirks that would have to be dealt with as you learn to use them.<p>Hmmmm. I am not sure I agree here. I think it needs a fair level of domain expert  knowledge to know what a kernel is, and what the difference between an OS and a distro is.<p>No, I do not think most people know that.<p>As an example, try Googling for &quot;raspberry pi alternative OS&quot; or words to that effect.<p>90% or more of articles about the RasPi will talk at length about different OSes and just list a dozen Linux distros.<p>These are people running sites and writing content for a living, and they do not know the difference.<p>No, I think most Windows or Mac users don&#x27;t know that there&#x27;s a difference between xBSD and Linux.<p>As an example I get a lot:<p>FOSS xNix users as a rule do not know what the word &quot;Unix&quot; means.<p>It <i>does not mean</i> &quot;based on AT&amp;T code&quot;. It hasn&#x27;t for 30 years.<p>Since ~1993 &quot;Unix&quot; means &quot;passes Open Group testing&quot; AND THAT IS ALL.<p>Multiple Linux distros have passed. Therefore, in law, and technically speaking -- both -- <i>Linux is a UNIX.</i><p>The term &quot;Unix-like&quot; is obsolete and has had no real meaning in 3 decades.<p>Unix is as Unix does. If it has a sh prompt, it&#x27;s a Unix.<p>As such, to the non-xNix using majority, Linux = Unix and Unix = Linux. They are the same thing and they mean the same.<p>AND THEY ARE RIGHT.<p>It&#x27;s harsh but it&#x27;s life.<p>No, the average curious hobbyist, idly interested, doesn&#x27;t know.<p>As such, I feel that the install, setup &amp; configuration process of any free xNix has to compete with, at least, a techie Linux distro such as, say, Arch or Alpine.<p>I am aware the xBSD world does not see it like that. I feel that it is my duty as an industry observer to attempt to make them aware of it.<p>I expected resistance to this, and I am getting it. :-) Right now, in fact. :-D