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NetBSD


Last Update: 2024-02-05 12:20 UTC


NetBSD is a free, secure, and highly portable UNIX-like Open Source operating system available for many platforms, from 64-bit AlphaServers and desktop systems to handheld and embedded devices. Its clean design and advanced features make it excellent in both production and research environments, and it is user-supported with complete source. Many applications are easily available through The NetBSD Packages Collection.



Popularity (hits per day): 12 months: 130 (71), 6 months: 110 (95), 3 months: 79 (142), 4 weeks: 56 (192), 1 week: 122 (58)

Average visitor rating: 5/10 from 7 review(s).


NetBSD Summary
Distribution NetBSD
Home Page http://www.netbsd.org/
Mailing Lists http://www.netbsd.org/MailingLists/
User Forums DaemonForums (Unofficial)
Alternative User Forums UnitedBSD
Documentation http://www.netbsd.org/Documentation/
Screenshots  
Screencasts
Download Mirrors http://www.netbsd.org/mirrors/#isohttp://www.netbsd.org/mirrors/torrents/DistroWatch Torrent Archive
Bug Tracker http://www.netbsd.org/Misc/send-pr.html
Related Websites NetBSD Online StoreNetBSD SwedenBSD NewsletterBSD DevCenterBSD GuidesSuper User's BSD Cross ReferrenceManual PagesBSDForen.de (German) • Wikipedia
Reviews 8.x: DistroWatch
7.x: DistroWatch
5.x: DistroWatchLWN
3.x: LinMagazine (Hebrew)
2.x: ABC Linuxu (Czech)
1.x: OSNews
Where To Donate, Buy, or Try

Recent Related News and Releases
  Releases announcements with download links and checksums:
 • 2024-01-19: Development Release: NetBSD 10.0 RC3
 • 2024-01-04: Development Release: NetBSD 10.0 RC2
 • 2023-11-12: Development Release: NetBSD 10.0 RC1
 • 2022-12-20: Development Release: NetBSD 10.0 Beta
 • 2022-08-06: BSD Release: NetBSD 9.3
 • 2021-05-17: BSD Release: NetBSD 9.2
 • 2020-10-20: BSD Release: NetBSD 9.1
 • 2020-04-02: BSD Release: NetBSD 8.2
 • 2020-02-15: BSD Release: NetBSD 9.0
 • 2020-02-03: Development Release: NetBSD 9.0 RC2
 • 2019-12-02: Development Release: NetBSD 9.0 RC1
 • 2019-06-05: BSD Release: NetBSD 8.1
 • More NetBSD releases...

  Headlines:
 • 2023-08-28 NetBSD server left running for nearly a decade
 • 2023-01-10 NetBSD to get HAMMER2 support
 • 2021-05-12 NetBSD coming to more ARM and RISC-V architectures
 • 2020-11-26 How NetBSD boots
 • 2020-09-29 Bringing Wayland to NetBSD
 • 2020-01-08 Wayland support coming to pkgsrc ports
 • 2019-08-19 NetBSD gaining initial Wayland support
 • 2019-07-31 Upcoming NetBSD features
 • 2019-04-12 NetBSD's NVMM arrives in -current
 • 2019-02-19 NetBSD getting hardware accelerated virtual machines
 • More NetBSD headlines...

Table Notes and Explanations
  • Select view:
  • To compare the software in this project to the software available in other distributions, please see our Compare Packages page.
  • Notes: In case where multiple versions of a package are shipped with a distribution, only the default version appears in the table. For indication about the GNOME version, please check the "nautilus" and "gnome-shell" packages. The Apache web server is listed as "httpd" and the Linux kernel is listed as "linux". The KDE desktop is represented by the "plasma-desktop" package and the Xfce desktop by the "xfdesktop" package.
  • Colour scheme: green text = latest stable version, red text = development or beta version. The function determining beta versions is not 100% reliable due to a wide variety of versioning schemes.
Feature pkgsrc 9.3 8.2
Release Date 2024-02-05 2022-08-06 2020-04-02
End Of Life      
Price (US$) Free Free Free
Image Size (MB)   400-600 300-500
Free Download pkgsrc ISO ISO
Installation Text mode Text mode Text mode
Default Desktop      
Package Management pkgsrc pkgsrc pkgsrc
Release Model Rolling Fixed Fixed
Office Suite GOffice, LibreOffice GOffice, LibreOffice GOffice, LibreOffice
Processor Architecture See Ports See Ports See Ports
Init Software other other other
Journaled File Systems FFS FFS FFS
Multilingual      
Asian Language Support      
Full Package List pkgsrc 9.3 8.2
abiword (3.0.5) 3.0.5 3.0.5 3.0.4
alsa-lib (1.2.11) 1.2.10 1.2.7.2 1.1.4.1
amdgpu (23.0.0) -- -- --
bash (5.2.21) 5.2.26 5.1.16 5.0
bind (9.18.21) 9.18.21 9.16.31 9.14.11
chromium (121.0.6167.139) -- -- --
cups (2.4.7) 2.4.6 2.4.2 2.3.1
dhcp (4.4.3-P1) 4.4.3-P1 4.4.3 4.4.1
e2fsprogs (1.47.0) 1.46.4 1.46.4 1.43.7
firefox (122.0) 52.9.0 103.0.1 74.0
freetype (2.13.2) 2.13.2 2.12.1 2.10.1
gcc (13.2.0) 9.5.0 12.1.0 9.2.0
gimp (2.10.36) 2.10.36 2.10.32 2.10.18
glibc (2.39) -- -- --
gnome-shell (45.3) 40.2 40.2 --
gnucash (5.5) 5.5 4.11 3.9
gnumeric (1.12.56) 1.12.53 1.12.48 1.12.46
grub (2.12) 2.04 2.04 2.02
gtk (4.12.5) -- 4.6.6 3.24.16
httpd (2.4.58) 2.4.58 2.4.54 2.4.41
inkscape (1.3.1) 1.3.2 1.2.1 0.92.4
k3b (23.08.4) 23.04.3 20.12.3 19.12.1
kmod (31) -- -- --
krita (5.2.2) 4.4.8 4.4.8 4.1.3
LibreOffice (24.2.0) 7.6.4 7.3.3 6.4.2
linux (6.7.3) -- -- --
lxpanel (0.10.1) 0.10.1 0.10.1 0.10.0
mariadb (11.1.3) 10.11.6 10.6.8 5.5.57
mate-desktop (1.26.2) 1.26.2 1.24.1 1.22.2
mesa (24.0.0) 21.3.9 21.3.9 20.0.2
mysql (8.3.0) 8.0.33 8.0.24 5.7.29
nautilus (45.2.1) 3.38.1 3.38.1 --
NVIDIA (545.29.06) -- -- --
openbox (3.6.1) 3.6.1 3.6.1 3.6.1
openjdk (21.0.2) 21.0.1 17.0.3 13.0.2
openssh (9.6p1) 9.6p1 9.0p1 8.0p1
openssl (3.2.1) 3.1.5 1.1.1q 1.1.1f
perl (5.38.2) 5.38.2 5.36.0 5.30.2
php (8.3.2) 8.3.2 8.1.9 7.2.29
plasma-desktop (5.27.10) -- -- --
postfix (3.8.5) 3.8.4 3.7.2 3.4.9
postgresql (16.1) 16.1 14.4 12.2
Python (3.12.1) 3.9.18 3.10.6 3.8.2
qt (6.6.1) 6.6.1 5.15.5 5.14.1
samba (4.19.4) 4.19.4 4.16.3 4.11.6
systemd (255.3) -- -- --
thunderbird (115.7.0) 78.12.0 78.12.0 68.6.0
vim (9.1) 9.0 8.2 8.2
vlc (3.0.20) 3.0.20 3.0.17.4 3.0.8
wayland (1.22.0) 1.21.0 1.18.0 1.18.0
xfdesktop (4.18.1) 4.18.1 4.16.0 4.14.0
xorg-server (21.1.11) 21.1.11 21.1.4 1.20.4


Reader Ratings
Reader supplied reviews for NetBSD

Average rating
5.0
from 7 review(s)



What are your thoughts on NetBSD?
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Past reviews - sort by:

Version: 9.3
Rating: 3
Date: 2023-04-16
Votes: 0


To get pkg_add to work I had to change https to http in PKG_PATH, otherwise you get "HTTP unknown error" when trying to add a package.

No UTF-8 support in console, so you can't type Swedish characters for example.

Video and audio playback from Youtube works in Firefox.



Was this review helpful? Yes No
Version: 9.2
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-05-04
Votes: 43


Pro tip: don't use the installer - you're way better off just booting a kernel and extract the software distributions to /usr.

Once you master the couple of (admittedly annoying) quirks, it is a nice system to use, especially if you want to learn UNIX basics and/or are running your OS on an obscure platform.

I find it portable, (mostly) standards-compliant, fast (at least when compared to other BSDs), easy to upgrade, easy to administer, and reasonably secure. It also gives you great flexibility for building software - the pkgsrc software collection is developed in NetBSD for a reason. I can only recommend it, especially if you are a well-versed UNIX admin.


Was this review helpful? Yes No
Version: 9.2
Rating: 9
Date: 2022-02-08
Votes: 24


At work I find myself using this OS for projects more often. If you've done system administration on FreeBSD (and I mean actual system administration in a terminal) you should be just fine. There are differences but they are minor, and easy to pick up. The guide and manual pages are very well written. Building the system/kernel is simple. Using CVS might bring back memories. NPF syntax seems a little weird compared to PF but you get used to it. One thing you'll notice is that your /dev tree lists all devices whether they're attached or not. It's ok though, you can check with sysctl or dmesg. This OS is reliable and gets the job done.

GUI lovers, I don't know (nor do I care) how it is setting up a GUI or how it performs. You should probably just stick to Ubuntu rather than infecting another OS with desktop crap.


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