 Visitor Reviews |
NetBSD
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Reader supplied reviews for NetBSD
Average rating
6.4 from 11 review(s)
Version: 10.1
Rating: 10
Date: 2025-05-08
Votes: 34
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Hello! I have been using NetBSD on my thinkpad (x201) and it works SUPER WELL!! Yes its not as fast as linux, and that is expected but the resource usage and hardware support is much much better. Package management is very easy. I've heard loads of people having problems with installing packages. I find the easiest way to do it is through the installer. At the end you get a menu where u choose the language, add a new user, change timezone etc, there you can choose to install pkgin. If you are coming from linux and are expecting an easy and simple system. THIS IS NOT FOR YOU! You will have to configure stuff and edit things to make your system usable. Unlike linux, netbsd doesn't pressume what you want and does NOT
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Version: 10.1
Rating: 8
Date: 2025-04-15
Votes: 19
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+ Uber-efficient
+ Rock-solid
+ Makes a good server
+ Makes a good minimal desktop
+ Nice CTWM config
+ Quick to install
+ Good ZFS support
+ rc.d is just superior to SysV or that infamous init whose name shall not be said - Simple with simple scripts and basically indestructible
+ pkgsrc rocks, albeit it could offer some interactive way of port configuration like FreeBSD's ports tree
+ Feels more tidy than e.g. FreeBSD
+ Great variety of tools not present in other systems' by default - WoL (wakeonlan), SMART checking (atactl $disk smart status) etc.
+ It still gets better and better
- Wi-Fi support basically non-existent unless you use over 16-year old Wi-Fi cards
- Common Linux DEs don't work as good as they do on Linux - At least MATE and XFCE4
- Lack of guides etc. due to it's very niche. You usually rely exclusively on documentation
- Lack of Unicode in terminal may be irritating (But in X11 it is here)
- It's definitely NOT for beginners, which is normal in case of general-purpose OSes.
It's great under-appreciated toaster-first Unix that definitely worth a try. But remember it's a niche OS which has it's niche-related caveats.
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Version: 10.0
Rating: 7
Date: 2024-04-03
Votes: 0
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Good, simple OS that keeps true to original BSD.
However, despite it being able to run on everything, how well it runs depends on the hardware.
It seems to be running really well on ThinkPads, but really seem to struggle a lot on IdeaPads for example.
On the IdeaPads I experience WiFi instabilities, random crashes while on WiFi (not while on ethernet though), segfaults on everything until I reboot, graphical WM's having very random glitches all the time, and more problems.
None of these happened on the ThinkPads however, apart from being unable to connect to WiFi altogether.
The other thing I noticed is that upgrading from 9.3 to 10.0 was very confusing.
The documentation is lacking in their explanation on how to correctly use the `sysupgrade` utility, which as an OpenBSD user is not they way I expect to.
And once you've upgraded, I wasn't sure if the upgrade succeeded or not, because the utility said it did, but after reboot `uname` was still reporting 9.3, and after another reboot it started reporting `10.0`.
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Version: 9.3
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-03-09
Votes: 124
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Pro: Very good operating system. I could learn "what is simple."
Con: Not for beginners. UNIX or FreeBSD experience may be needed.
For newer laptops, this configuration in boot.cfg may be useful.
menu=Boot normally:gop 2;rndseed /var/db/entropy-file;boot
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Version: 9.3
Rating: 3
Date: 2023-04-16
Votes: 0
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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.
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Version: 9.2
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-05-04
Votes: 163
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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.
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Version: 9.2
Rating: 9
Date: 2022-02-08
Votes: 95
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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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Version: 9.2
Rating: 1
Date: 2021-05-26
Votes: 0
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I really wanted to like this OS, but there are just far too many problems with it. I had to run the installer multiple times because it would randomly crash for no apparent reason. I finally got it properly installed, and setting it up was a breeze. Pkgsrc provided everything that I needed for a daily use set-up. Unfortunately, little bugs started to rear their head the more that I used it. DHCP would randomly go down for no reason at all, and using the command line to bring it back up would fail. X11 would randomly freeze up and/or crash, and the kernel would randomly show weird errors. Some days the errors would show up, and other days no errors whatsoever. I can deal with all of those little things because no OS is perfect. What I couldn't deal with, however, was a huge kernel panic that brought the entire system crashing down. Ok, no big deal, kernel panics happen every now and then....but when I rebooted, the entire /etc was corrupted. No more rc.conf or fstab. Great. Tried to run fsck, but no luck, of course (missing fstab). Somehow, rc.d was also corrupted. Tried to reboot again, but got nothing but garbled characters and eventually a root shell. Used the root shell to mount a usb drive, transfer some files over, and then poweroff. Totally unacceptable.
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Version: 9.2
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-05-21
Votes: 170
|
I love NetBSD for it's high quality and high compatibility. It's true, the ports and package system is not the latest and greatest, it's true the wine support and Linux support are old and outdated, but NetBSD is a solid choice for a server.
Anecdotally, I used OpenBSD and Fugulta on my older hardware. As a disclaimer, I am a fan of Net/Open. However, both OpenBSD and Fugulta crash with the simplest things, like mounting a cd, or plugging in a keyboard. True, I should use hardware they support, but no matter the case, this should NOT be the case; that is an operating system crashing when encountering a driver or firmware level error. NetBSD in contrast doing these same tasks runs smoothly and does NOT crash. The error handling then is excellent.
Now, is it for everyone? Definitely not, but it can't possibly be intended to be, as the people who develop it are doing a great job with the limited resources they have. I do think NetBSD has a future where the rest of the BSDs don't, simply because they aren't trying to be what they simply are not (FreeBSD trying to rival Linux still, OpenBSD trying to be the most secure platform). If that's your aim, just use Linux, no joke. But if you want a piece of history to learn from, to use in legacy environments, or to use in obscure use-cases, NetBSD could be for you!
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Version: 9.2
Rating: 1
Date: 2021-05-21
Votes: 0
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An operating system where it's own installer crashes and you cannot install the system (on an AMD FX-8350).
I found at least 3 serious bugs in the installer within 5 minutes.
First: Don't select German as language or the installer crashes because your terminal has not 81 columns. (Sorry my terminal only uses 80 columns, must be my fault here. *Please insert cynic joke laughter here.*)
Second: Double check the mount-points for your partitions, because they seem to be overwritten with random data (Looks like a buffer overflow error, lol!).
Third: The system can't extract any files, because it thinks your empty harddisk has no free space left. (probably a result of the buggy mountpoints)
I wanted to give it a try, because I heard that NetBSD might be a good stable BSD for long time server stuff, but an ugly and uncomfortable installer which even crashes on pretty standard hardware is a no go.
PS I used the CD-ROM ISO-image with NetBSD 9.2.
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Version: 9.1
Rating: 1
Date: 2021-05-08
Votes: 0
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The installer keeps crashing when trying to install in UEFI mode, and it can't install to ZFS although NetBSD does support ZFS.
Some packages, including important ones like Firefox, regularly disappear from the repositories and stay missing for a long time before finally coming back. What am I supposed to do if I install my system at the wrong time? Wait a few weeks using another program before the one I need comes back? Build it from source? That's not convenient at all.
No Unicode support in the terminal. You can't type æçéîõšü unless you're in a GUI. Hey, come on, it's 2021...
GPU drivers are poor, tried on various computers and they either don't work at all (nvidia) or do work but with under average performance (intel).
The whole feels like hobbyist work which is far from reliable. May be ok for a toaster, but not for serious work.
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Latest Reviews
Project: NetBSD
Version: 10.1
Rating: 10
Date: 2025-05-08
Votes: 34
|
Hello! I have been using NetBSD on my thinkpad (x201) and it works SUPER WELL!! Yes its not as fast as linux, and that is expected but the resource usage and hardware support is much much better. Package management is very easy. I've heard loads of people having problems with installing packages. I find the easiest way to do it is through the installer. At the end you get a menu where u choose the language, add a new user, change timezone etc, there you can choose to install pkgin. If you are coming from linux and are expecting an easy and simple system. THIS IS NOT FOR YOU! You will have to configure stuff and edit things to make your system usable. Unlike linux, netbsd doesn't pressume what you want and does NOT
|
Project: NetBSD
Version: 10.1
Rating: 8
Date: 2025-04-15
Votes: 19
|
+ Uber-efficient
+ Rock-solid
+ Makes a good server
+ Makes a good minimal desktop
+ Nice CTWM config
+ Quick to install
+ Good ZFS support
+ rc.d is just superior to SysV or that infamous init whose name shall not be said - Simple with simple scripts and basically indestructible
+ pkgsrc rocks, albeit it could offer some interactive way of port configuration like FreeBSD's ports tree
+ Feels more tidy than e.g. FreeBSD
+ Great variety of tools not present in other systems' by default - WoL (wakeonlan), SMART checking (atactl $disk smart status) etc.
+ It still gets better and better
- Wi-Fi support basically non-existent unless you use over 16-year old Wi-Fi cards
- Common Linux DEs don't work as good as they do on Linux - At least MATE and XFCE4
- Lack of guides etc. due to it's very niche. You usually rely exclusively on documentation
- Lack of Unicode in terminal may be irritating (But in X11 it is here)
- It's definitely NOT for beginners, which is normal in case of general-purpose OSes.
It's great under-appreciated toaster-first Unix that definitely worth a try. But remember it's a niche OS which has it's niche-related caveats.
|
Project: NetBSD
Version: 10.0
Rating: 7
Date: 2024-04-03
Votes: 0
|
Good, simple OS that keeps true to original BSD.
However, despite it being able to run on everything, how well it runs depends on the hardware.
It seems to be running really well on ThinkPads, but really seem to struggle a lot on IdeaPads for example.
On the IdeaPads I experience WiFi instabilities, random crashes while on WiFi (not while on ethernet though), segfaults on everything until I reboot, graphical WM's having very random glitches all the time, and more problems.
None of these happened on the ThinkPads however, apart from being unable to connect to WiFi altogether.
The other thing I noticed is that upgrading from 9.3 to 10.0 was very confusing.
The documentation is lacking in their explanation on how to correctly use the `sysupgrade` utility, which as an OpenBSD user is not they way I expect to.
And once you've upgraded, I wasn't sure if the upgrade succeeded or not, because the utility said it did, but after reboot `uname` was still reporting 9.3, and after another reboot it started reporting `10.0`.
|
Project: NetBSD
Version: 9.3
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-03-09
Votes: 124
|
Pro: Very good operating system. I could learn "what is simple."
Con: Not for beginners. UNIX or FreeBSD experience may be needed.
For newer laptops, this configuration in boot.cfg may be useful.
menu=Boot normally:gop 2;rndseed /var/db/entropy-file;boot
|
Project: NetBSD
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.
|
Project: NetBSD
Version: 9.2
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-05-04
Votes: 163
|
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.
|
Project: NetBSD
Version: 9.2
Rating: 9
Date: 2022-02-08
Votes: 95
|
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.
|
Project: NetBSD
Version: 9.2
Rating: 1
Date: 2021-05-26
Votes: 0
|
I really wanted to like this OS, but there are just far too many problems with it. I had to run the installer multiple times because it would randomly crash for no apparent reason. I finally got it properly installed, and setting it up was a breeze. Pkgsrc provided everything that I needed for a daily use set-up. Unfortunately, little bugs started to rear their head the more that I used it. DHCP would randomly go down for no reason at all, and using the command line to bring it back up would fail. X11 would randomly freeze up and/or crash, and the kernel would randomly show weird errors. Some days the errors would show up, and other days no errors whatsoever. I can deal with all of those little things because no OS is perfect. What I couldn't deal with, however, was a huge kernel panic that brought the entire system crashing down. Ok, no big deal, kernel panics happen every now and then....but when I rebooted, the entire /etc was corrupted. No more rc.conf or fstab. Great. Tried to run fsck, but no luck, of course (missing fstab). Somehow, rc.d was also corrupted. Tried to reboot again, but got nothing but garbled characters and eventually a root shell. Used the root shell to mount a usb drive, transfer some files over, and then poweroff. Totally unacceptable.
|
Project: NetBSD
Version: 9.2
Rating: 1
Date: 2021-05-21
Votes: 0
|
An operating system where it's own installer crashes and you cannot install the system (on an AMD FX-8350).
I found at least 3 serious bugs in the installer within 5 minutes.
First: Don't select German as language or the installer crashes because your terminal has not 81 columns. (Sorry my terminal only uses 80 columns, must be my fault here. *Please insert cynic joke laughter here.*)
Second: Double check the mount-points for your partitions, because they seem to be overwritten with random data (Looks like a buffer overflow error, lol!).
Third: The system can't extract any files, because it thinks your empty harddisk has no free space left. (probably a result of the buggy mountpoints)
I wanted to give it a try, because I heard that NetBSD might be a good stable BSD for long time server stuff, but an ugly and uncomfortable installer which even crashes on pretty standard hardware is a no go.
PS I used the CD-ROM ISO-image with NetBSD 9.2.
|
Project: NetBSD
Version: 9.2
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-05-21
Votes: 170
|
I love NetBSD for it's high quality and high compatibility. It's true, the ports and package system is not the latest and greatest, it's true the wine support and Linux support are old and outdated, but NetBSD is a solid choice for a server.
Anecdotally, I used OpenBSD and Fugulta on my older hardware. As a disclaimer, I am a fan of Net/Open. However, both OpenBSD and Fugulta crash with the simplest things, like mounting a cd, or plugging in a keyboard. True, I should use hardware they support, but no matter the case, this should NOT be the case; that is an operating system crashing when encountering a driver or firmware level error. NetBSD in contrast doing these same tasks runs smoothly and does NOT crash. The error handling then is excellent.
Now, is it for everyone? Definitely not, but it can't possibly be intended to be, as the people who develop it are doing a great job with the limited resources they have. I do think NetBSD has a future where the rest of the BSDs don't, simply because they aren't trying to be what they simply are not (FreeBSD trying to rival Linux still, OpenBSD trying to be the most secure platform). If that's your aim, just use Linux, no joke. But if you want a piece of history to learn from, to use in legacy environments, or to use in obscure use-cases, NetBSD could be for you!
|
Project: NetBSD
Version: 9.1
Rating: 1
Date: 2021-05-08
Votes: 0
|
The installer keeps crashing when trying to install in UEFI mode, and it can't install to ZFS although NetBSD does support ZFS.
Some packages, including important ones like Firefox, regularly disappear from the repositories and stay missing for a long time before finally coming back. What am I supposed to do if I install my system at the wrong time? Wait a few weeks using another program before the one I need comes back? Build it from source? That's not convenient at all.
No Unicode support in the terminal. You can't type æçéîõšü unless you're in a GUI. Hey, come on, it's 2021...
GPU drivers are poor, tried on various computers and they either don't work at all (nvidia) or do work but with under average performance (intel).
The whole feels like hobbyist work which is far from reliable. May be ok for a toaster, but not for serious work.
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